Chapter 5. The Grab
823 Words
The air between them was suffocating.
Aria Vale felt every eye in the ballroom shift toward her and Lucien Blackwood. Their names whispered across champagne glasses and jeweled fans, the city’s elite curious at the tension sparking in the air. Aria’s pulse raced, but her face remained perfectly composed, the cool mask she had perfected over three long years.
She lifted her glass to her lips, sipping slowly, as though her entire body was not trembling with the heat of his golden stare.
Lucien had changed. He was broader now, more dangerous, his presence darker, his aura sharper than it had been that night of her humiliation. Yet his eyes… his eyes carried the same fire that had once claimed her and then cut her down.
His voice was low, rough, "said Aria Vale. You should not be here."
Aria tilted her head, her emerald gown shimmering under the chandelier. “And yet here I am. This world welcomes me now, Alpha Blackwood. You do not decide where I belong.”
Her tone was smooth, controlled, but her chest ached with every word. Her wolf clawed inside her, restless, pulling toward him even as her mind screamed against it.
Lucien stepped closer. His scent, smoke, pine, something primal, wrapped around her. Her skin prickled, memories flooding back of the night she had begged him with tears in her eyes, only to be shattered before the entire pack.
But tonight, she would not beg.
She turned slightly, ready to excuse herself, when his hand shot out.
Strong fingers clamped around her wrist.
Gasps rippled through the crowd. The suddenness of it, the force of it. it was as though time had stopped.
Aria froze, her body jolted by the contact. Heat seared up her arm, burning through her veins. The crescent scar on her wrist flared beneath her skin, hidden by silk but alive, glowing. Her wolf whimpered, the bond clawing to the surface, undeniable even after all these years.
Her eyes widened for the briefest moment before she forced her mask back into place. She turned her emerald gaze to his, cold and sharp. “Release me.”
Lucien’s jaw tightened. His grip did not falter. His voice was a low growl meant only for her. "The bond never died. "You feel it, don’t you?"
Aria’s lips curved into a faint smile, though her heart hammered wildly. “What I feel is the hand of a man who once rejected me. Loudly. Publicly. "Cruelly." Her voice sharpened, slicing through the air. “And now that same man clings to me like a child to a flame. How amusing.”
Whispers spread like wildfire through the ballroom. Guests leaned closer, eyes wide. The great Alpha Blackwood, grasping at the woman he had thrown away? The scandal alone was enough to keep tongues wagging for weeks.
Lucien’s golden eyes blazed. His wolf howled beneath his skin, furious at her words. Yet something else flickered there too: regret, desperation, hunger.
“Aria,” he rasped, his grip tightening slightly. “I was wrong.”
The words struck her like a blow. For years, she had dreamed of hearing them, imagining what it would feel like to have him admit his cruelty. And yet now, standing tall in her emerald gown, with the eyes of the world on her, she felt nothing but cold.
Aria’s laughter rang softly, sharp as glass. “Wrong? You destroyed me, Lucien. And now you think a few words will erase that night? "You cannot rewrite history simply because your wolf has realized what it lost."
Lucien flinched, almost imperceptibly, but she caught it. Her heart twisted, but she refused to let it weaken her.
Slowly, deliberately, Aria pulled her wrist from his grasp. His fingers trembled as they let go, the heat of the bond breaking with the motion. She lifted her hand, inspecting her wrist as though brushing away dirt.
Then, with a smile that was both elegant and cruel, she turned back to him. Her voice carried, clear enough for the surrounding guests to hear.
“You were right about one thing, Alpha Blackwood. I am not your Luna. I never will be.”
The crowd gasped again, murmurs rising in shock. Some looked at Lucien with disbelief, others at Aria with admiration.
Lucien’s golden eyes darkened, rage and something deeper flickering within them. His wolf snarled, desperate, but Aria lifted her chin, every inch the heiress she had become.
She stepped past him, her gown brushing against his leg, and walked away through the crowd. The whispers followed her like a crown.
Lucien remained where he stood, fists clenched, his chest heaving, his wolf screaming in fury. He had thought he could reclaim her with a single touch, a single word. But Aria Vale was no longer the girl he had rejected. She was a woman, untouchable, unyielding.
And he had just been humiliated in front of everyone.
- Writer
