I looked at him.
The same marks bloomed across his left temple. Identical to mine. Silver-blue branches spreading down his neck, disappearing under his collar. The pattern was complex, beautiful in a terrible way, like someone had captured a lightning strike mid-formation and burned it into living skin.
His eyes had gone fully electric blue. No silver anymore. Just crackling energy looking back at me with an intelligence that made my stomach do a complicated twist that was part terror, part wonder.
"What—" His voice came out rough. The electric undertone was stronger now, resonating with something in my chest.
The bond mark pulsed. I felt it echo in his temple. Felt his reaction to feeling mine. The feedback loop was dizzying.
He stared at me. At the marks on my temple. At his own marked hand.
His expression shifted through several emotions too fast for me to track. Shock. Calculation. Something that looked almost like satisfaction. Then that razor-sharp intelligence I'd seen from the crowd locked into place.
"Well," he said, and there was something in his voice that hadn't been there before. Recognition. Understanding. Maybe amusement, though that seemed impossible. "This is unprecedented."
The crowd was screaming. Running. Scattering away from the platform where two people had just been struck by lightning from a clear sky. Someone was shouting for healers. Someone else was shouting about dragons.
Dragons.
Oh. Oh no.
This man wasn't an entertainer. Wasn't a wealthy merchant demonstrating innovations.
He was the Storm Lord. He was Zephyron.
He was the Dragon Master I'd come to warn.
And I'd just accidentally bonded with him in front of hundreds of witnesses.
"The apostate must return to face judgment!" Brother Torum's voice cut through the chaos. Close now. Too close.
Zephyron's head turned toward the approaching hunters. His eyes narrowed. I felt his assessment of them through the bond—threat analysis happening faster than thought. His hand tightened on my wrist, not painful but absolutely secure.
He pulled me to my feet with surprising gentleness, putting himself between me and the hunters in the same smooth movement. The bond mark pulsed again, stronger. I could feel his certainty. His protection. His immediate, absolute conviction that nothing was going to touch me.
"Well," he said again, and this time I heard the edge in his voice. The thunder underneath the words. "If you're my mate, these gentlemen are about to have a very bad day."
Brother Torum, Sister Vesla, and Brother Kayne stopped at the platform's edge. Their obsidian blades gleamed black against the morning light.
Brother Torum spoke, his voice carrying the formal ritual cadence I'd learned years ago: "High Priestess Thalia Fordring, you are called to return and answer for your apostasy. The Unnamed requires—"
"The Unnamed requires nothing." Zephyron's voice cracked like thunder. The bond mark flared. I felt power gathering around him, responding to his will. "The Storm Master, however, requires you to leave. Immediately."
Sister Vesla's eyes went wide. "The bond—but she's—Lord Zephyron, that woman is a heretic, a murderer—"
"That woman," Zephyron said softly, "is my fated mate. Your concerns are noted and dismissed. Now, leave."
His free hand moved to the back of my neck. I felt his fingers press gently against my spine, right where the tracking shards were embedded. His expression sharpened.
"Interesting," he murmured. "Obsidian shards in your cervical vertebrae. That's why they found you so quickly."
"How can you—" My voice came out broken.
"Electrical impulses." His thumb brushed the spot. "I can feel them in your nervous system. Including the rather impressive amount of information you have carved into your back." His eyes met mine. "Painful way to transport intelligence."
The hunters moved forward.
Zephyron's eyes flashed pure silver.
