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I exhale slowly, making sure my voice stays even. Patient. Controlled.
“Luna is in the Void right now.”
Layla’s breath catches.
I nod. “She’s going after two of her bonded.”
Her brow furrows. “Bonded,” she echoes, the word foreign on her tongue.
I don’t bother softening it. “Silas and Riven. Severin took them.”
Something sharpens in her expression, something visceral and protective, and I wonder if she even realizes she’s reacting like that.
Her sister, no matter how estranged, still means something to her.
I keep going. “Lucien and the others are with her. They’ll fight to get them back. They’ll do whatever it takes.” A beat. “But Severin isn’t just a man, Layla. He’s not a creature you can reason with, not a villain you can simply defeat.”
She watches me carefully, waiting.
I give her the truth.
“He is war itself,” I say softly. “A hurricane wrapped in flesh. You do not kill a hurricane, Layla. You survive it. And the only way to survive him is to contain him.”
Her mouth presses into a thin line. She doesn’t want to ask, but I see the words forming anyway.
Why me?
I don’t wait for her to say it.
“You may not be able to.”
That throws her off. I watch her blink, as if expecting me to say the opposite.
“If you are his Binder, you will know the moment you step through the Void.” My voice stays calm, measured. “You will feel him. The same way Luna felt us.”
Layla swallows, her throat working.
I let the weight of that sink in before I add, “You won’t just feel him. You’ll feel all seven of them.”
Her breath stutters. “There are- ”
“Seven,” I confirm. “Just like us. Twisted versions of what we were before we were bound. They were left to rot in the Void, and they have not forgiven that.”
She takes a step back, as if distance will sever the reality of what I’m saying.
But it won’t.
Nothing will.
“You’re telling me,” she says slowly, “that you want me to walk into a dimension of exiled, rage-fueled, power-hungry demons just to, what? See if I’m their new keeper?”
I nod once.
She lets out a sharp, disbelieving laugh. “You’re out of your fucking mind.”
“That’s debatable,” I muse. “But you are coming with me.”