“There are lines you don’t cross,” he said. “And I crossed one by letting myself touch her.”
The air around him crackled—wrong, unstable, the way lightning behaves before it shatters into a storm.
Nathan snarled, “Just admit the bond chose your unworthy ass, and we’ll go from there.”
“No.” His laugh was cold. Sharp. A sound meant to cut. “It didn’t chooseme. It chose the illusion.”
Zeke’s eyes narrowed. “Illusion?”
Torren’s gaze shifted away, jaw tightening—then the bond slammed through both of us again. The cracked crown flared as if it were tearing open. Pain shot through my chest.
And Torren?—
He stumbled.
A strangled sound tore from his throat, half fury, half something dangerously close to grief.
He spat the words like venom: “I SAID NO!”
The air distorted.
His form blurred.
White-blond hair darkened—melting into ink-black. Shoulder-length became waist-length. Hazel eyes bled into anemerald so vivid it glowed. His face sharpened—aristocratic angles, the kind that made you want to step back… or step closer.
His entire posture changed.
Cold.
Commanding.
Elegance refined through cruelty.
He looked so similar to Oren that I felt my breath catch.
Oren appeared stunned, but not in the same way as the others—there was no fear or shock, or perhaps notonlyshock.
Recognition.
“Uncle?” The word tore out of him, hoarse, disbelieving.
Nathan snapped his head toward him. “What?”
Oren didn’t look at us. He couldn’t take his eyes off the man in front of us.
“That’s Trent Storm,” he whispered. “My father’s brother. The one who vanished during the war.”
The blood drained from Zane’s face. Zeke tensed, frost crawling up his arms. Jet looked like he wanted to rip the world apart.
Me?
I stared at the stranger who now wore my mark. And he stared right back—no hesitation, no fear, no hiding.
Only cruelty.
And something else.
Something he couldn’t kill, no matter how hard he tried.
