🌙𝐋𝐢𝐥𝐢𝐭𝐡
The music shifted again into sothing sharp and demanding. Veronique spun out, and I barely kept my footing. My body scread in protest, every joint aching from the force she used.
I tried to find my balance, tried to anticipate her next move, but she was too fast, too brutal. Each step was punishnt dressed as performance.
My vision blurred at the edges. The crowd, the lights, the music, it all bled together into overwhelming noise.
I felt hands dragging down, my mind devolving into chaos.
I could string two thoughts together enough to anticipate her next move. I found myself in a rushing river, forced by its currect and heading towards the rocks.
Then I stalled—
For just a whisper of a second
Because I felt it.
A hum. Low and steady, resonating through my chest like a tuning fork struck against bone.
Neither sound, not sothing enough to startle still it was tangible enough to hold so familiarity. It was presence.
My gaze snapped up, searching through the sea of masks and faces. And there—standing at the edge of the dance floor, perfectly still among the movent around him—
Vladimir.
His wolf mask glead under the chandelier light, but beneath it, I caught the glint of his eyes. Pale. Cold. Fixed entirely on .
Watching.
The hum in my chest intensified, and I realized: it was him. The bond, reaching across the distance, anchoring when I’d been about to shatter.
I see you.
The unspoken words thrumd through .
Veronique yanked close again, her nails digging into my waist. "Pathetic," she hissed. "You’re already breaking focus—"
But sothing in shifted.
Hardened.
I t her eyes, and this ti, I didn’t look away.
The next ti she spun , I moved with her instead of against her. When she tried to throw off balance, I adjusted my weight, found my center.
Vladimir was watching.
And I would not break in front of him.
Veronique’s smile faltered but just for a second as she realized I’d stopped struggling. Stopped being a victim she could tornt.
The music built toward sothing frenetic. She forced into a series of rapid turns, each one designed to disorient, to humiliate.
But I locked in.
Every step, every pivot, I held my ground. My body still ached, my muscles still burned, but I refused to stumble. Refused to give her the satisfaction.
The bond humd approval through my chest, steady as a heartbeat.
That’s it, moya. Show them.
I didn’t know if the words were real or imagined, but they wrapped around like armor.
Veronique’s grip tightened, her movents growing sharper, more aggressive. She was trying to break through sheer force now.
But I matched her.
When she spun out, I extended the line of my arm with deliberate grace. When she pulled back, I ca willingly but with control—not because she forced , but because I allowed it.
Her expression shifted from triumph to sothing colder.
Anger.
She’d wanted to crumble. To prove I didn’t belong here.
Instead, I was proving I could survive her.
The music reached its peak—a final, dramatic crescendo.
Veronique’s eyes glittered with sothing feral, sothing that promised pain. She pulled close, her breath hot against my ear.
"Let’s give them a show," she whispered.
Then she threw .
Not a dance move. Not a performance technique.
Pure violence wrapped in the pretense of artistry.
I flew backwards, the world spinning, the chandelier light streaking across my vision in golden blurs. Gasps erupted from the crowd—shock, excitent, horror all bleeding together.
Kaia crawled through mu skin, instinct screaming to shift, to survive.
But I clamped down on her.
Not here. Not now.
Kaia’s strength flooded through anyway—the supernatural speed, the inhuman reflexes—but I stayed in control. I twisted mid-air, my body rembering movents I’d never learned, guided by sothing primal and ancient.
My feet hit the ground.
Hard.
The impact reverberated up through my bones, my knees bending to absorb the shock. Pain exploded through my ankles, my thighs, but I held.
I didn’t fall, almost stubbled but I stuck the landing.
I landed in a crouch, one hand pressed to the floor, my dress pooling around like spilled ink. My chest heaved, my hair falling loose from its pins.
The crowd scread.
Not gasps this ti. Not murmurs.
Genuine shock. Awe. Excitent at the spectacle they thought they were witnessing.
"MAGNIFICENT!" soone shouted.
Applause thundered through the hall—not polite, not asured, but wild and genuine.
I lifted my gaze slowly, my breathing ragged, and found Veronique standing where she’d released . Her chest rose and fell rapidly, her expression carefully neutral, but I saw it.
The flash of surprise in her eyes.
The slight parting of her lips.
She hadn’t expected to land it.
I rose to my feet, deliberate and controlled despite the screaming in my muscles. My wolf prowled beneath my skin, furious at being restrained, but I kept her leashed.
Not yet.
The distance between us felt like a chasm. The crowd still cheering, still oblivious to what had actually just happened.
They thought it was choreography.
Only Veronique and I knew it was war.
She recovered quickly, her smile sliding back into place as she stepped forward, arms spreading as if to graciously accept the applause for our "performance."
But when she reached , extending her hand as if to help —to complete the illusion—I saw the tension in her jaw.
I took her hand.
And squeezed.
Not hard enough to be obvious. Just enough for her to feel the strength in my grip. Enough to remind her that I was still standing.
Her smile tightened.
"Impressive," she said, loud enough for those nearby to hear. Then quieter, just for : "But tricks won’t save you when it counts."
I leaned in, my voice barely a whisper. "We’ll see."
Sothing flickered across her face—anger, maybe respect, maybe calculation.
Then she released my hand and turned to the crowd, raising our joined hands in a gesture of unity that made my stomach turn.
More applause. More cheers.
I wanted to rip my hand away. To run. To shift and tear through everything standing between and fresh air.
But then I felt it again.
That hum in my chest.
I found him imdiately—Vladimir, still standing at the edge of the dance floor. His expression was unreadable behind the mask, but his eyes...
They burned.
But there was no anger there, it was sothing else.
Sothing that made the bond sing even as my body scread.
Veronique released my hand finally, stepping back with a performative bow that the crowd loved.
The music had ended. The mont was over.
But as she walked away, head high and posture perfect, I saw the slight stiffness in her shoulders. The controlled precision in her steps.
She’d wanted to break .
And I’d denied her that.
The crowd began to disperse, conversations rising as people moved back to the edges of the dance floor. Several masked faces turned toward —so curious, so assessing, so hungry for gossip.
My legs trembled, threatening to give out now that the adrenaline was fading.
Then Vladimir was there.
He didn’t rush. Didn’t draw attention. Just moved through the crowd with that effortless authority until he was standing beside .
His hand found the small of my back again—steady, cold, familiar. Mine.
Kaia growled, the single word reverberating in my skull like a gong.
I shook it off ntally, like one would shake off a bad dream. Even if it made heat pool at the aching apex of my thighs.
"Walk," he murmured against my ear, his voice low and commanding. "Head up."
I tried. God, I tried.
But my legs were trembling, my body running on fus and adrenaline that was rapidly fading. I managed two steps before my knees threatened to give out.
Vladimir’s arm slid around my waist, pulling snug against his side. Not gentle. Not tentative.
Possessive.
His grip tightened, his bionic hand splaying across my ribs, cold tal and unyielding pressure that sohow grounded even as it made my breath hitch.
Then he moved.
His mouth descended to the curve of my neck, and I felt his teeth—sharp elongated canine—graze my pulse point before he bit.
Not hard enough to break skin. But hard enough to send a shockwave of sensation ripping through my entire body.
My knees buckled.
His hold tightened instantly, keeping upright, his arm banding around like iron as a low, guttural growl rumbled from his chest and vibrated against my throat.
The crowd erupted.
Cheers. Whistles. Applause so thunderous it made my ears ring.
My mind stuttered, trying to process—was this part of the show? Was this—
Then his scent hit .
Not just the cold, clean scent I’d grown used to. Sothing else. Sothing darker, richer, more primal. It rolled over in waves, sliding across my skin like phantom fingers, caressing, claiming, marking.
My body responded before my mind could catch up.
Heat flooded through —molten and overwhelming. My thighs clenched, trying to ease the sudden, desperate ache building between them. My nipples hardened against the fabric of my dress, sensitive and begging for friction I couldn’t get.
I felt it—felt his scent like fingertips trailing down my spine, across my collarbone, between my breasts, lower—
Oh god.
My heart sputtered, stumbling over itself as pleasure sparked through , sharp and unexpected and utterly wrong for the middle of a goddamn ballroom.
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