CHAPTER 1
THE BROKEN BOND
Kaan
Four months.Four months since I've touched her like this—since she's let me close enough to breathe the same air without flinching.
I press Nesilhan against the bedchamber wall, tendrils of night encircling her wrists with desperate possession, pinning them above her head. Her back is pressed against the cold stone, but her skin radiates heat that calls to every dark instinct I possess. My mouth finds her throat, tongue tracing the pulse that hammers beneath golden skin.
"Let me in," I rasp against her neck. "Sevgilim. Just let me?—"
Her knee drives into my stomach hard enough that stars explode behind my eyes. Before I can recover, before I can even process the pain, her teeth sink into my lower lip. She bites down with savage intent, tearing through flesh until blood floods both our mouths.
The coppery taste mingles with her rage as she wrenches her head away, spitting my blood onto the marble floor between us like an offering to forgotten gods.
"Don't touch me." The words come out low, venomous. "Don't you ever fucking touch me again, you monster."
My shadows tighten involuntarily around her wrists—possessive bastards that they are—and she releases a sound that's half-scream, half-sob. I loosen my grip immediately, and the moment her hands are free, those delicate fingers I used to kiss curl into claws. She drags them down my face with enough force that I feel skin split open. Four parallel lines of fire bloom from temple to jaw.
Blood wells hot and immediate, dripping onto the collar of my shirt.
"Well," I manage, my voice rough with pain and something darker, "I see we're starting with foreplay tonight. Should I be flattered that you remember what I like?"
The joke lands wrong. Of course it does. Everything lands wrong these days.
"Monster," she spits again, and golden light begins crackling beneath her skin in waves that make my shadows recoil like whipped dogs. "You let our child die. You chose me and let our baby die, and I willneverforgive you for that.Never."
The words detonate in my chest.
For a moment, I can't breathe. Can't think. The devastation is so complete it feels physical—as if the woman I've bound myself to has reached into my ribcage and crushed what's left of my still-beating heart with her bare hands.
She immediately puts distance between us—backing away until she's across the room, as far from me as the walls allow. Her chest heaves. Tears stream down her face even as fury burns bright enough in her eyes to rival the sun itself.
I should say something. Explain. Defend myself. Tell her she has no idea what that choice cost me.
But my throat has closed around words that won't come, and suddenly I'm not standing in our bedchamber anymore.
I'm in a neutral territory tent, watching General Altín's face drain of color as he realizes how thoroughly I've outmaneuvered him. His pathetic attempt to leverage border villages against me has failed spectacularly, and the three advisors I killed are still bleeding out on the floor as a reminder.
"You conquered three villages," I'm saying, enjoying every second of his dawning horror. "I conquered seventeen military installations. You took farmers who grow wheat. I took soldiers who guard your borders. So please, General, tell me again how I should surrender my wife because you're concerned about stability?"
Zoran—Nesilhan's useless brother who I've dragged along as mediator—is cowering near the weapon rack where I threw him moments ago. The bruises forming on his throat are deeply satisfying.
Then the bond explodes.
Not gently. Not with warning. One moment I'm savoring my victory, and the next agony rips through my chest with enough force to drop me to my knees.
Terror. Hers. Pouring through our connection in waves so violent they white out my vision.
Pain. Hers. Sharp and immediate and wrong in ways that make my shadows scream.
And underneath it all, threading through every sensation like a discordant note in a familiar melody—betrayal.
I can't breathe. Can't think. Because through the bond, I feel something else. Something small and precious and terrified, reaching for me across impossible distances.
Our child.
Crying for help in ways that have no words.
