The man was tied to a steel chair in the safehouse basement.
Blood caked his lip.
His breathing was shallow.
But he smiled like he'd already won.
Kian stood over him like a storm with a pulse sleeves rolled, shirt clinging to sweat-slick skin, muscles tensed like a man one second from snapping.
Talia stood at the top of the stairs arms folded, eyes frozen, expression unreadable.
"You've got ten seconds," Kian said, his voice low and lethal. "Tell me who sent you."
The man laughed. A dry, broken sound.
"Not your father."
Kian's jaw twitched.
"No," the man added, still grinning. "This time, she sent me."
He looked up but not at Kian.
At Talia.
"The woman who hates you more than she ever loved you."
Talia's heart stopped.
The walls of her past crashed against the now.
Kian turned, confusion tightening his features.
"Who is he talking about?"
Silence.
The intruder's voice cut like glass.
"Tell him. Tell your wolf boy who you left behind."
Talia's voice came out hollow.
Barely a breath.
A ghost.
"Her name is Serena."
Flashback
Once, long before Kian, before betrayal, before pain became her armor, there had been Serena.
Sharp-jawed.
Cunning.
A force.
Talia had been nineteen.
New to rebellion.
Hungry for something that felt like danger and love wrapped in skin.
Serena had been it.
All of it.
They'd burned together a fire too hot to contain until Serena wanted more.
Control, obedience, worship and Talia had said no. She'd walked away.
But Serena? She'd never forgiven her.
"She's been watching," the man croaked. "She knows you're back with him. She knows you're happy. Whole."
"That's not part of the plan."
"What plan?" Kian demanded, voice deadly calm.
"To burn it down."
The man coughed blood, still grinning.
"You. Her. The child." That was it.
Kian didn't hesitate.
Crack. One swift punch, the man's head whipped sideways.
Unconscious.
Silence filled the basement.
Not just quiet, thick, suffocating silence.
They stood there, Kian breathing hard, Talia frozen in place surrounded by blood and the ghost of Serena's name.
Upstairs, Kian poured them both a drink.
Talia stood by the window, the moonlight cutting silver lines across her bare shoulders. Her voice came soft, almost broken. "She was my first everything."
Kian didn't speak.
Talia's eyes stayed on the stars.
"We were fire," she whispered. "But the wrong kind. The kind that scorches. The kind that doesn't warm but just destroys."
Kian offered her the glass.
She took it.
Didn't drink.
"Is she dangerous?" he asked finally.
"She doesn't want to kill me."
He turned to face her, brow furrowed.
"Then what does she want?"
Talia turned.
The answer lived in her eyes.
"She wants me back."
The air shifted. Thicker, heavier, raw. Kian's jaw clenched.
"You think… you still want her?"
"No." Her voice didn't waver. "I think she wants to own me."
She stepped closer, deliberate, placing her glass on the coffee table. Then she reached for him.
"But you…"
Her fingers unbuttoned his shirt slowly.
"You're the only one I ever wanted to belong to."
Kian inhaled sharply.
"Talia…"
She pressed a kiss to his chest.
"I don't want to forget who I was. Not anymore."
A pause.
"I want you to see all of me. The dark. The fire. The pieces she tried to keep."
His shirt slid off his shoulders.
She leaned in, breath hot against his neck.
"Take me like I'm broken," she whispered.
"And love me like I never was."
His hands shook as they touched her.
Not with fear.
With restraint.
He peeled her shirt away like she was holy.
Tasted her skin like it was sacred.
His lips traced every line of memory carved into her body.
Down her collarbone.
Over her heart.
Between her breasts.
She gasped.
Her legs parted for him like instinct like need. And when his mouth met the ache between her thighs
She cried out.
Fingers in his hair.
Back arched.
"Don't stop," she panted.
"I won't," he growled.
"Not until you remember who you are…
And who you're mine to."
They moved like sinners on sacred ground.
No hesitations.
No holding back.
She rode him desperate, wild, aching.
Talia took and took, kissed like it hurt, clutched like it healed.
Kian let her.
Let her burn.
Let her fall.
Let her be exactly who she needed to be.
When they came together ,sweat-slick and breathless. It wasn't just sex, it was reclamation.
It was surrender.
It was freedom.
Later Talia lay curled against his chest, listening to the rhythm of his heart. His fingers moved slowly through her hair.
"She won't stop," Talia whispered into the dark.
"No," Kian said.
He kissed her temple.
"Then neither will I."