(BLUE'S POV)
The drive back to my place was quiet, but it didn't feel heavy or empty. It was gentle instead, soft in a way that settled around us like something warm and steady. It felt calm… almost comforting.
And somehow, that made everything inside me feel louder.
My heart—something that should have been dead, frozen in time, just like the rest of me—was anything but that. It wasn't cold. It wasn't empty. It was alive. Restless. Jumping in a way I couldn't make sense of, like it had a mind of its own.
It didn't make sense. It shouldn't have been possible.
But no matter how hard I tried to deny it… I could feel it.
With my mate sitting beside me in the passenger seat, the world outside hadn't changed at all—the same roads, the same lights, the same quiet hum of life moving on. And yet… nothing felt the same anymore.
There was a time I only knew him from a distance. I would watch him without being seen, holding onto small, stolen moments like they were something fragile. I wanted so little and yet it felt like too much—to stand close enough to hear my name on his lips, to breathe the same air, to simply exist in the same space without fear holding me back.
And now he was here.
Right here, within reach. Real.
It almost didn't make sense. All it took was that one moment, one choice to stop running, to stop hiding; and somehow, everything I had only ever dreamed of was unfolding so gently in my hands. Like something I wasn't sure I was allowed to have.
I kept glancing at him, half-expecting it all to disappear if I looked too long. But he was still here.
Mason barely moved beside me. Every now and then, he'd mumbled something under his breath, shifting just a little—closer, somehow. Not enough for the normal eyes to notice. Honestly, if I hadn't been paying this much attention, I probably wouldn't have noticed either. But I had. Every single time.
It was… weird. The way he leaned toward me like that. Like his body had just decided on its own where it wanted to be. Like some quiet part of him already knew. Knew it was here. With me. And yeah… I know how that sounds. I'm aware. Still—he kept drifting closer, like he belonged there, and I didn't really know what to do with that.
My hand on the wheel stayed steady, same as always. No shaking, no hesitation. It was almost funny how that part of me didn't change, no matter what was going on. But my other hand… that one wasn't so composed. It rested against his arm, light, almost unsure of itself. I wasn't holding him or anything—just… there. Like I needed something to ground me. Or maybe to prove to myself that this wasn't some stupid dream my mind had cooked up.
Because he was right there. Actually there. Close enough that I could feel the warmth of him, the quiet rise and fall of his breathing. Close enough that I didn't have to stand somewhere in the distance and pretend that was enough.
I kept looking at him. I tried not to—but I did anyway. A quick glance, then another. And then one that lasted a little too long before I caught myself and looked back at the road like I hadn't just been staring. God… I was embarrassing.
It didn't even make sense. I'd seen too much, lived through too much for this to get to me like this. I'd watched kingdoms fall apart like they were nothing. Seen packs tear themselves to pieces, watched vampire clans crumble, held people while they died—felt the weight of it, over and over again. Things that should've hardened me. Things that should've left no space for… this.
And yet, there I was.
Undone by something as simple as this. Just… him. Sitting beside me. Breathing. Existing. Leaning into me without even knowing. It was quiet. Nothing special. Nothing dramatic.
But somehow, it got to me in a way nothing else ever had.
"…unbelievable," I muttered under my breath. Because after nine hundred years of searching for him and thinking he never existed—he was here. And he was real.
******
My mind was so full of Mason that I didn't even notice when I got home. One second I was driving, thinking about the way he looked at me earlier, the way his voice sounded when he said my name—and the next, I was already pulling into the driveway.
The house stood exactly the same as I had left it three weeks ago.
Quiet. Still. Waiting.
The gates slid open the moment my car got close, the low hum of the security system barely noticeable against the night. Lights came on one after the other, soft and automatic, washing over the empty lawn, the wide driveway, the tall, modern structure of the house itself.
Eight bedrooms. Three floors. Glass, steel, perfection.
And yet… it had never felt alive.
Not once. Not in all the years I had been coming back here.
I usually stayed at the pack house with my family. That place was the opposite of this—loud, messy, full of laughter, arguments, warmth. People everywhere. Life everywhere. It felt real.
But this place…
I only came here when everything in my head got too heavy. When the past pressed in too close and I needed space to breathe. I'd stay for a few days, just long enough to steady myself, then I'd leave again.
Because no matter how beautiful it looked, this house had never truly been a home.
And yet… it wasn't just any house.
It was the house.
The one my human parents built with their own hands. The one I grew up in, back when life was simple—before everything changed. Before I turned nineteen. Before I became… this.
Every wall here carried pieces of a life I couldn't go back to.
Jeremy and Sofia made sure I never lost the property. When time tried to strip everything away from me, they were the ones who helped me hold on. And over the years, I turned it into something of a habit—tearing it down, rebuilding it to match whatever era I was living in, reshaping it again and again…
But never letting it go.
Because no matter how much it changed, what it meant never did.
It was the last piece of my human life. The last piece of my family.
I parked in the driveway and sat there for a second, my hands still on the wheel, my thoughts… not here.
Not even close.
They were curled up in the passenger seat.
Goddess.
Mason.
I got out of the car, walked around, and opened his door as quietly as I could. He didn't stir. Still asleep. Still completely drunk and unaware of what he was doing to me.
Carefully, I reached over and unbuckled his seatbelt, my fingers brushing against him for just a second longer than necessary.
Then I slipped one arm under his knees, the other around his back, and lifted him.
And—Gods help me—he melted.
Like he belonged there.
Like my arms were exactly where he was meant to be.
He shifted in his sleep, a soft, almost inaudible sound leaving him as he curled closer, his body instinctively tucking into mine. His face turned slightly toward my chest, his fingers lightly gripping my shirt like he didn't even realize he was doing it.
My heart... my frozen heart...
It slammed so hard against my ribs I actually had to stop walking for a second.
"Seriously…?" I muttered under my breath, a little breathless—by the way, this was supposed to be impossible—a little embarrassed, like someone could actually hear me.
What the heck?
Nine hundred years, and this—this—was what reduced me to this mess?
I pulled him closer anyway. Of course I did.
I pressed him against me just a little tighter, my nose brushing lightly against his hair before I could stop myself; and then I inhaled.
And that was it. That was my undoing.
He smelled… sweet.
Soft.
Something warm and clean, like baby oil and roses, but lighter—like it wasn't something artificial, like it was just him. His natural scent.
It hit me all at once. I had smelled it before now. Even when I held him at the party. But this time, something about his scent was different. It was more intoxicating than I before.
My chest tightened. My head went a little light.
Goddess, I felt drunk.
Actually drunk.
My fangs ached before I even realized what was happening, slowly extending, a sharp, painful reminder of exactly what I was—and what I wanted.
What I really wanted.
My grip on him tightened before I forced myself to ease it again, afraid I might hurt him.
"Don't," I whispered under my breath, though I wasn't even sure who I was talking to anymore.
Him?
Myself?
I didn't know.
All I knew was that every instinct in me was screaming.
Mine.
The word echoed so loudly in my head it almost felt real.
To bite him. To mark him. To make it known—to anyone, to everyone—that he was mine. That I had finally found him after nine hundred years.
Nine hundred years of waiting, of existing, of surviving without this—
And now he was here. In my arms. Soft. Warm. Real.
And completely unaware.
A shaky breath left me, and I shut my eyes for a second, trying—really trying—to get myself under control.
Because this... this wasn't just hunger. It was worse.
My body betrayed me in a heartbeat, a raw, burning heat slamming straight down to my cock—throbbing, and rock-hard in an instant—as my member swelled painfully against my pants, veins pulsing, the swollen head already leaking hot precum that soaked through the fabric while my heavy balls drew up tight with sudden, desperate need. I sucked in a sharp, ragged breath, mortified.