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“So, we’re still mated.” I don’t phrase it as a question for fear he’ll answer with a decline.

“Technically, yes.” Lower lip pulled between his teeth, Silas gazes at the cloudy sky.

“Technically?” My shoulder is hurting, but I’m ready to shove him off the logs if he doesn’t speak. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

“That it takes more to sever a gods-given bond than clearing away the mark of one partner.”

A sigh sweeps from my lips—relief? Confusion? I’m not sure. It’s something other than the numbness that’s been dominating me for the past days. But the knowledge that there’s still a bond between Myron and me doesn’t feel as soothing as it should. “Then why can’t I feel him?” I avert my eyes as if theCrow King himself were sitting next to me. “I can’t even look at him.” The admission tears a hole in my heart. The most beautiful male in the world, and I can’t bear the sight of him.

“They burned away your mate mark. Your body is in shock.”

It feels more like I don’t have a body at all.

“It will take a while before you go through the stages of un-mating, even when you’re not technically un-mated.” When I throw him a questioning glance, he specifies, “They used to do that on occasion, the ancient Crows, before the curse, when they were unhappy with a pair.” Without warning, Silas reaches for the collar of his shirt and pulls the sticky fabric over his head.

“What are you?—”

“Look.” He lifts his right arm over his head, angling his body so I can see the inside of his bulging bicep.

It’s a tiny scar, roughly the size of a Tavrasian silver coin, but it’s clearly a burn mark.

“I was a young male. A hundred and ten perhaps. She was about three hundred years older. Her family didn’t approve, so they came for us in the night and tied us to a post when we fought for our lives. We thought they’d come to kill us. That would have been more merciful than what they did.” He gives a bitter laugh. “Turned out they only wanted the bond broken.”

I don’t breathe, terrified of whatever he’d share and terrified he’d stop if I interrupted him.

“It took me a solid seven years to start talking afterward. Dahlia never recovered.” He lowers his head. “She went into the waters and never returned.”

My heart is breaking, cracking wide open for the sarcastic warrior whose side I’ve fought at, whom I’ve feared and hated. Who’s become a friend just like Clio and Tori.

“I’m sorry.”

Silas lowers his arm, fingers locking around the handle of his hatchet so hard his knuckles turn white. “After ten years, I started noticing every female’s tits and spent a solid decade fucking my way through Neredyn.” His eyes wander to his bare chest then to me as if to remind me of the way I’d ogled his muscles earlier.

“I’m not going to?—”

“Of course, you won’t. Your body merely thinks you’re no longer mated. It’s fast-tracking through the un-mating process until you find the leftovers of your mating bond.” The ‘obviously’ is something he doesn’t need to add. “They tried to separate more pairs than you can imagine in the old days, out of spite, for sport, politics, jealousy. Not all Crows were as valiant as Myron and Royad. Our people were uncivilized brutes, and the gods had a point to curse us.”

I don’t ask the crimes he committed. It’s enough that I know about Herinor. For now, I’m just grateful that I still have a piece of Myron within me.

“What can I do? Will I start randomly climbing males?” Because I honestly don’t want that. I want Myron. And I want to be able to look him in the eye and see that there is more than the emptiness devouring me from the inside.

That costs Silas a barked laugh. “If you do, I’d love to be there to see Myron tear the poor male’s head off—and other body parts.”

“Not helping.”

Silas’s face turns serious again, but his eyes are still dancing with humor at the thought of me rubbing myself against a male and Myron dismembering one for it. I don’t care. If this is a known process, I need to understand what to expect and make sure I don’t do all the things Silas said he did.

“It’s the way of nature to make sure we carry on if our mate is taken forcefully. It puts us back on the market.”

The pause that follows is heavy and loaded with unspoken truths of his past, all those things he’s been locking in behind a fence of sarcasm and snide, grumbled comments. This male isn’t the cold-hearted warrior I believed him to be; he’s a victim and a survivor, and he’s learned to hide his pain so well the world believes him to be a monster while he grins and lets them.

“Does it ever hurt any less?”

All humor is gone as he meets my gaze. “It never stops hurting. But that’s me.” His throat bobs. “You and Myron have a future ahead. You merely need time for the wounds to heal. And I mean that literally.” Without warning, he pokes the edge of my bandages, pressing the fabric into the open injury. “Your mind is stronger than you believe. A bond is not only in flesh; it’s in your mind as much as it is in your soul. All you need to do is face it.”

“And byit, you meanhim?” The thought alone makes my knees go weak.

“How did you guess.” Silas gets to his feet, ready to march off, but I’m not done.