Chapter 97

• Lucas POV
• The midday sun spills through the window, casting long shadows across the bed where Aurora lies, her chest rising and falling in the deep, exhausted sleep I finally let her fall into. Last night—and all morning—I didn’t hold back. I took her again and again, each time pushing her further, drawing out every moan, every shudder, until her body gave out, too spent to continue. My own muscles ache, a reminder of the hours we lost ourselves in each other, but my mind is a mess, spinning with questions I don’t know how to answer.
• What the hell am I doing? Did I really just lean into this wild claim that she’s a goddamn werewolf? I rub my forehead, hard, like I can scrub away the insanity of it all. Grabbing the spare laptop from the nightstand, I sit up, the sheets pooling around my waist. This can’t be real. Werewolves are fairy tales, horror movies, not flesh-and-blood women sleeping in my bed. But her words, her pain, that mark on her neck, they’re gnawing at me, demanding I make sense of them.