“I need time,” she says finally. “I need space to think. I can’t be near you right now—I can’t separate what’s real from what the bond is making me feel.”
“I understand.”
“Don’t follow me. Don’t watch me through your crystals.” Her voice hardens. “Give me that much, at least. After everything you’ve taken, give me the space to decide what happens next.”
I want to refuse. Want to drag her back to our chambers and remind her body what it craves, override her objections with pleasure until she forgets why she’s angry. That’s who I am. That’s who I’ve always been.
But I look at her—this fierce, broken, magnificent woman I spent sixteen years creating—and I find I can’t.
“The east wing,” I say. “There are private chambers there, far from mine. The servants will bring you whatever you need. I won’t come unless you summon me.”
She nods once, sharp and final. Then she turns and walks out of the prophecy chamber.
I stay where I am, surrounded by ancient stone and older magic, feeling her move through the fortress like a blade working its way toward my heart.
Sixteen years of manipulation.
Three weeks of something that felt almost real.
And now I wait to see if the omega I built from scratch will choose to stay with the monster who made her.Chapter 21: Hannah
I take a room on the far side of the fortress.
It’s small—servant’s quarters, really—but it’s as far from Karax’s chambers as I can get without leaving Stone Court entirely. The bond stretches between us like a wire pulled taut, humming with distance and pain, but I can think here. Can breathe without his scent clouding my judgment.
The first night is agony.
I lie awake in the narrow bed, staring at the stone ceiling, and feel the bondpunishingme for the separation. It starts as an ache—a hollow wrongness in my chest, like something vital has been carved out. But as the hours pass, it gets worse.
My skin starts to burn.
Not literally—there’s no fever, no visible inflammation—but every nerve ending feels raw, exposed, screaming for contact that isn’t coming. I kick off the blankets because they feel like sandpaper. I tear off my clothes because even soft cotton is unbearable against my flesh.
And still the burning gets worse.
By midnight, I’m curled in a ball on the bare mattress, shaking and sweating and biting my lip bloody to keep from screaming. The bond throbs like an infected wound, demanding I go back, demanding I crawl to him on my hands and knees and beg him to make it stop.
I don’t.
I won’t.
But god, it hurts. It hurts so fucking much.
The second day, the nausea starts.
I can’t keep anything down. Every time I try to eat, my stomach revolts, rejecting food like my body has decidedsustenance from any source excepthimis poison. I drink water and throw it up. I try bread and it comes back bloody.
The servants who bring my meals look at me with pity.
“It’s the bond sickness,” one of them whispers to another, not realizing I can hear. “Happens when omegas separate from their alphas. Most don’t last a week.”
I want to scream at her. Want to demand to know why no one warned me, why no one told me that leaving him would feel like dying by inches. But I don’t have the strength. My voice comes out as a croak, and the servants exchange worried glances as they retreat.
Through the bond, I feel Karax’s anguish. He knows what’s happening to me. He’s fighting the urge to come, to force me to accept his presence, to end my suffering whether I want him to or not.
He stays away.
I hate him for that almost as much as I hate him for everything else.
