Chapter 136
ARIA
The first snow of the evening fell so softly I almost missed it—tiny flakes drifting past our balcony like ash shaken from a quiet sky. Inside, our apartment hummed with peace: the kettle murmuring, the tick of the wall clock, faint laughter from the dining hall below. Adam and Austin were finishing a debrief with Fares and Cassius. For once, nothing felt like it was about to break.
I stood by the window with a hand on my belly. Matteo kicked first, sharp against my ribs. A moment later Leon pressed outward, staking his own claim. “I hear you,” I whispered.
Then everything stilled.
The kettle silenced. The clock froze. The air thinned as if the world had swallowed its breath.
“Good evening, Aria.” The voice was silk on steel.
I didn’t turn. “You’re late.”
“On the contrary,” Alaric said, stepping through the balcony door as if he owned the night. Snow hung suspended in the air, unmoving. He was pale and sharp, less man than inevitability.
“You killed a friend of mine today,” I said.
He tilted his head. “He ceased to be useful the moment he remembered he had a heart.” His gaze dropped to my belly. “They are strong. Stronger than they should be.”
“They’re mine.”
“You could have been extraordinary in my care.”
“Then you underestimate what I am in my own.”
His smile chilled. “Come quietly.”
I moved first. Not away—through. He reached for me, but I met him with a surge of power I didn’t know I had. The moon broke through the clouds, silver flooding my skin, my bones, my children. My senses sharpened to crystal clarity: his scent, the ice in the air, the twin heartbeats inside me.
“Not prey,” I said.
“Never,” he murmured, even as surprise flickered in his eyes.
He tried to pull me toward the snow-curtain he’d conjured, but I pushed sound from my very marrow. Not a wolf’s call, not a vampire’s thrall—something new. The snow erupted, blinding even him.
“You sing,” he said, blinking ice from his lashes. “How curious.”
“You should hear me when I’m angry.”
He reached for the charm at my throat—Rosalie’s work—and it woke like a struck bell. Light flared, weaving into a net that bound his wrist. He stilled, the barest wariness cracking his perfect mask.
“She is better than I thought,” he said.
“So am I.”
I tugged, not to hurt, only to prove I could. He could have broken free, but pride held him. I used the moment, stepping back into the apartment and letting the wards shift with my song. The snow-curtain behind him hardened into a mirror, reflecting every hidden path he had carved. His eyes narrowed.
“Well,” he said. “You surprise me again.”
“Get used to it.”
I unhooked the charm. The net collapsed. His gaze lingered on my face, then my stomach, his expression twisted between ache and calculation.
“If I do not take you,” he whispered, “they will.”
“Then watch me make them stop.”
Something unreadable passed over his face. Then he stepped into the snow, and the mirror sealed. The kettle began to hum again; the clock ticked.
He was gone.
I stood on the threshold, trembling not with fear but with the aftershock of power. The rail beneath my hand frosted over. My children stirred, calm, steady—as if keeping time with me.
Only then did I call Adam and Austin through the bond. I’m all right. Don’t run.
The door burst open anyway. Adam reached me first, hands framing my face, eyes frantic. Austin’s palm settled on my belly, a vow.
“What happened?” Austin asked, too calm to be anything but contained fury.
“He tried,” I said. “And I told him no.”
Adam’s gaze slid to the balcony. “How?”
I could have told them about the song, the wards, the moonlight in my bones. Instead I smiled. “I’ll show you.”
Adam pressed his forehead to mine, a tremor leaving him. Austin let out a shaky laugh. “Prophecy,” he said. “Guess it forgot to mention you’re terrifying.”
The twins fluttered in answer. I turned back to the window, to the snow that now fell in its ordinary way, and felt it—the bridge between wolf and vampire, light and dark, survival and hope.
For the first time, the world seemed to be listening.
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