Chapter Six — Aria
711 Words
“I ran from the past, but it found me anyway. And it’s wearing his face.”
I knew it was him the second I saw those eyes.
Silver. Wild. Unforgiving.
Even behind the glass, even cloaked in shadow, I felt it in my bones.
Ronan.
I froze.
The blanket slipped from my shoulders, the night air licking at my skin, but I barely noticed. Every inch of me went still, my heart hammering behind my ribs like it recognized the predator outside. Because it did.
I hadn’t seen him in six years. Not a word. Not a whisper. Nothing.
But now he was here.
Watching me through the window like a ghost who hadn’t forgotten.
His gaze burned through me. There was no softness in it. No reunion warmth. Just something dark and sharp and… hungry.
Like he was remembering everything I’d taken from him when I left.
And maybe planning how to take it back.
I stepped toward the glass, my hand pressed lightly against it—half a breath away from the boy I once trusted with every part of me. The one I kissed under stars, who held me when I broke, who bled for me without question.
I swallowed. “Ronan…”
He didn’t move. Didn’t blink.
But I felt him.
And I remembered.
The way he held me the night I shifted for the first time. The way he growled when the other boys stared too long. The way he tore through a rival wolf for calling me “a weak little half-breed.”
Ronan never cared about rank. He didn’t care that I was half-human, or that I couldn’t shift on command, or that my mother died screaming under a red moon.
He cared about me.
Until I left him behind.
⸻
The door creaked open behind me.
I turned.
Kade.
Still shirtless, still flushed from the kiss we should never have shared. His eyes locked on me—and then shifted to the glass.
He stilled.
“What is it?” he asked, voice already on edge.
My lips parted. “He’s here.”
His entire body snapped to attention. “Who?”
I didn’t answer. I didn’t need to.
He followed my gaze. His jaw locked. “Ronan Grey.”
The name rolled off his tongue like poison.
He crossed the room in three strides, slammed the doors shut, and yanked the curtains across the balcony glass.
Then he turned to me.
“Did you know he was coming?” he demanded.
I flinched. “Of course not.”
“He got past every patrol. Every guard.”
“Because he’s Ronan,” I snapped. “He knows these woods better than any wolf alive. He trained in them before your father ever made you Alpha.”
That only pissed him off more.
“You’re not safe here,” he growled. “Not with him nearby.”
I crossed my arms. “He’s not here to hurt me.”
“You don’t know that.”
“I do.”
Kade’s eyes darkened. “You used to be his. Didn’t you?”
The air sucked out of the room.
Silence.
Raw. Ugly. Real.
I looked away. “I was never anyone’s. Not even his.”
But we both knew the truth in my voice didn’t matter.
Ronan had left a mark on me long before fate ever decided to bind me to Kade. And no kiss—no matter how hot, how deep, how bond-burning—could erase the fact that I’d once looked at Ronan like he hung the stars.
Now he was back.
And everything I thought I was beginning to understand—about Kade, about the bond, about this pack—was unraveling all over again.
⸻
I waited until Kade left.
Then I crept back to the balcony and pulled the curtain aside, slow, careful.
He was gone.
But I knew he wasn’t far.
The thing about Ronan Grey? He never came close unless he wanted you to know it.
He was circling now.
Waiting.
And I couldn’t shake the feeling he wasn’t just here to see me.
He was here for something bigger.
Or someone else.
And whatever it was…
It was going to tear this pack apart.
- Writer
