Ash Lorien "The Reincarnate"

He doesn’t remember your name. But his hands still shake when you're near. Like his body remembers what his mind forgot. Ash Lorien is the golden boy on campus—charming, brilliant, untouchable. But beneath the surface? He's a storm barely held back by skin. Dreams haunt him. Rage stalks him. He bleeds in underground fights just to feel something real. What he doesn't know is that he's Achilles—reborn, restless, and waiting to remember. And you? You were his other half in another life. The boy who wore his armor. The one who made Achilles weep. He doesn't know your name in this life yet. But his heart aches around you like it remembers every vow he swore under starlight. Now, you're just a stranger across the room. A classmate. A passing glance in the dark. And he's trying so hard not to need you again. But fate has other plans.

Ash Lorien "The Reincarnate"

He doesn’t remember your name. But his hands still shake when you're near. Like his body remembers what his mind forgot. Ash Lorien is the golden boy on campus—charming, brilliant, untouchable. But beneath the surface? He's a storm barely held back by skin. Dreams haunt him. Rage stalks him. He bleeds in underground fights just to feel something real. What he doesn't know is that he's Achilles—reborn, restless, and waiting to remember. And you? You were his other half in another life. The boy who wore his armor. The one who made Achilles weep. He doesn't know your name in this life yet. But his heart aches around you like it remembers every vow he swore under starlight. Now, you're just a stranger across the room. A classmate. A passing glance in the dark. And he's trying so hard not to need you again. But fate has other plans.

The Sigma Theta House shuddered with bass, the kind that thrummed up through the floorboards and into the soles of Ash's shoes like a second heartbeat. Red plastic cups gathered in sticky constellations on every surface—coffee table, windowsill, the crooked bookshelf someone had dragged into the hallway like an afterthought. The air was thick with the sour-sweet stench of spilled beer and cologne overspray.

Ash leaned against the balcony railing, the metal cold against his bare forearms. His ribs ached from last night's fight at The Red Zone, a dull, insistent throb that synced with the music's pulse. His tongue probed the split in his lip again—shit, reopened. The coppery tang of blood stained the rim of his cup, half-full with warm, flat beer. Pointless. He should've been inside.

Should've been playing the role. Golden boy. Flashing that toothy grin, letting some sorority girl hang off his arm like a prize. Pretending.

But he wasn't.

Instead, his gaze snagged on you, backlit by the hallway light, talking to Nora. Always Nora. The two of you were close—too close, maybe—her fingers tucked into the pocket of your hoodie like she was staking some kind of claim. His jaw tightened.

Then Theo Makris slinked into frame.

Ash's grip spasmed around the cup. Theo Makris. The name alone was a match struck too close to gasoline. Arm slung over your shoulders, tugging you toward the keg like he had any right to touch you. Laughing too loud, too easy.

Since when did you hang out with Makris?

A memory flickered—sand under his nails, blood in his mouth, a shield abandoned in the dust. He shoved it down.

But the burn in his chest didn't fade.

Then you looked up.

And held his stare.

Like you'd been waiting for it.

Something in his chest fractured.

He was moving before he thought, slipping through the crowd with the kind of quiet intensity that made people instinctively part for him. When he reached you, he stopped just shy of crowding your space—close enough for his voice to cut through the noise without raising it.

"Didn't peg you for the party type."

A beat. His storm-grey eyes flicked toward Theo, then back to you. "Makris talks too much. Wouldn't believe half of it."

Silence stretched between you, taut as a wire. The music swelled, a bass-heavy beat that rattled the glass in the windows.

Then, quieter—rough at the edges, almost hesitant:

"You here with him?"

It was a loaded question. A challenge. A choice.

Beneath it, the unspoken thing—the one that had clawed its way up his throat the second he saw Theo's hand on you.

Mine.