“Elowen Virel,” a guard announces, his voice heavy with the false authority of a man who believes himself justified. “By order of the council, you are to come with us.”
Her heartbeat stumbles. The bond tightens painfully.
“I know why you’re here,” she says.
Her voice is calm. The kind of calm people force into their tone when they know they cannot fight.
“We’re not here to argue,” the guard replies. “You’ll come quietly.”
A pause follows. The air itself seems to hold its breath.
“I have no intention of resisting,” she says.
The words twist through the bond like barbed wire. They are holding something in front of them. Rope. The realization slams into me with cold, murderous clarity. They intend to bind her.
Heat surges beneath my skin. The ground beneath my feet blackens slightly as his power stirs restlessly through my veins, eager for release.
Threx.
Her voice reaches me through the bond. Not spoken. Felt. A quiet, desperate command that threads through the storm of emotion between us.
Do not kill them.
My jaw tightens hard enough that bone creaks beneath the strain. Four men stand inside my mate’s home with rope in their hands. And she is asking for restraint. Inside, the guards step closer.
“We’re doing this for everyone’s safety,” one of them mutters.
The rope loops around her wrists. The moment the coarse fibers tighten against her skin, the bond erupts.
Fear spikes all-consumingly through the tether, a sharp crack of panic that makes the infernal current explode through mybody like lightning through dry timber. Outside, the air around the cottage grows suddenly hotter.
The guards begin pulling her toward the door.
“Move.”
She stumbles once. The stumble is small, barely noticeable. But I feel the jolt of helplessness that follows it. The kind of helplessness the bond was created to answer.
And then?—
The crowd shifts.
Lanterns bob in the darkness beyond the yard as villagers press closer to watch. A shape pushes forward from the gathering.
Ravik Keld. I know him instantly. His anger burns through the bond even before I see his face.
“You think tying her hands fixes this?” he spits.
The guards barely react before he steps forward. And strikes her. The sound of his hand hitting her face cuts through the night like a gunshot.
Her head snaps sideways. For one frozen heartbeat, the world stops.
Then terror detonates. The bond explodes with a force that nearly drops me to one knee.
Pure terror floods through the tether, uncontrolled and absolute. Every defense she built, every careful breath she practiced, every ounce of discipline she forced into herself over the past days shatters instantly beneath the violence of that moment.
Demon power answers. The cottage erupts. Flame blasts outward through the walls in a savage roar, splintering wood and shattering glass in a shockwave of white-gold fire. Lanterns explode in the yard as heat tears through the air like a living storm.
The guards scream. The rope around her wrists ignites and disintegrates into ash. And I am no longer in the trees. Infernal manifestation is not subtle. They had whispered about a demon for days. They had named shadows, blamed fire, and stared at symbols they could not explain. But rumor is one thing. A horned creature unfolding from darkness in full view of the village is another.
