Lucien’s POV

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The thing about pain is—it rarely announces its arrival. It creeps in, quiet and cunning, until it’s everywhere. It becomes the air you breathe, the rhythm of your heart, the fire under your skin. That night… when I saw Aria and Damon *laughing*, all I felt was that pain. Raw. Loud. Unrelenting.

She was laughing.

With *him*.

After everything.

I stood there at the door like a stranger in my own life, my own pack, my own *bond*. The woman who was tethered to my soul by the Moon Goddess herself stood inches away—giggling like she hadn’t just broken me.

And it wasn’t the laughter that shattered...