My heart hammers against ribs that feel solid again, each beat a drumroll announcing my return to the living. Power burns behind my eyes, incantations still pulsing across skin that's no longer translucent but flesh-and-blood real. The invisible crown on my brow weighs heavier here, in whatever reality I've returned to, its presence impossible to ignore even if I can't see it.
Something is inches from my face.
No—someone.
My wild, power-burning gaze focuses on features that take a moment to process: sharp cheekbones, lips curved into something between a smirk and a pout, eyes that hold the particular arrogance of someone convinced of their own superiority. He's beautiful in an irritating way—the kind of beauty that knows exactly how devastating it is and resents having to share space with anyone less aesthetically blessed.
His expression shifts from smug satisfaction to theatrical disappointment.
"Hmm," he drawls, voice carrying the boredom of someone who finds everyone around him tedious, "you have a pretty face, but could you come back to life more majestically?"
I stare at him.
My eye begins to twitch.
Memories flood back in fragments—crimson skies, shadow armies, a chalice raised high, fangs sinking into my wrist, darkness consuming everything. The bonds that connect me to others snap back into place one by one: Cassius's shadow-warmth at my neck, Atticus's blood-hunger at my wrist, Nikolai’s Fae-shimmer at my chest, Mortimer's dragon-heat at my shoulder, Zeke's frost-devotion at my rib.
Six out of seven.
My mother's words echo through my reassembling consciousness.
There’s definitely a sixth one…new…But I can’t envision where that mark is…
And now there's another connection.
Foreign. New.
Emanating from somewhere on my stomach with the particular flavor of ancient power and absolute arrogance.
The seventh.
He made his move.
"You. Did. Not..."
The words come out as croaks, my voice rough from disuse or screaming or however long I've been dead—because I was definitely dead, or close enough that the distinction feels academic.
The stranger's smirk widens despite the clear disgust in his expression, as if he finds my fury entertaining in its futility.
"Apparently, can't let you die since those douches couldn't revive your ass," he continues, gesturing vaguely at something beyond my field of vision. "Bond mates? A bunch of cluelessgroveling shifters sobbing over a woman with a resting bitch face who probably couldn't hurt a fl?—"
I don't let him finish.
Rage surges through me with the force of a wildfire finding dry kindling—rage at being bonded without consent, rage at being mocked while barely conscious, rage at this arrogant stranger who apparently saved my life and immediately started insulting me for needing saving.
My forehead connects with his face.
The impact is deeply satisfying—bone meeting bone with a crack that echoes through wherever we are. Pain blooms across my skull, sharp and immediate and totally worth it for the look of absolute shock that crosses his features before we both go down.
Darkness claims me again, but this time it's the simple darkness of unconsciousness rather than the void between life and death.
Yup...
The thought forms with vicious satisfaction as awareness fades.
...checkmate.
CHAPTER 2
