Lucien’s voice didn’t sound like his anymore. It came out low and hollow It sounded like it had clawed its way out from the depths of something ancient and broken, like a beast that had been buried too long and was now tasting air for the first time.
His eyes didn’t move from her face. He couldn’t. They were locked on her like a curse—like a mirror reflecting the most f****d-up part of his past. The part he had never healed. The part he had learned to cover with war, with blood, with cunt, with control.
“No,” he said, the word cracking as it passed his lips. “It can’t be.”
His chest rose and fell in sharp, shallow movements. The air in the chamber felt too thin, too thick, too wrong. Every inch of his body rebelled against what his eyes were telling him. But he couldn’t look away.
“An
