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Chapter 24 - The Restraint.

ASH POV:

She came without the locket.

Ash knew the instant she stepped into the courtyard. The air changed, it was less resistance, no faint hum of that cursed silver thing. For the first time, her aura wasn't veiled by it. He could feel her pulse like a current under his skin, bright, alive, calling to everything inside him that was dark and hungry.

She didn't know what she had done. Or maybe she did and maybe she wanted this.

When their eyes met, something inside him tightened. He hadn't meant to be there... not really... but the moment she left her home; he felt the absence of Leo's protection echo through the air like silence after thunder and silence was invitation.

He told himself he only came to make sure she was safe. That was the lie he always started with.

The truth burned deeper. Her blood called to him raw, unguarded, perfect. The kind that could bring Alishya back.

He could already see it: a single drop, and Alishya's pale lips stirring again, her voice whispering his name in that old, aching way. He had promised her he'd find the one with the pulse strong enough to wake her. And now, here she was... Shyla, oblivious, standing under the morning sun that refused to touch him the same way.

She smiled at him. Not the full kind, just a flicker, nervous but real. It shouldn't have mattered, but it did. It cracked something in him that had been locked since the night Alishya died.

"You're not wearing it," he'd said. And when her steps faltered, he felt both triumph and guilt twist together in his chest.

He could have taken her then. No Leo to shield her and no barrier between his will and her pulse. Just a moment... a breath... and he could end this hunger, end the waiting, bring Alishya back. But he didn't move.

He only watched her, memorizing the sunlight caught in her hair, the way her heartbeat trembled when she looked at him. It was maddening... It was beautiful... and it was wrong.

He turned away before the craving could drown the hesitation.

Later, as he walked the rain-damp streets alone, his control began to fracture. His fingers shook, the echo of her warmth still clinging to his skin where their hands had brushed.

He could still hear Alishya's voice from the dark, the one that came in dreams and memory alike.

"You promised me, Ash. You said you'd bring me back."

"I will," he whispered to the empty air. "Just… not her."

"Why not her? She's perfect. She's meant for me."

"No," he said again, but the word came out as a growl, soft and desperate.

He leaned against the cold brick wall of an alley, eyes shut, forcing the hunger down. "She's not like the others. She—"

"She's replacing me."

That stung... and maybe it was true. Maybe that's why he hadn't touched her. Maybe Alishya's ghost already knew that his promise was breaking long before he admitted it.

Ash looked up at the sky, the faint mist still clinging to the city's edge. Somewhere out there, the locket would be trembling, trying to call her back, to keep her from him.

But she had left it. And he knew she would again.

When she did, he wasn't sure if he'd still be strong enough to stop himself.

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