But the damage was done.
Stone was raging again — throwing himself at the barrier, claws scraping, teeth snapping at nothing. The snarls echoed off the walls, drowning out everything else.
I pressed my palm against the window.
"Stone. Stone, it's okay. They're gone. It's just me."
He didn't hear me. Or couldn't. Lost in the spiral, the peaceful moment shattered beyond repair.
I stayed for two hours, talking and humming and doing everything I could think of. But he didn't calm down. Not fully. By the time I finally left, he was still pacing, still agitated, still caught in the echo of a threat that was long gone.
I walked back to the main building in a daze.
My body was exhausted — I'd barely slept, and the adrenaline crash was hitting hard. But my mind wouldn't stop racing.
He'd slept.
Stone had actually slept while I was there. Something about my presence — my voice, my humming, the bond between us — had made him feel safe enough to let his guard down.
And then one interruption had destroyed it.
I thought about what Rae had said in the Council meeting. That I was the only one Stone responded to. That the bond between us might be the only thing keeping him from complete psychological collapse.
I'd thought she was exaggerating. Being political. Saying what needed to be said to buy us time.
Now I wasn't so sure.
My presence affected him. More than anyone had realized. More thanIhad realized.
The question was: what did I do with that?
Was it power? The ability to reach someone no one else could?
Or was it responsibility? The weight of knowing that his peace depended on me — on my presence, my consistency, my willingness to show up again and again?
Maybe both.
Maybe there was no difference.
I stopped in the middle of the corridor. Pressed my hand against the wall and let myself breathe.
The bond pulsed in my chest. Stone's end, still agitated. Cal's, grieving and hopeful. James's, warm with sleeping contentment. And Neal's—
Neal's was chaos. Want and fear and the memory of my mouth under his, all of it tangled together in a knot I couldn't untangle from here.
Four bonds. Four mates. Four people who needed different things from me.
And one deadline that was counting down whether I was ready or not.
I pushed off the wall.
Kept walking.
Tomorrow, I'd figure out how to protect Stone from interruptions. How to give him the consistency he needed to heal. How to navigate whatever had just happened with Neal without losing the fragile progress we'd made.
Chapter eighteen
Icouldn't remember the last time I'd slept in my own bed.
