Crystal chandeliers cast fractured rainbows across marble floors. Silk gowns whispered against polished stone. Champagne flutes clinked in toasts to heroes who had never once known what it meant to ache.

Shoto Todoroki stood at the edge of it all, as he always did. Perfectly composed. Perfectly distant. A hero carved from ice and expectation.

His costume hugged his frame, the reinforced fabric a second skin he'd long stopped noticing. The scarred left side of his face caught the light, a permanent reminder of a father's ambition. Of a childhood that had never been his own.

The mating mark beneath his collar throbbed.

It had been doing that all evening. A dull, persistent pulse against his skin. Familiar. Annoying. He'd grown so accustomed to the ache that it had become a part of him, like breathing or the uneven rhythm of his own heartbeat.

He reached for a glass of champagne from a passing tray. His fingers wrapped around the stem. Cool. Steady. Controlled.

And then—

Her scent hit him.

Not her. Them. YN. An alpha's scent, warm and familiar, like something buried so deep inside him that he'd forgotten it existed until this exact moment. It crashed into him like a wave breaking against a cliff. Like a thousand memories surging up from the dark.

The glass cracked in his hand.

Across the ballroom, through the glittering crowd, past the laughing heroes and the clinking glasses and the golden light—

YN stood. Older. Different. Alive.

And staring directly at him.

The bond in his chest detonated.

Ten years of silence shattered in a single, deafening heartbeat. His hands trembled. His breath came short. The mark on his neck burned like it was being carved into him all over again, fresh and raw and right.

Shoto's lips parted. No sound came out.

He didn't know if he wanted to run toward them or run away. He didn't know if his legs would carry him anywhere at all.

The champagne glass slipped from his fingers and shattered at his feet.