Forged in Chains
Lucien
The door closed behind me with a click that sounded louder than it should have. Final. Like something had ended— like something that couldn’t be undone now that the truth had slipped out between my lips.
I stood in the hall just outside the library, fists clenched at my sides, the air still vibrating with the storm I’d barely been able to keep reined in. For a moment, I didn’t move, I couldn't, so I just let the silence pool around me like water filling a grave.
I had told myself it wouldn’t come to this. That I could protect her from the truth, ease her into it. But protection and deception had become too tangled, and I only had myself to blame for that. The moment the words left my mouth, something cracked. Not just in her, but in me. As if the version of myse
