Lucian’s POV 

The night had been restless. I hadn’t closed my eyes once. The memory of that violent wave still throbbed in my veins like a warning drum. I had felt its power reverberating through the city, rattling every corner of my instincts. It wasn’t an ordinary surge. No… it could level anything in its path.

I stood in my penthouse, high above the city, staring out of the glass wall as dawn broke. My reflection was sharp against the skyline, but my mind was far from still. That energy could only mean two things: either the Bunnett bloodline still existed, or the wolf hunters had returned.

But there was something about the hunters that didn’t sit right. Yes, they hunted wolves, but wolves were never their true target. Their hatred had always been reserved for the Bunnett bloodline. And all of it traced back to one bitter tale of a Bennett witch betrayed by Bunnett blood. Cast out for loving a wolf, abandoned while carrying his child, she turned to the darkest of magics. A curse born of grief and rage. She had made wolves turn against wolves, and set them upon the Bunnetts until blood ran like water.

I exhaled sharply. The past had a way of clawing into the present.

I tried to steady my mind with something mundane coffee. The machine on the counter hissed and clicked but refused to work. I jabbed the buttons harder, once, twice. Nothing. My jaw tightened. Patience thinned. With a growl, I shoved it off the counter. Porcelain and metal shattered across the marble floor.

The door opened.

“Sir, what’s the problem?” Asher’s voice floated in.

I turned, peeling off my shirt, my body burning with frustration. “Get me my towel.”

She froze for a second, then turned swiftly down the hall. But not before I caught her glance her eyes flickering over my bare torso. She thought I didn’t notice. She was wrong.

When she returned, she handed me the towel, trying to mask her flushed cheeks. I smirked faintly, brushing past her toward the bathroom.

The shower was quick, hot, and bracing. By the time I stepped out, steam rolling off my shoulders, I felt anchored again. Dressing in a deep red suit, I descended the stairs. As I passed Asher, I caught her curves with a sharp smack of my palm. Her gasp, the faint moan she couldn’t contain , it made me chuckle under my breath.

But there was no time for games.

“Take me to Raven Bean Café,” I instructed the driver as I stepped into the car.

Moments later, the café bustled around me. The scent of roasted beans, chatter, bodies brushing past. I was waiting for my order when it happened a sudden collision, the splash of scalding coffee soaking into my jacket.

SPLAT.

Her voice trembled. “Oh my God, I am so sorry!” She fumbled with her bag, desperate. “Let me just get my handkerchief , please, I’m sorry!”

I caught her wrist gently. My voice dropped low. “It’s fine. Don’t bother.”

And then I looked at her.

Her eyes lifted to mine ,wide, searching, trembling with something neither of us could name. Time faltered. The café noise dulled. All I felt was the surge of recognition that made my pulse stutter.

She was… different.

The power of her gaze pulled something deep out of me, something I had buried long ago. The coffee, the mess, the stares , it all dissolved. For a moment, it was only her and me.

“I’m really sorry,” she whispered again.

I forced myself to shrug it off, though my chest was tight. “I’ll buy another suit downtown. No harm done.”

We shared a smile. Polite. But magnetic. Dangerous.

I stepped outside, handed the coffee task to my bodyguard, and slid into the backseat. Yet even as the car pulled away, I couldn’t shake her from my mind. Those eyes lingered like fire on my skin.

Hours later, at Wolfe Enterprise, I tried burying myself in work. Files stacked high across my desk, numbers blurring. A knock interrupted.

“Come in,” I said.

Becky, my secretary, entered, her blouse clinging, her lipstick a shade too deliberate. Every time she came in here, she dressed as though she were entering a bedroom, not an office. Her little tricks were predictable. Today, she dropped a pen, bending slowly, deliberately, giving me an eyeful of her chest. Her perfume smothered the room.

I didn’t react. My focus stayed on the file in my hand.

When she rose and handed me documents, I held them just long enough to make my point. “Hold on. Let me review this now.”

Her eyes traced my face, my lips, my body, but I ignored them. She burned with lust I would never return. I handed the file back. “Make the edits I marked.”

She nodded, hiding her frustration, and left.

By evening, I dismissed the day early. There was no sense wasting hours in the office when my mind was elsewhere. My friends had called, insisting we meet at the club. They were like me handsome, wild, but unlike me, they reveled in chaos. I was always the quiet storm among them.

Asher and Becky rode along in the car. Somewhere between my silence and their chatter, I sensed something brewing between her and Dan, my driver. The air was thick, but I didn’t intervene. Not my concern.

When we arrived, I stepped into the pulsing club, the bass rattling the floor. My friends were already inside, but my focus drifted. I scanned the room and then I saw her.

The girl from the café.

Sitting at the bar, alone, lost in thought.

“That should be the coffee girl,” I muttered under my breath.

I approached her slowly, like a hunter closing in. “Excuse me,” I said, voice smooth. “Do I know you?”

She turned, her eyes widening. Recognition flared. “Oh-umm, yes. I spilled coffee on you this morning. I’m really sorry about that.”

I chuckled, the tension between us melting.

We ordered tequila. One shot turned into another. Conversation flowed with surprising ease. Childhoods. Books. Dreams. Cities we longed to visit. I kept my truths hidden, giving her only fragments, but she didn’t seem to mind. She was guarded too.

Back in the car, I left Becky and Dan to their own tangled desires. I knew exactly what they were doing behind tinted glass. I could hear the muffled moans, smell the heat radiating off them when I returned. I didn’t need confirmation.

But my mind wasn’t with them anyway.

It was with her.

Aria.

The girl with the eyes that had disarmed me in a single glance.

When we parted that night, her smile lingered. “At least someone made me smile today,” she’d said.

And I knew, even then, that this was not the last time.

As the car carried me home, I stared into the city night, still haunted by the power I’d felt the night before. That wave. That surge of impossible energy.

What I didn’t yet know what I couldn’t have guessed was that the girl I had just met was the very source of it.