TYLER POV - CHAPTER 41
Control is a funny thing.
You think you have it—until you realize someone else has been holding the leash the entire time, letting you believe you were free just long enough to tighten their grip.
That’s the feeling crawling under my skin as I stand at the edge of vampire territory again, staring at the same obsidian gates that swallowed us whole the first time.
Only now?
I’m not chained.
I’m invited.
Ophelia waits on the other side.
I can feel her before I see her. That same sickly-sweet pull in my chest. Not a mate bond—no, I know better now. I don’t even have my wolf yet. But something else wraps around my instincts, whispers to the part of me that wants to be wanted, chosen, understood.
A dangerous f*****g place to poke.
“You’re quiet,” Aaron mutters be
