The room should have been quiet.
It should have been normal.
It should have been just another night.
But nothing felt normal around Aria anymore.
The silence didn't just sit in the room — it watched her.
It curled around her spine like a cold breath, waiting.
Aria traced the edge of the ancient book again, her fingers shaking despite her best effort to appear steady. The ink pulsed softly under her touch, glowing with a warmth that felt sinful… intimate… almost alive.
A shiver slipped down her back.
"Aria."
Mateo's voice came from the doorway — low, rough, and edged with worry.
She sucked in a breath she didn't realize she had been holding.
He stepped into the half-dark, his silhouette framed by the sliver of hallway light behind him. His eyes found hers first, then dropped to the book like it was something capable of biting him.
Or stealing her.
"You're doing it again," he murmured. "Letting that thing pull you in."
She swallowed. "I'm fine."
"Liar."
The word came quietly, almost tender.
The kind of lie you say when you care too much.
He moved closer, slow and cautious, as though the shadows themselves might be listening.
Aria opened her mouth to tell him he was overreacting — but the book answered for her.
A deep, soft flutter.
Pages shifting.
Ink glowing.
The air warming like someone exhaling against her skin.
Mateo's jaw tightened. "Aria… please tell me you heard that."
She nodded, unable to look away from the cover.
The book wasn't calling for anyone else.
It was calling for her.
She reached toward it — not because she wanted to, but because something inside her needed to.
The moment her fingertips brushed the leather, heat shot through her veins.
Not painful.
Not frightening.
Just… awakening.
The world vanished for a heartbeat.
Darkness.
A whisper.
A man's voice — low, familiar, intimate — speaking her name like a lover would, like a sin would.
Aria… you remember me.
Her breath broke.
A vision slammed into her:
A pair of hands — strong, warm, wrapped around her waist.
Lips brushing her ear.
A shadow standing behind her like a promise she once made and forgot.
Her knees buckled.
"Aria!" Mateo caught her before she hit the floor, pulling her into his chest. His heartbeat was racing, wild, terrified. "Damn it, what's happening to you?"
She pressed a trembling hand to her forehead. "It's like… someone was inside my head. Someone I knew. Someone I—"
Her voice cracked.
Mateo tilted her chin up gently. "Someone you what?"
She didn't answer.
She couldn't.
Her body was still tingling from the phantom touch.
She pulled away and looked at the book.
The ink was no longer glowing softly.
It was burning — like the book had felt her thoughts, her fear… her longing.
Mateo stepped between them, protective. "Aria, that thing is dangerous. Whatever you think it is, whatever you want it to be—"
"It knows me."
Her voice was barely a whisper. "It remembers me."
Mateo stared at her like she had just confessed something impossible… and somehow heartbreaking.
"Aria… books don't remember people."
"This one does."
Silence.
A heavy, suffocating silence — the kind only two people share when fear mixes with something deeper, something unspoken.
Mateo took her hands in his, desperate now.
"Tell me what you saw."
She closed her eyes.
"I saw someone who felt like…"
She inhaled, trembling.
"Like someone I loved before I ever existed."
Mateo's grip tightened — not out of anger, but out of something that felt painfully close to jealousy.
The shadows behind them stirred.
And from the book, a whisper slipped into the air again — dark, soft, and undeniably intimate.
Aria… come back to me.
Her heart stopped.
Mateo froze.
Darkness wasn't just watching her anymore.
It was remembering her.
Reaching for her.
Wanting her.
And worst of all…
A small, treacherous part of her wanted it back.