106. Scarlett
Scarlett
T he sheets were too cold.
Or maybe I was just too warm. Skin flushed. Thoughts tangled.
I’d pulled on Alden’s shirt—soft, worn, too big in a way that felt like safety. My hair was still damp from the bath. My skin still smelled like salt and smoke.
I curled on my side and stared at the wall.
One breath. Then another.
I didn’t know what I wanted.
Sleep found me anyway.
And then—
I was running.
Not with fear. Not away. Toward something.
The sky above me bled gold and black, stars flickering like embers about to go out. The forest rose up around me, tall and ancient, branches curling like fingers overhead.
I wasn’t alone.
Footsteps echoed mine. Steady. Familiar.
He was there. Whoever he was. Shadow and heat. The bond made shape. I couldn’t see his face, but I felt him—pulling me forward, deeper into the trees, into something older than language.
I knew this place.
Even if I’d never seen it before.
“You found me,” I whispered.
The voice that answered wasn’t quite Trace. Wasn’t quite Alden. But it was theirs. Woven together in a way that made my bones ache.
“I never stopped looking.”
I turned—and the trees were gone.
We were in a ruined hall of stone and ivy, moonlight spilling through a broken ceiling, illuminating the mark on his forearm. The same one I sometimes traced in my mind when I was alone.
The same one that burned.
“You’re not real,” I said.
He stepped closer anyway.
The floor cracked beneath us, but he didn’t stop.
“You were taken,” he said.
I pulsed. “I was forgotten.”
His hand brushed the side of my face, fingertips barely grazing skin. “No,” he said. “You were hidden.”
“And you didn’t find me in time.”
His thumb traced the edge of my mouth. “I wasn’t supposed to love you.”
“But you did.”
The bond surged between us—like a heartbeat, like a curse.
And then everything shattered.