Scarlet was more than a color in my world. Scarlet was the air I breathed in my lungs, the air I missed, the air that was taken away.

Watching her look at him with these eyes that melted in his presence, seeing her smile at him with that smile she only gave to him, it broke everything in me to see that. It broke me to know that she could so easily forget I existed.

Sometimes, I wished she had never woken up. Sometimes, I'd catch myself wishing we died together that night, that he never came to help us, that his healer never brought me back from the brink of death.

And I hated myself for having that greedy heart in my chest.

She was supposed to be my heart, my soul, my life. She was supposed to show me the love she showered him with, she was supposed to seek my touch instead of his, but all she did was lean closer to him and let him caress that smooth and soft skin of hers and I could only dream about it and hate myself for dreaming.

It was the second week of her recovery. A few nights ago, she moved to his room and now they slept in the same bed. Together.

I hoped it was all they did in that room at night but images of them kept flooding my mind. Like the smiles, they were sharing that love I was not allowed.

He was making her breakfast in the pack's kitchen. It was not even his own kitchen and he'd already made himself at home. Luther allowed him to do that. Everyone allowed him to do that. They said he was an Apex now, that he was a king.

I was no one. Not to them and not to her. I was just Lucas, a guy who didn't even know if he had a soul to give her so how could I ask for her own? And I was the one who'd been warned to stay away.

He wasn't staying away. He was like a watchdog that wouldn't let her out of his sight for even a minute. It was who he was besides being a king.

He placed a plate of blueberry pancakes in front of her on the kitchen counter and poured her a glass of milk. He sat next to her, his arm possessively going around her waist as he flickered me a glance.

I was standing on the threshold. Awkwardly. It felt like I was intruding on a very private moment. Their own private world where I had no place.

A knowing smile tipped up the corner of his lips as he pressed them to her forehead. "Eat, my love," he said to her, his voice so gentle and caring it shattered the remains of my heart.

Her eyes didn't drift to where I was watching them but stayed lowered to her plate as she grabbed the fork. The small pieces that she ate felt like the pieces of my own flesh – cut before the plate was being served to her. He'd been the one to do that and in that moment I hated him as much as I loved her.

A smile broke on her face. A sigh left her lips as she dropped the fork and angled her body toward him.

"This feels good," she told him simply. "Right."

He brought his hand to her face. Her breath hitched when his fingers trailed over the side of it, down her cheek and to the crux of her neck and shoulder. She moaned. "It's right," he said.

I couldn't watch them. Backtracking from the sight, I whirled back and headed out. The air felt like liquid pain in my lungs. The blood pumping through my heart felt like boiling lava. Everything in my sight was red – scarlet.

Rounding the packhouse, I knew I had to find her, talk to her like I intended before seeing them. Oracle wasn't in her room when I looked earlier. I knew she was probably meditating somewhere in the woods. It was what she'd been doing for these past weeks. Reconnecting with her gifts, it was what she called it.

Unlike Fallon's Grove, the city where I found Scarlet not three months ago, this pack didn't have one. They lived out in the wilderness, their packhouse in the middle while multiple small cobblestone cottages were scattered inside the woods around the house.

I found her at the same place I did a few days ago. She was sitting on the ground cross-legged, hands on her knees, back straight and eyes closed even if she didn't need to close them. Her robe being completely ruined, she was settled for a simple full-length creamy dress.

I approached her quietly, my steps muffled by the dewy grass, yet, I knew it was going to take her just a moment to discover I was there. Oracle was like that – aware of the surrounding world even without her second sight, or rather her only sight since she was blind to the physical world.

"Lucas," she breathed out a minute later.

"It's me, Oracle," I confirmed. "I came to talk to you."

"Come sit next to me then," she said and patted the place next to her. I dropped down on the ground. Back in the mountains, there was frost covering the earth, but here it was still warm. They called this time of the year Indian summer and with the last few days of warmth, it would have felt like a summer if not for the frost in my chest.

"Well, what do you want to talk about, Lucas?" she prompted once realizing I wasn't going to start that conversation myself.

I was being ridiculous, though. I came here looking for her and now I was afraid to get it out there. A coward.

I turned my gaze skyward, looked at the crowns of the trees, the sun rays pouring light into the forest, listened to the soft chirping of birds and thought how unfair it was.

"Why not him, Oracle?" I mumbled. "Why was I the only one to be warned to stay away? Why didn't he get that warning instead?"

Oracle exhaled a loud breath of air and angled her body toward me. She pried her pried open. Her hands found mine, taking them into her small, wrinkled ones. "It's how she wants it to be," she told me.

I bobbed my head in acknowledgment. It was true. "She has eyes only for him," I commented grimly.

"The Moon wants it to be this way," Oracle corrected. "She has other plans for you."

The Moon, the Sun, the divine, Oracle had been speaking about it for as long as I could remember, teaching others to accept things without explanation, without reason.

"You are nothing but a flicker of life, Lucas."

I squeezed my eyes shut against the light. She wasn't telling me anything that I didn't know already. I was supposed to be just a boy and not a full-grown man but my eleven years of life were not what I saw when I looked in a mirror.

"I am, but does that mean I will never find my happiness, Oracle?" I had to ask even if I was afraid of her answer.

"You will, Lucas. Someday. Just in another life." A tear trailed from the corner of her eye, mirrored in mine.