No.
I froze. The voice came again. Closer now. Just around the corner near the lifts.
"—should have the final projections by Friday. The home team confirmed the readings from today matches the fragments from—"
I knew that voice.
I knew it the way I knew my own heartbeat. The cadence. The tone. The slight roughness at the edges that only appeared when he was tired.
Nathan.
My chest seized, breath catching hard. The bond scar. It had been quiet for months, an ember nearly cold. Now it flared up with a heat that had my breath catching in my throat.
No. He couldn't be here. He wasn't supposed to be here. The briefings had been compartmentalized—they'd told us we'd be working with a research team, but they'd never given us names, never shown us photos. I'd assumed... I'd hoped...
Footsteps. Coming closer.
I should move. Run. Lock myself in my room and pretend I hadn't heard anything.
I couldn't move.
Nathan stepped around the corner.
He saw me at the same instant I saw him. He looked exactly the same. Dark hair, sharp features, the kind of controlled posture that came from always being watched, always being in charge. He wore dark trousers and a grey sweater, sleeves pushed to his elbows. Practical. Professional. Devastatingly familiar.
And behind him was Megan. She looked different. Hair shorter, styled differently but still immaculate. But her eyes were the same—sharp, assessing, and when they landed on me, something flickered across her face. Surprise. Recognition. Maybe guilt. Maybe nothing at all.
The bond scar flared white-hot and the world rushed back in like a dam breaking, and it was agony.
Every nerve ending I'd thought was dead lit up at once. My lungs burned. My vision blurred. The magic in my chest—the borrowed power I'd barely been able to feel for weeks—surged violently, pressing against my ribs like it wanted out.
Nathan's expression shifted. The professional mask cracked—just for a second, just enough for me to see the shock beneath it. His eyes widened. His lips parted. He took half a step back, as if I'd struck him.
Then the mask slammed back into place.
"Ellie," he said. Just my name. Flat. Controlled. Like we were colleagues who hadn't seen each other in a while. Like he hadn'tripped our bond apart with his bare hands and walked away while I was still bleeding.
I opened my mouth. Nothing came out. Two years. Two years since he'd looked me in the eye and told me the bond was a mistake. That he couldn't—wouldn't—accept it. That I wasn't what he needed. Two years since I'd felt my soul crack down the middle as the rejection tore through me, severing something that was supposed to be permanent, sacred, unbreakable.
He'd broken it anyway.
And now he was standing six feet away from me in a hotel hallway in Poland, and my treacherous, stupid body was reaching for him. The bond scar pulsed like a second heartbeat, raw and desperate, as if the dead tissue remembered what it had been and was trying to grow back.
Megan stood slightly behind him, her posture perfect, her face carefully blank. She was watching me the way you'd watch an animal you weren't sure was dangerous. Calculating. Cautious. Her hand rested on Nathan's arm, a subtle claim on her property. My heart tightened at the sight of her hands on him. The man who was supposed to be mine.
"You're on the team," Nathan said. Not a question. His jaw tightened. "You're one of the carriers."
"Nathan," I said. I couldn’t manage anything else, but my voice stayed steady.
Megan stepped forward, and I saw the discomfort in her posture, the way she didn't quite meet my eyes.
"We didn't know you'd be—" She hesitated. "It's good to see you. You're one of the carriers?"
"Yes."
Something crossed her face. Too fast to read. "That's... that takes courage."
I almost laughed. Courage. That's what she thought this was.
