Before The Sun
643 Words
Lyra
She woke to stillness.
The air was warm. The sheets, too smooth. And the scent in the air, clean, masculine, unfamiliar. Told her everything before her eyes even opened.
This wasn’t her bed.
Then she moved, and felt him.
Cassian Dorne lay beside her.
They weren’t touching anymore, but the space between them still held the memory. The aftermath. The bond.
Lyra’s breath hitched as her gaze moved to him.
He slept on his side, one arm half-draped across the sheet, the other folded beneath his head. Without his tailored suit, without the cold shield of authority, he looked… different.
Younger.
His face was strong. High cheekbones, a long straight nose, a sharp jaw dusted with dark stubble. His brows were thick, relaxed in sleep. Lashes long enough to make her stare longer than she meant to. His hair, usually slicked back and controlled, was a mess of soft black waves, slightly flattened on one side from the pillow.
His skin was pale, but not sickly. Smooth. The kind of complexion earned from a life in glass offices and private cars. Not sun, not sweat.
But it was his mouth that made her stomach twist: slightly parted, full, almost soft-looking.
Relaxed like he hadn’t been in years.
She’d never seen him like this. No one had, probably.
The most powerful Alpha at Virelux.
Unmade.
Her chest tightened. She sat up slowly, easing her weight off the mattress with the care of someone trying not to wake a ghost.
Her skin prickled with a faint ache, heat blooming low across her abdomen and curling beneath her collarbone. It wasn’t pain. It was instinct, residue.
A bond’s afterglow.
She didn’t need to look to know the spot just below her shoulder, high on her neck, would be tender. It pulsed faintly—like a bruise pressed by memory. Not enough to scar. Just enough to prove she had been claimed.
Not officially. Not even permanently.
But enough.
Lyra eased the sheet off her body and slid out of bed, every movement silent.
The gown was draped over the back of a nearby chair, wrinkled but intact. Her clutch was beside it. She reached for the dress, stepping quietly into it.
The zipper was stiff. She tugged, then tugged again, one hand behind her back.
Behind her, Cassian murmured something low. Barely audible.
One word.
“Stay.”
Lyra froze.
The sound of it, unfiltered, vulnerable, half-formed. Hit her like a blow.
Not the polished, clipped voice he used in boardrooms. Not the distant one from press calls or staff videos.
This was different.
A whisper dragged from somewhere deeper, closer to truth than either of them had ever allowed.
Her heart froze.
She didn’t turn.
He didn’t wake.
Her fingers found the zipper again. She pulled it all the way up, breath held tight in her throat. She grabbed her shoes, stuffed them into her clutch. Didn’t fix her hair. Didn’t wipe her face.
As she bent down near the bed, a flash of gold slipped from her lap.
She didn’t feel it fall.
Didn’t hear it land.
One of her grandmother’s earrings, vintage gold, delicate scrollwork. Slid into the folds of the linen, just inches from where Cassian’s hand rested against the pillow.
The right one.
Her grandmother’s.
The only real thing she had left from home.
Gone. Forgotten in the panic.
The sun still trapped beneath the city skyline, her arms wrapped around her ribs as she walked fast and silent through the sleeping streets.
Each step echoed louder than the last.
She passed a darkened storefront. Her reflection flickered in the glass, distorted by streetlight and motion, barely recognizable. Hair half-loose. Dress rumpled. Eyes wide and hollow.
She stopped, just for a second.
Her own face stared back at her like a question she couldn’t answer.
What have you done?
- Writer
