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The bond hums with approval from the tree line. Little Ember has claws.

That almost gets me. A laugh jumps in my chest so fast I have to cover it with a cough.

Hannah narrows her wet eyes. “Are you laughing at me?”

“No,” I say, which is technically true. I’m trying not to laugh at the giant cryptid hiding in the woods and live-commentating my breakup closure.

Onyx sends a dry pulse of offense. Not hiding. Watching.

You are literally in the trees.

Strategic trees.

I press my lips together and look down at the porch step like it’s suddenly fascinating. If I lose it right now, Hannah will think I’m having a breakdown, and honestly, that’s not the energy I’m trying to bring to this reunion.

She wipes at her cheeks. “Is there someone else?”

At the tree line, the temperature of the bond drops. Slowly, I look back up. “Why?”

“Because you’re different,” she says. “You’re not even looking at me the same way.”

“I’m not the same.”

Her gaze drops to my collar again. “That mark. Did someone do that to you?”

Onyx’s jealousy turns so hot and black-edged that my hand flexes at my side. She looks at my teeth on you.

I should not react to that sentence the way I do. I should absolutely not feel heat curl low through my body while standing in front of my ex-fiancée, emotionally ending the last rotten thread of my former life. But apparently, my dignity packed up somewhere around ‘hidden sheath’ two months ago and has not sent a forwarding address.

“That’s none of your business,” I say.

Hannah’s face hardens, grief slipping enough to show the anger underneath. “After everything we had, you can’t even answer me?”

“After everything we had, you lost the right to ask what’s on my skin.”

I see the words slowly hitting her—the shock, the hurt, the anger. And maybe, somewhere under all that, the understanding that this isn’t a door she can talk her way open anymore.

Onyx watches, and I feel him fighting every instinct that tells him to step out, claim me in a language Hannah would never understand, and drive the old hurt from my den by sheer force of being terrifying.

I love him a little for not doing it. The thought lands before I can stop it, and the bond flares.

Oh, hell.

I glance toward the trees before I can help it, and the bond warms around the edge of my anger. Hannah follows my gaze but sees nothing. Of course she sees nothing. Onyx chooses what humans see, and right now he wants her to feel only the shape of being watched without getting proof.

She rubs her arms as a shiver moves through her, visibly gathering herself for one more try. “Lucas, please. I came all this way. I still love you.”

“I’m sorry you’re hurtin’,” I say, and the surprising thing is that I mean it. Not enough to take responsibility, not enough to open my door, but enough to recognize pain without letting it become my leash. “I really am. But your regret isn’t my emergency. You need to go home.”

Her eyes spill over. “Lucas—”

“No,” I say gently. “I’m not yours anymore.”

The bond behind me flares.

Hannah stares at me like she’s waiting for the man she knew to step back into my body and smooth this over. He doesn’t. Maybe he never existed the way she thought he did. Maybe I spent years becoming easier to love badly.

She wipes under her eyes, then nods once, trying very hard to be dignified. “I guess that’s it, then.”