Aria's new chamber was nothing like Kairo's.
Where his was carved from shadows and dominance, hers was softer with warm candlelight, thick rugs, a carved wooden bed draped with crimson sheets, and a bathtub steaming gently in the corner.
Someone had prepared it.
Someone who knew she was coming.
Someone who expected her.
Aria's stomach twisted.
She moved toward the tub mechanically, fingers trembling as she untied the rain-soaked dress clinging to her body. The fabric fell to her feet, heavy and cold.
She stepped into the warm water.
Heat wrapped around her skin instantly, melting the ache in her muscles. But the knot in her chest only tightened.
Kairo's touch still burned on her throat.
His breath lingered on her jaw.
His voice echoed in her skull…
"You have no idea what holding back feels like."
She leaned her head against the edge of the tub, breath shaky.
What did that even mean?
Why did he look at her like she was a fire he wanted to walk into?
A soft sound interrupted her thoughts.
A door clicking.
Aria sat upright in the water, heart stopping.
Footsteps.
Slow. Silent.
Too confident to belong to a servant.
"Kairo?" she whispered.
No answer.
Her chest squeezed.
Another step… closer.
"Who's there?" she tried again, louder.
The curtain separating her bathing space from the rest of the room fluttered, as if brushed by a passing breeze.
But there was no breeze.
Just cold.
A sharp, unnatural cold.
Aria's skin prickled. The water around her seemed to cool instantly. Her breath fogged slightly, only for a second, but enough to make her blood run cold.
Something was here.
Not Kairo.
Something else.
A female voice whispered behind her, it sounded low and bitter.
"Look at you. The Moonstone girl. The human. The mistake."
Aria spun in the tub, water sloshing.
A woman stood in the dim shadows of the room, her eyes glowing faintly green.
Not the one she saw in the hall earlier, someone younger, sharper, with danger circling her like smoke.
Her scent hit Aria's nose like ice.
Not wolf.
Something… wrong.
Something twisted.
"You shouldn't be here," the woman hissed. "You should have died before he found you."
Aria's blood froze.
"Wh-who are you?"
The woman stepped forward, smiling with venom.
"You will know soon enough. You're not the only one he's destined to destroy."
Aria tried to stand, but the woman moved faster than any normal wolf, almost gliding across the room. Her fingers tightened around Aria's wrist like a cold iron band.
Pain shot through her arm.
Aria gasped.
"You think you'll survive the Alpha King?" the woman whispered. "You think you'll belong here? You're nothing but a pawn in a prophecy that will drown us all."
"Let me go," Aria choked.
The woman's eyes narrowed.
Then she leaned in until her lips were inches from Aria's ear.
"The night he marks you will be the night you die."
Aria's heart slammed.
Before she could scream, the door exploded open with a force that rattled the walls.
Kairo.
His power hit the air like a violent wave.
Golden eyes glowing, chest rising and falling sharply, his wolf at the very surface of his skin.
He didn't speak.
He didn't growl.
He simply moved.
One moment the strange woman had her hand on Aria.
The next, Kairo had her pinned against the stone wall by the throat, his claws half-extended, his entire body trembling with lethal fury.
"How," he growled, voice shaking the room, "did you get into my wing?"
The woman smirked, blood trickling from the corner of her mouth.
"You can't protect her," she rasped.
Kairo's grip tightened.
Aria scrambled from the tub, water dripping down her skin, grabbing a towel and wrapping it around herself desperately.
Kairo didn't look at her.
Not once.
His rage was animal.
"Speak again," he hissed, "and you die without breath."
The woman's smirk widened.
Her eyes flashed an unnatural shade of black.
"Then kill me," she whispered.
"You can't stop what's coming."
Her body dissolved into a dark, smoky mist that evaporated into the air, literally.
Gone.
As if she had never been there.
Silence slammed into the room.
Kairo stared at the empty space where she'd stood, chest heaving, fists bleeding from how hard he'd clenched them.
"Kairo?" Aria whispered, trembling.
He turned.
Slowly.
His eyes locked on her.
Wet hair clinging to her bare shoulders.
Towel wrapped desperately around her.
Skin flushed from fear and hot water.
Heart pounding visibly beneath her collarbone.
He froze.
Not like a man.
Like a predator abruptly torn between violence and hunger.
The vein in his neck pulsed.
Aria took a tiny step back.
"Kairo…" she said again, softer.
He inhaled.
Deep.
Sharp.
As if dragging her scent into his lungs.
The reaction that followed was almost painful to watch.
His jaw clenched.
His hands curled.
His wolf flared so strongly she felt its pull in her bones.
"Aria," he rasped.
Her heartbeat stuttered.
"That thing—she said—"
"I heard." His voice was low, ragged. "And I will find her."
He stepped toward her.
She stepped back.
He stopped, chest rising and falling as if he'd run a thousand miles.
"You're trembling," he said.
"I'm not—"
"You are."
His gaze drifted downward, just a second, just enough to catch the water glistening on her skin.
Aria felt something tighten between her ribs.
Kairo dragged his eyes back up with visible effort.
He took another breath, slow, controlled, painful.
"I won't touch you like this," he said hoarsely, "when you're frightened."
Her breath caught.
He took one more step back, giving her distance.
"But hear me, Aria."
His voice dropped, soft and deadly, as he looked at her with eyes that glowed like molten gold.
"If anything else touches you in this castle…"
His pupils dilated.
"I will tear the world apart."