She drops to her knees beside me. Reaches for my face with trembling hands.
When her fingers touch my cheek, the emotional wall between us—the one I've maintained so carefully since the soul-binding—shatters completely.
Everything pours through the connection. Every hidden feeling. Every desperate thought I've swallowed down to give her space. The depth of love that's been consuming me since the moment I touched her in the healing chambers and drowned in her pain. The terror of losing her. The agonizing knowledge that I've hurt her so badly she might never forgive me.
All of it crashes between us with the force of breaking dams.
Serah gasps. Her amber-hazel eyes go wide as the full weight of my emotions floods through her awareness.
"Is this—" Her voice breaks. "Is this why I never felt pain? All those times you grabbed me in public and I never had bruises? What did youdo?"
Blood bubbles up my throat when I try to speak. The words come out wet and broken. "Soul-binding. Ancient magic. I tied my life to yours during the mating ceremony."
"Youwhat?"
"I hated it." The confession tears out of me. "Hated not giving you a choice about mating. Knew I did everything wrong. You were going to be hurt by others because I was waiting—waiting to ask you properly, to let you decide if you wanted me, to give you the choice I stole that night at the festival."
My chest heaves. More blood. The pain is becoming abstract—too overwhelming to process as individual injuries. Just a vast ocean of suffering that the soul-binding keeps channeling into my flesh so Serah feels nothing.
"I didn't want our mating to be another trap," I continue desperately. "Didn't want you to feel owned or controlled or forced into anything ever again. So I bound my life to yours. All your pain comes to me instead. All your suffering. Even if it kills me, you'll never have to bear it."
She's crying now. Tears streak through the dust on her face. "Why would youdothat?"
"Because I love you." The words come simple and devastating. "I love you so much it's destroying me. And I know you might never forgive me for how I humiliated you, but I needed you to have the choice about everything except staying alive. That's the one thing I'll never let you negotiate."
Her hands frame my face. Gentle despite how my blood covers her palms. "You're dying."
"Doesn't matter. You're safe. They won't touch you again. No one will touch you again."
"Rakk—"
"I'm glad they know." My vision is starting to gray at the edges. "Glad everyone saw my magic. Let them fear me. Let them understand that I'm not civilized when it comes to protecting you. If they think they can target my mate and live?—"
"Stop talking." She leans closer. "Zurkar!Zurkar!"
The shaman pushes through the crowd with Lola right behind him. Kaelen appears at my side, his amber eyes wide with barely controlled panic that mirrors what I feel emanating from Serah through our broken connection.
"Get him to the healing chambers," Zurkar snaps. "Now. Before he bleeds out."
Kaelen slides his arms beneath my shoulders. The movement sends fresh agony through my destroyed ribs. I bite back a scream that wants to tear free.
"I've got you, brother." Kaelen's voice is steady despite the fear bleeding through his words. "Stay with me."
He lifts me with surprising gentleness for someone his size. My head lolls against his shoulder. The canyon spins overhead—firelight and stone and hundreds of watching faces that range from shocked to terrified to grudgingly impressed.
They saw everything. Saw the heir lose control completely. Saw magic that belongs in ancient legends rather than modern warrior clans. Saw me kill Korr and break three others beyond repair and reduce Drogath to something hollow and destroyed.
They know what I am now. Know that beneath the jokes and the charm and the carefully maintained facade of the jovial warrior beats something ancient and merciless.
Good.
Let them know. Let them fear me. As long as they understand that Serah is protected by power they can't comprehend or defend against.
Through the haze of approaching unconsciousness, I feel her hand grip mine. The soul-binding pulses between us—weakening as my life force drains away but still channeling her terror and confusion and something that feels dangerously close to forgiveness.
Or maybe I'm just hallucinating what I desperately want to feel.
"Stay awake," Serah demands. Her voice cracks. "Rakk, please. Stay with me."
