Aidan's breath was still warm against my skin. His closeness burned me and enveloped me. But then, something in the air changed.
A shiver ran down my spine. A presence I knew deeply… and yet, it tied a knot in my chest.
Gabriel.
He emerged from the trees, all dirty. His human form was covered in blood and sweat, his chest marked by battle. But his gaze… his gaze was fixed on me, loaded with fury, jealousy, and something darker.
—What the hell is going on here? —he growled.
Aidan stepped between us with a protective movement. The tension in his body was almost electric.
—You're late —he spat, not bothering to cover himself.
Gabriel ignored him. His eyes stayed fixed on me, as if trying to decipher something he didn't want to believe.
But something was different this time. Not in him. In me.
The attraction was still there. I felt it in the way my heart reacted to his voice, in how my skin tensed at the sight of him.
But the bond… that invisible tie that connected us… was no longer the same.
It was as if interference had entered between us. A broken echo.
And Laisa, my wolf, felt it too.
She didn't stir like before. She didn't howl for him. I just watched… silently. Alert.
Gabriel took a step closer to me, and his words came with the weight of desperation.
—Are you leaving me, Sofía? For him?
My jaw tightened. —And what right do you have to ask that?
He seemed breathless. I stepped forward, my voice firm even though everything inside me trembled.
—You were the one who rejected me, Gabriel. You.
The day I needed answers most, you turned your back on me. You made me feel like a mistake. Like our bond was a punishment.
My breathing was ragged, but my words didn't stop.
—Don't come now to claim what you yourself destroyed.
—Sofía… —he murmured, taking another step closer.
And there, so close to him, I felt it again.
Desire. The connection. But also the fracture.
The bond still lived, yes. But it was like a thread worn by time and pain.
And although part of me still responded to him —to the warmth of his skin, the weight of his gaze— another part began to look elsewhere. Aidan.
Aidan who didn't see me as a burden, but as someone worth protecting… and feeling.
A heartbreaking howl sounded in the distance. Aidan immediately tensed.
—They're coming closer… and this time they're not alone —he warned.
Gabriel didn't move. He just looked at me, as if time stopped between us. His voice was barely a whisper:
—Do you still love me? —he whispered.
But I couldn't answer him.