But I feel it. Brands searing into skin that’s seen too much already, claiming space where bonds form and promises are written in magic and blood.
My ankles ignite next. Same sensation—shackles, burning, binding. The kind of pain that bypasses thought and goes straight to instinct.
I’ve felt hunger before. Centuries of it. The gnawing emptiness that comes from going too long between feedings, the sharp desperation when it gets bad enough to cloud judgment. This isn’t that.
This is different. This isher.
My vision fractures—silver edges going static like a signal cutting out. The world tilts sideways and suddenly I’m not standing anymore, I’m on my knees on cold stone that smells like moss and old water and something older than both.
The bond screams.
Not metaphorically. Not quietly. It tears through my chest like something trying to claw its way out, broadcasting distress so loud I can’t think past it. Can’t breathe past it.
She’s not here. She’s not safe. She’s hurting.
Then something shifts. A shiver races up my spine that has nothing to do with cold or fear. Heat follows—sudden, liquid arousal that definitely isn’t mine. The sensation is so foreign, so completelyher, that for a moment I’m disoriented by feeling desire while drowning in pain.
Bree.
She’s alive. Conscious. And whatever’s happening to her right now is complicated enough that her body can still want even while she’s trapped.
The realization steadies me somehow, even as the pain continues. She’s fighting. She hasn’t given up.
Somewhere, Bree is suffering. And I’m feeling the echo of it carved into my bones.
My knees hit the ground, palms scraping on stone as I try to keep myself upright. Fail. The hunger surges—not for blood, not forsustenance, but forher. For the connection that’s supposed to run both ways but right now only broadcasts terror and isolation and wrongness so complete it makes my own emptiness feel like a mercy.
Somewhere through the haze of pain, I register footsteps. Running.
Stellan.
He drops to his knees beside me, hands immediately moving to steady—one on my shoulder, the other catching my arm before I can collapse completely. His touch is warm, solid, grounding in a way that cuts through some of the static.
“Thane.” His voice is sharp with urgency I’ve never heard from him before. “What’s happening?”
I try to answer. Can’t. The bond is too loud, drowning out everything except its insistent message:Wrong. She’s not here. Find her. Wrong.
“Your wrists,” Stellan says, voice sharp with alarm.
I follow his gaze down. Red marks are appearing on my skin—angry, raised welts encircling both wrists like shackles branded into flesh. As I watch, they darken, spreading up my forearms in thin lines.
“Burns,” Stellan breathes. “How is this happening?”
I manage to gasp out through the pain: “Ankles too.”
He shifts immediately, and I feel his hands on my legs, hear his sharp intake of breath. “Same marks. Thane, what—”
“I don’t know.” The words come out broken. “Bree. I feel—she’s—”
Another wave of burning cuts off whatever I was trying to say.
He doesn’t waste time on more questions. Just adjusts his grip, studies my face with that clinical intensity that would be unsettling if I wasn’t currently being torn apart from the inside.
“It’s the bond,” he says quietly. Not a question. A conclusion.
I manage a nod. Breathing is hard. Thinking is harder.
“She’s not here.” Stellan’s gray eyes are sharp, certain. “The real one. You’re still connected to her, and she’s—” He stops. Reassesses. “Where is she?”
