Don't feed your curiosity

The cold cloth pressed gently against my cheek, but the sting beneath it remained.

Stella held the compress with shaking hands, her brows furrowed with quiet fury. "You will carry the Alpha's heir," she muttered. "She shouldn't be hurting you."

When I returned to my room earlier, she was waiting for me. When she saw the bruise on my cheek, she was shocked and thought Finn hurt me. I told her someone else did.

I sat still, trying not to flinch as the chill seeped into my skin. The bruise was already swelling. I could feel the ache blooming under the pressure.

"But she can," I whispered back.

Stella tsked under her breath. "That Esther… she acts like she's the Luna when she will never be. It's not right."

I gave her a small, tired smile. "I don't think she'll do anything foolish once I conceive. She wouldn't dare risk harming the Alpha's child."

That, at least, I believed.

Esther might hate me, but her pride wouldn't survive the backlash of hurting the Alpha's heir. Once the baby existed, it would be untouchable, even by her.

We sat in silence for a while, Stella dabbing at my bruise and me staring blankly at the wall.

A helpless sigh passed between us.

***

I wasn't sure when I fell asleep that night. One moment, I was staring at the ceiling, the cool compress long since removed, and the next, I was opening my eyes to darkness.

But something felt off.

The room around me was quiet, the air chilled. I blinked and sat up slowly, rubbing my arms. At first, I assumed I was still in the Alpha's estate. My room there was always dim before dawn.

But as I looked around, my breath caught in my throat.

This wasn't the Alpha's residence.

This was... my room.

My old room.

I stared, stunned, as the soft outlines of familiar furniture came into focus – the nightstand my father bought from another city for my thirteenth birthday, the old shelf where my mother used to keep dried lavender, even the old storybooks in my small shelf I always kept as a child.

This place was supposed to be gone. Seized. Destroyed. Reduced to nothing but rubble by the council.

Yet here it was.

Whole.

Untouched.

And cold.

A breeze crept through the open windows, sharp against my skin. The sheer beige curtains fluttered in the moonlight.

I stood, barefoot against old wooden floorboards, and wrapped my arms around myself. The air shouldn't have felt this cold, shouldn't feel this real. 

Dreams were never so vivid you could almost taste the air. 

And yet every step I took felt heavy with memory. Even the smell, dried flowers and the faint tinge of dust, was achingly familiar.

I took a cautious step toward the windows, drawn by the chill and the strange stillness that hung over the room.

But then I felt it.

A shift in the air.

A subtle, unshakable certainty that I wasn't alone.

The sensation crawled up my spine like ice water.

I stopped moving. My breath hitched. My eyes scanned the corners, the space near the dresser, the shadows that clung too tightly to the walls.

Something…

Or someone was watching me.

I spun around.

"Who's there?" I called out, my voice a fragile echo in the stillness. "Show yourself to me."

Nothing.

Just the whisper of wind and the rustle of curtain fabric.

And then—

Something brushed against my face.

Soft. Almost gentle.

A cloth slid over my eyes.

I gasped and reached up, instinctively trying to pull it off, but before I could, a smooth, invisible force seized my wrists and dragged them behind my back. Silken restraints, cold and yet smooth, bound my hands tightly.

Panic bloomed in my chest.

"What is this?" I breathed, struggling. "What's happening?"

No answer.

I twisted, tugged, tried to shout myself awake. My usual trick to jolt free from a dream. But this dream didn't obey me. I couldn't move. I couldn't wake. My body remained rooted in place, the cloth pressing into my face, the ties cutting softly into my skin.

And then I felt him.

The presence.

It was like gravity shifted. The air grew denser. The temperature dropped further, but the space behind me grew inexplicably warm. I felt him before he even spoke, before he moved—tall, still, and far too close.

Closer.

The weight of his attention coiled around me like smoke, suffocating and unseen. He didn't touch me, but every inch of my body knew he was there.

He exhaled near my ear.

"Don't feed your curiosity," he murmured, the voice deep and cool, with a calm that bordered on dangerous. "Curiosity can lure you to a trap."

My breath caught.

The voice somehow sounded familiar.

Not well enough to name. But enough to freeze my blood.

It was familiar in a way I couldn't explain, but at the same time very foreign. My mind raced, trying to place it. But I couldn't get close, instead, it slipped further from reach.

"Who are you?" I whispered again, this time more desperate than demanding.

Silence answered me.

The presence lingered behind me, unmoving and unreadable.

And I was beginning to wonder if I was dreaming at all.

"You're in my dream," I said, my voice trembling against the silence. "I ought to know who the stranger is… visiting me."

The cloth still covered my eyes, plunging me into blackness. But I could sense his every move.

He was in front of me now.

Inches away.

Too close.

My breath caught when the scent of him hit me. 

Deep and primal, the unmistakable scent of a strong wolf. There was something raw and powerful about it, yet not overwhelming. It wasn't like Finn's. This one was darker, warmer, wild and commanding in a way that made every hair on my body stand on end.

I never remembered a time when my senses had been so sharp in my dream.

Just with this one. I could feel the texture of the air against my skin, the tension humming in my spine, the scent of him threading through my lungs like smoke.

"You don't have to know me right now," he murmured, his voice quieter now, almost gentle, but no less unsettling.