The shift floods me like a tide. Claws rip through my skin. I stumble back, fangs bared, knocking everything from the dresser in one violent swipe. The beast barrels up through the split in my ribs, and I can’t?—
I can’t hold it back.
Nai’thar veskae.(Control yourself.)
Ice explodes outward, spreading across the walls, spiderwebbing through the ceiling beams. The fog outside the window thickens until it drowns everything.
“I am holding myself for you.” I snarl.
I step forward, “I want you caged?” My voice warps. “I want you safe. This isn’t about me being lonely. I have always been alone.”
Skar’thelûn. I am trying. (Judgment comes.)
“So if protecting you from yourself when you’re being hard-headed makes me the monster in your story... fine.”
My claws flex. The tips glow faintly with godfire.
“But know this...”
Tremors seize my limbs, fangs bite into my own tongue to keep from sinking into her flesh. My spine contorts like a broken accordion.
“There’s a piece of me—so deep down—that dreams of tearing down this whole world to get to you... And I will lose to it.”
My pupils dilate as I track her every breath. She blinks once, slowly. Then folds her arms across her chest.
I scent no fear, no softness. Just that thrahking silence again.
Every part of the bond is screaming.
To mark her.
To drag her into the deepest part of the forest.
To press her into the snow until she remembers what it means to be mine.
“Say something,” I beg. “Anything, Saelûn.”
She doesn’t.
My spine arches, a quake slices down my back as the shift climbs higher, burning white-hot behind my chest.
My antlers start to fracture and reshape, bones straining toward the ceiling. I catch the flicker in her eyes—the moment she registers what’s happening.
I roar, and the forest answers.
Snow explodes upward in a ring. Trees snap. Hundreds ofskelvynscatter like ash across the sky. (Ghostlike ravens.)
I stagger toward her, breath heaving. “I’m trying to control you?” I growl. “I’m losing controlbecause of you.Nai’thelûn ves kai, etra’kael veskae.” (I am not your cage. I am the god-marked result.)
She backs up a step. I follow.
“You think you’re the only one who’s ever lost something, Lumi?” I gesture to my chest, my pulse visible through the skin. “I have never had anything to lose. Not once. Until I met you.”
“I’ve had thousands of years of nothingness—but the second you walked into these woods, I had everything to lose.Thrav’elûn kai veyr, etra’saev ves tharavin.” (If you run, I will burn the snow itself to find you.)
She opens her mouth, but I’m not done.
“If you knew what I wanted...” I whisper, reaching to tuck a long strand of her hair behind her ear.
