The wind had grown warmer.
Or perhaps it was only Arin.
She pressed a trembling hand to her chest, but her pulse refused to slow. It thundered beneath her skin like wildfire, each beat heavier, hotter, louder than the last. Every breath scraped through her lungs as if she'd swallowed something burning.
Something inside her was breaking loose.
She had fled to the gardens for solitude for cold air, for silence, for enough stillness to bury the memory of what she had seen in Roan's chamber. Nova, wrapped around him like silk. Roan, moving. Unapologetic.
But grief didn't meet her here.
Something else did.
Her skin prickled. Her lips dried. The very air thickened around her like syrup, clinging, pressing. It touched her like invisible hands, traced her spine like breath in the dark. The roses looked too red, their petals bleeding into each other. The moon burned too brightly overhead.
And the scent, too sweet.
Arin staggered forward, brushing against the ivy-covered archway as she moved deeper into the hedges. Her legs faltered beneath her, but not from sadness. This sensation clawing through her chest wasn't sorrow. It was something unfamiliar. Foreign. Heat coiled low in her belly, sharp and visceral.
Her body no longer felt like her own.
"Steady," she whispered, voice raw. "Just… breathe."
But her breath came in short, shallow gasps. Her fingers trembled. The breeze skimmed along her collarbones like it had fingers. Like it was watching her.
Another step, another surge of sensation.
Then a branch cracked behind her.
Voices.
Low. Male. Unfamiliar.
She froze, heart lurching. Laughter followed, quiet, slurred. Disjointed.
It shouldn't have terrified her, but it did.
She turned and ran.
The garden maze swallowed her whole. Branches tore at her gown, thorn bushes snagged silk. Still she ran, driven by some primal instinct, fear and confusion tangled into a single thought: don't let them see you like this.
Whatever was happening to her, it wasn't natural. It wasn't hers.
It was crawling beneath her skin like something ancient being unearthed. Her mind spun with scent, touch, sensation. The scent of crushed petals made her dizzy. The hum in her blood made her knees weak. Her thighs trembled, her skin tingled, and every step felt like her body was being unmade.
This was no spell of grief.
This was wrong.
Her foot caught a root, and she tumbled into a clearing, catching herself on the lip of a marble fountain. Her breath came in heaving gulps as her reflection wavered on the water's surface eyes wide, pupils dilated, mouth parted like she was begging something unseen.
She bit her lip hard enough to taste blood.
What was happening to her?
She dropped to her knees beside the fountain, palms pressed to cool stone, struggling to resist the pulse that had taken root deep inside her. Images, sensations lips brushing her throat, hands gripping her waist, warmth and ache and hunger, none of them her memories, none of them her desire.
A voice rang faintly through the garden.
"Did she come this way?"
Panic flared.
She scrambled to her feet again, the world tilting beneath her, vision swimming. Every instinct screamed that she couldn't be found like this, not this vulnerable, not this unraveling.
She ran again, branches slapping her arms, shadows twisting around her.
The moon had vanished behind the thick canopy above.
And the voices followed.
Closer now. Too close.
She didn't know if they were real. She didn't care.
She just had to get away.
Until she collided with what felt like a wall of solid stone.
But it wasn't stone.
It was a man.
*
Roan
It began with heat.
Faint at first. Like the breath of a storm.
Roan rubbed the back of his neck, uneasy, trying to shake the strange pressure that had begun to build beneath his skin. A tension that wasn't just nerves, wasn't just guilt, wasn't even anger.
It pulsed. Low and hot. Alive.
He poured himself another glass of wine, but the taste was off. bitter, metallic. His jaw tightened. The second swallow went down rough. The third hit like fire.
He sat back, elbows on knees, breathing heavily as a flush crept down his neck.
Then came the scent.
Faint.
Haunting.
Bitter almonds mixed with crushed roses.
Something in him went still then pulled.
It wasn't thought. It wasn't decision. It was instinct. A call so ancient it bypassed language, cut through bone.
She was out there.
And she needed him.
He stood quickly, wine forgotten, the rush of heat inside him now unmistakable. Not lust. Not anger. Something primal. Urgent.
Mate.
The word echoed in his chest like thunder.
He barely noticed the guards as he passed, their bows an afterthought. The night air hit him like a slap. He walked fast, then faster, then transformed into his magnificent black beast and ran into thr garden where he transformed back into his human form, not a single thought about his nakedness.
The gardens closed around him. The scent grew stronger, unbearable in its sweetness. Like danger wrapped in silk. The hedges twisted. The moonlight flickered.
And then
A shape crashed into him in the dark.
Roan caught her reflexively, arms steadying her as she reeled from the impact. Her hands gripped his arms,
He could not see her face, in the haze that was his mind he could not tell if it was real or not.
He didn't speak.
Didn't move.
Neither did she.
The silence between them snapped like a wire.
Then her hands moved, dragging him forward. And he let her. His own arms came up around her waist, his mouth brushing the curve of her jaw before she tilted her head and
They collided.
It wasn't a kiss. It was an unmaking.
Mouths collided, breath caught between them, teeth scraping, hands clutching like they were drowning. Her body arched into his. His hand splayed at the small of her back, dragging her closer.
She moaned, a desperate, broken sound and Roan's control shattered.
He didn't care who she was.
She didn't ask who he was.
They didn't need names.
The world had narrowed to skin and need and breath.
She felt like wildfire in his arms, and he was already burning.
He had spent a lifetime holding the kingdom together by force, holding himself together by will. But now here, in this garden, in the dark he was undone.
Every inch of her called to him.
Every part of him answered.
His lips found her throat. Her hands tangled in his hair.
They sank into each other like a storm breaking open the earth.
No words. No promises.
Just instinct.
Just need.
Somewhere in the distance, the clouds broke.
The moon reappeared.
And two shadows clung to each other beneath it, their bodies locked in something older than vows.
Unseen in the shadows, a pair of eyes lurked.