Chapter 19
Chapter Nineteen
Astra
Long, evening shadows stretch across my small room, and there’s still no sign of Lucian.
He’s been gone since morning. I’ve been pacing for what feels like hours, wearing out a path on the wood floor between the window and the door.
Each time I hear footsteps in the hallway, my hopes rise, only to sink again when they pass by without stopping.
He’s gone. The thought is devastating, even though I’ve been trying to prepare myself for it all day. Of course he’s gone. What did I expect? That a man like him would stay in a place like this, with someone like me, forever?
I sink onto the bed, my hands trembling as I pick up one of the gifts he gave me: a small, carved, wooden cat, so intricately detailed that I can see the individual strands of its tail.
When he first placed it in my hands, his fingers brushing mine, I thought it meant something. I thought I meant something.
“Foolish girl,” I whisper to myself, setting the cat down shakily.
Maybe these gifts were his way of easing his guilt.
A parting consolation for the pathetic woman who clung to him like he was her lifeline.
Because that’s exactly what I did, isn’t it?
Ever since that first morning when I woke up burrowed against his chest like a needy animal, I have been completely dependent on him.
The memory makes heat flood my cheeks. The way he looked at me that morning, amusement dancing in those dark eyes as he told me I’d been using him as my personal pillow.
The way his voice went low and rough when he said he didn’t mind.
The way my body responded to his nearness, to the scent of him, to the warmth radiating from his skin.
What is wrong with me?
I stand abruptly, restless energy coursing through me again. It has been happening more and more lately—this feeling like something is trying to claw its way out from inside my chest. Like there’s another presence in there, something wild and desperate that I can’t understand or control.
Sometimes I wake up from dreams where I’m running through forests on four legs, where my senses are so sharp I can taste the emotions of others on the wind. But they fade the moment I open my eyes, leaving only this aching emptiness behind.
I press my hands against my chest, trying to calm whatever is stirring beneath my ribs.
It feels like it’s getting stronger each day, this agitated thing inside me.
Especially when I think about Lucian. Especially when I remember the way he looks at me sometimes, like he sees something in me that I can’t see myself.
But maybe that’s all in my imagination, too.
I walk to the small mirror hanging on the wall and stare at my reflection.
When did I become this person? This clingy, forlorn creature who can’t function without a man’s attention?
I’ve always been so proud of my independence.
Even when my pack treated me like nothing, even when they sent me into the woods hoping I wouldn’t come back, I never let them break me.
But Lucian...Lucian makes me feel things I’ve never felt before.
He makes me feel protected, wanted. Alive.
When he smiles at me—those rare, genuine smiles that transform his entire face—I feel like the most beautiful woman in the world.
When he touches me, even just a brush of his fingers, fire races through my veins.
I’ve tried so hard to be perfect for him. To make myself small, undemanding. To thank him for every little thing he does, to never ask for too much, to be as little of a burden as possible. I’ve watched every word I say and every gesture I make, terrified of driving him away with my neediness.
And I hate myself for it. I hate how I’ve diminished myself, how I’ve become this grateful, simpering creature who jumps at his every word. The old Astra would be disgusted by what she has become.
And when he’s gone, like now, I feel like I can’t breathe.
Is this what love feels like? This terrifying mixture of joy and desperation? This need to be near someone so intense it physically hurts when they’re not there?
My reflection stares back at me with lifeless, haunted eyes. I look like a ghost of myself.
“Pathetic,” I whisper to the girl in the mirror. “Absolutely pathetic.”
I’ve become everything I swore I’d never be. Dependent. Needy. Weak. I’m clinging to a man who probably sees me as nothing more than a temporary amusement, ignoring every shred of pride I once had.
The shame burns in my throat like bile. How did I let this happen? How did I let myself fall so completely for someone who was always going to leave me?
Because he was always going to leave me.
Deep down, I think I knew that from the beginning.
Men like Lucian don’t stay with women like me.
He’s powerful, dangerous, and beautiful in a way that takes your breath away.
I’m...ordinary. Damaged. A broken shifter with no wolf, no family, no real purpose.
I sink back onto the bed, burying my face in my hands.
The scent of him still clings to me, that intoxicating mixture of leather and woodsmoke and something unique to him.
It makes the wild thing in my chest thrash even harder, like it’s trying to follow his scent, to hunt him down and drag him back.
“Stop it,” I tell myself firmly. “Just stop.”
But I can’t stop thinking about him. About the way he held me when I was sick, his hands so gentle as he cared for me through the fever.
About the way he looked at me across the fire that first night, like I was something precious instead of something broken.
About the heat in his eyes when our faces were inches apart, and the way his breath hitched when I whispered his name.
About how he says I belong to him every time we’re in bed together, his voice rough with possession and desire.
How desperately I want to believe those words, even though my logical mind screams that they’re just things men say in the heat of the moment. But the way he says them, like they are sacred truths, like he means them with every fiber of his being...I want them to be sincere so badly, it hurts.
I thought he felt it, too—this pull between us, this connection that seems to go deeper than mere attraction. But maybe that was just wishful thinking. Maybe I was reading too much into every glance, every touch, every moment of tenderness.
A sound in the hallway makes my head snap up. Footsteps. But these are different—irregular, stumbling. My heart starts pounding as they get closer, and then I hear a dull thud against the wall, followed by a low curse in a voice I recognize.
“Lucian?”
I’m on my feet and at the door before I can think, yanking it open so hard it slams into the table behind it. There he is, leaning heavily against the corridor wall, his face pale and streaked with dirt and something wet.
My heart stops. Blood. There’s so much blood.
I rush to his side, terror clawing up my throat. “Lucian!” I gasp, my hands reaching for him before I can stop them. “Are you alright? What happened to you?”
His clothes are torn and soaked with crimson, and there’s a gash across his forehead that is still bleeding freely. He’s swaying slightly on his feet, using the wall to keep himself upright.
“Astra.” My name comes out as a rough whisper.
“Lucian, you’re covered in blood! What happened? Who did this to you?”
“Got in a fight,” he coughs, beginning to lean on me. “I won.”
I wrap my arm around his waist, trying to support him despite the fact that he’s easily twice my size.
“Come on,” I instruct, guiding him toward my room. “I’ll patch you up.”
He seems to be struggling to stay conscious, his breathing shallow and uneven. There are several bundles cradled in his other arm—packages wrapped in brown paper that he has managed to keep hold of, even in this state.
“What are those?” I ask, my voice tight with worry as I help him through the doorway.
“For you,” he mutters, his weight heavy against my side. “Was get—getting you something.”
My heart lurches. He was out buying me gifts? While I was here drowning in self-pity, convinced he’d abandoned me, he was out there risking his life to get me more presents?
“You were attacked while shopping?” The words come out strangled as I bring him to the bed. “Lucian, what kind of humans could possibly—”
“Not humans,” he utters through the obvious pain. “Shifters. Four of them.”
I freeze, incredulous. “Shifters?”
Four shifters managed to do this to him? To Lucian, who moves like violence personified, who I’ve seen kill without breaking a sweat?
He collapses onto my small bed with a grunt, finally letting the packages fall to the floor. Blood immediately begins soaking into the blankets, but I don’t care. All I can focus on is the way his face has gone pale, the way his hands are shaking slightly.
“Let me see,” I whisper, reaching for his torn shirt.
His eyes find mine as I start to peel away the ruined fabric. “You’re here.”
“Of course I’m here. Where else would I be?”
“Thought you might have left.”
The words confuse me, making my hands go still. “Where would I have gone?”
“Doesn’t matter,” he says roughly, wincing as I continue removing his shirt. “You’re here now.”
The wounds I uncover make me gasp—gashes across his chest and abdomen, bite marks on his shoulder, claw marks down his ribs. But as I grab a cloth and start cleaning the blood away, something makes me frown.
“These aren’t very deep,” I murmur, dabbing gently at a particularly nasty-looking scratch.
“I told you, I won,” he says quietly, his eyes never leaving my face. “I just took some damage doing it.”
“Four shifters, though?” I shake my head, reaching for some bandages. “I can’t believe they managed to get the jump on you.”
“They were waiting for me. It was an ambush.” His jaw clenches as I clean a wound on his ribs. “Cowards.”