It was supposed to be just another late shift.
Dr. Elaina Rivers stood alone in the emergency ward, the hum of fluorescent lights above her head and the dull throb of exhaustion behind her eyes. Rain tapped against the windowpanes like a ticking clock, steady and impatient. She had seen everything from broken bones to gunshot wounds—but nothing could've prepared her for him.
The doors slammed open.
A man stumbled in, drenched in rain and blood—more blood than she had ever seen. Tall. Broad shoulders. A coldness in his eyes that matched the night outside.
"Elaina, we need a stretcher—now!" one of the nurses called out.
But she was already moving.
The moment she touched his arm, a strange pulse ran through her body—warm and violent. His skin was ice cold, yet her fingertips burned. His breathing was shallow, and the sharp edge of pain was carved into his perfect jaw.
He was beautiful. And dangerous.
"What's his name?" she asked, trying to steady her voice.
No one answered.
He didn't have a wallet. No ID. Nothing but deep gashes across his torso and a tattoo over his chest—a symbol like a claw slashed through a crescent moon.
As she worked on him, his eyes suddenly shot open—amber, glowing, wild.
"Don't… touch me," he growled lowly, the voice of a wolf barely caged.
Elaina froze.
But something in her refused to back away. Instead, she whispered, "Then don't die."
---
Hours Later
He was stable, but barely. Elaina sat beside his bed in the private ward she had arranged. Her shift had ended two hours ago, but she couldn't leave.
Who was he? And why did her soul feel like it had known him before?
Suddenly, his eyes opened again, and this time they focused on her. Not in panic.
In recognition.
"You…" he murmured. "You should have stayed dead."
Elaina blinked. "What?"
But before she could ask again, he slipped back into unconsciousness, leaving her with questions, bloodstained gloves—and a heart that had started to beat just a little too fast.
---
Scene Cut – Somewhere in the City
A man watched the hospital from the shadows, his eyes glowing red.
"She found him," he said with a smirk.
A figure behind him growled. "Shall we kill her?"
"No," the man replied. "Not yet. Let her remember. Then I'll take her back."
---
Lucien Blackthorn.
That's the name the private investigator gave her the next morning.
CEO of Blackthorn Industries. Billionaire. Mysterious. Reclusive. Feared.
And, apparently, he had vanished from the public eye two years ago after a brutal massacre at one of his estates. No one knew where he went or what happened that night. And now—he was lying in her hospital bed, under a fake name, under her care.
Elaina frowned at the report in her hands. "Why would a CEO turn up half-dead and bleeding with claw marks all over him?"
She couldn't shake the feeling from last night. The pain in his eyes. The voice that seemed to echo from another life. And most of all… the words he spoke before falling unconscious again.
"You should have stayed dead."
Dead?
She had never died.
At least… not in this life.
---
Later That Day
Elaina stepped into his room, expecting him to be asleep. But he was sitting up, fully alert, as if he'd never been unconscious at all. Still shirtless, his torso wrapped in bandages, muscles tense. Those eyes—cold, calculating—landed on her the moment she entered.
"You shouldn't be here," he said.
"Well, technically," she crossed her arms, "you shouldn't be alive."
A flicker of something passed through his gaze. Guilt? Regret?
"You're not safe around me," he muttered.
"Why? You planning to bite me?"
Lucien's lips curved, just slightly. "You're not funny."
"Wasn't trying to be."
She moved to check his pulse, but he grabbed her wrist.
There it was again—that electric pulse shooting up her arm, her chest tightening, her heart stuttering.
"Who are you?" she whispered.
Lucien looked into her eyes and for a moment… he almost told her.
But then he let go. "No one you should care about."
---
Elsewhere
In a hidden room lit only by candlelight, the man with red eyes watched Lucien through a mirror of shadows. His name was Valen. Rogue alpha. Banished. Broken.
And obsessed.
"She touched him," he growled, his voice like shattered glass.
"She's mine."
---
Back to Elaina
That night, she dreamed.
Wolves howling under a red moon. Fire in the trees. A man holding her hand, whispering her name. A kiss that felt like war and home at the same time.
She woke up breathless.
Sweating.
And aching for someone she had never truly met.
---
Lucien disappeared.
One moment he was resting, the next his bed was cold and empty. No nurse had seen him leave. No camera caught him walking out. Just the soft rustle of his hospital gown left crumpled on the floor and the faintest scent of rain and pine lingering behind.
Elaina stood there, stunned.
"This isn't possible," she whispered, scanning the room.
But deep down, she knew—he wasn't just any man. And whatever he was, he had no intention of letting her stay close.
Yet fate had other plans.
---
Two Nights Later
Elaina's shift had just ended when she saw him again.
Not at the hospital.
At the end of a quiet alley, bathed in moonlight, his shirt open and blood on his knuckles. He was leaning against a brick wall like a fallen angel made of violence and secrets.
"Lucien?"
"You need to stop looking for me," he said without turning.
"You're bleeding again," she replied, ignoring the danger in his tone. "You want to sit down or keep posing like a gothic magazine model?"
Lucien chuckled. It was the first time she heard him laugh—deep, short, bitter.
"You talk too much."
She stepped closer. "And you sulk too much."
But as soon as she reached for his arm, he grabbed her wrist again—this time tighter. His gaze pierced hers.
"Don't follow me," he growled. "Don't think you matter to me. You're not… her."
Her?
That word again.
Elaina swallowed, trying not to let the sting show. "Then why do I keep showing up in your dreams, Mr. Blackthorn?"
Lucien's expression shifted—barely—but she saw it. A flicker of panic. Of recognition.
"You remember something, don't you?" she pressed, voice softening.
His hand loosened. "No. I remember everything."
And with that, he stepped into the shadows—and vanished again.
---
Meanwhile — The Rogue Watches
Valen stood atop a rooftop, watching them like a wolf among men.
"So, he remembers. Good."
He touched a scar across his chest, the one she had given him in a different time, a different world.
"You still burn for him, Elaina. But I'll make you burn for me."
---
Back in Her Apartment
That night, Elaina looked at herself in the mirror. The woman staring back wasn't the same anymore. Something inside her had awakened—and it wasn't just curiosity.
It was longing.
It was pain.
And it was… a pull toward a man who could destroy her—or save her from a past she hadn't even remembered yet.
---