“Hanna…”
And the bond answered. Quiet, tender and very much alive.I bowed my head.
“I’m not allowed to want this,” I breathed. “I’m not allowed to wantyou.”
But the truth sat heavy in the dim workshop, in the embers and in the faint wildflower-scent she’d left behind. Wanting her was theonlything I did without effort.
I stayed on the floor until dawn bled into through the glass, whispering her name into my shaking hands, hoping the wind would swallow it before fate heard me.
It didn’t.
The nightmare returned the next night. Not as vivid—not fire and death and the hollowed ghost of my father—but heavy enough to anchor its claws into my chest.
I was lying in my bed, staring at the ceiling. I’d covered the windows with the blinds that were designed to block out most of the light, with a few inches left open to let in the moonlight.
And I dreamt of losing someone. But it wasn’t my mother or my father this time. It wasn’t anything about the past. Instead, it was about...
Her.
I saw Hanna walking away. Not toward her parents’ car, nottoward danger—just… away. Further and further until the bond stretched thin enough to ache.
“No,” I murmured in my sleep. I could hear myself, distantly.
My hand twitched toward my chest, longing to reach our bond and ease the pain, but in the dream, she kept moving and the bond kept fading.
“Hanna—wait—”
My fingers curled in the empty air, reaching for something that wasn’t there. The bond pulsed weakly and my throat tightened. A rough sound tore from me—half-groan, half-plea.
“Hanna…”
And in the dream, it felt like she turned. Just a little bit in my direction. Just enough to keep me alive.But reality wasn’t so kind. My hand lifted off the mattress, reaching and searching.
I didn’t wake up. Not yet.My fingers closed around nothing but air. I held it like it was her hand—held it like my life depended on it.
“Hanna,” I breathed again, this time softer, almost tender.
The bond shimmered faintly—like a pulse under a blanket, muffled but still there. My face relaxed into something unguarded—a softness I would never permit awake.And just when my dreaming body stilled, a sound came from the door of my bedroom.
A soft step. A caught breath. A whisper I didn’t hear.
Hanna.
I could see her even though I was certain she wasn’t there, and my eyes were probably closed. She’d felt the pull again and she stood just outside my bedroom door, hand pressed to her own heart, breath shaking in the dark.
She didn’t knock and she didn’t speak.She just stood there, feeling me reach for her in a dream I wasn’t supposed to have. She was feeling the bond deepen by the minute and knowing—even if I didn’t yet—
That part of me already belonged to her.
Chapter 24
Hanna
He whispered my name again. Not loud or desperate. Just a soft sound.Yearning in a way he wouldneverallow himself to while awake.
“Hanna…” he whispered, his lips barely forming the word, but the sound reaching my ear as if he’d screamed it.
My chest squeezed so tightly I had to cover my mouth to keep from making a sound. I’d never heard him like that.
