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JACKSON

L io hugs me before he leaves.

It’s awkward. Quick. A little tight for someone with blood on their shoes and a haunted look in their eyes. But it’s real.

“You don’t get it,” he mutters against my chest. “No one’s ever fought for me before. Not like that.”

“You didn’t exactly give us a choice,” I say, managing a small grin. “You brought a Black Sun goon right to our doorstep.”

He pulls back, cheeks flushed. “Yeah, sorry about that.”

I hand them a burner phone. “Call us if you hear anything—anything at all. People talk around shifters, especially young ones. They think you don’t matter.”

“I do now,” he says.

“Damn right.”

Sera steps forward and clasps Lio’s forearm in a warrior’s grip. “Don’t die.”

It sounds brutal. But it’s the nicest thing I’ve ever heard her say.

Lio nods once, that fierce shifter pride flickering in his gaze, and disappears into the alley shadows with all the silent grace of the cat that lives under his skin.

I stand there for a moment.

Listening to the wind. The silence after the storm. Then I turn to Seraphine.

But she’s not looking at me. She just turns and heads to the car without a word.

She doesn’t speak until we’re back at her place, and even then, she moves like her bones hurt. Her coat hits the floor with a sigh, boots kicked off in slow, precise movements that scream of someone barely holding it together.

I wait. Because I know that look. And when she finally meets my eyes, something’s different.

We’re still bound. That magic still buzzes under my skin. I can feel her breathing in my own ribs, like her rhythm's replaced mine. But this isn’t about the bond. This is about something older.

Darker.

She nods to the couch. “Sit.”

I do.

She doesn’t.

She stands across from me, arms crossed, and it’s not her usual posture of defiance. It’s armor.

She licks her pink lips, like the words taste bad. “There’s something I need you to know. And you won’t like it.”

“Let me guess,” I say. “This gets worse?”

She huffs out something close to a laugh. “It always gets worse.”

I don’t speak.

Just wait.

“I was eight the first time I saw someone die,” she says finally. “Not in a war. Not in a raid. In my house.”

My stomach drops.

“My father was a fallen elf prince. My mother was... more. A primordial witch with royal bloodlines buried so deep no one even said her name out loud. We weren’t rebels. We weren’t criminals. We were just alive in the wrong time.”

I sit up straighter, heart crawling into my throat.

“The Veil was crumbling. Not like it is now, it was just fractures. People were scared. And when people get scared, they lash out at what they don’t understand.”

She walks to the window, looking out at nothing.

“They came at night. Humans. Soldiers. Politicians hiding behind PEACE patches and holy mandates. We hadn’t even done anything. But they’d gotten wind of what we were. Of what I might be.”

She pauses.

Her voice goes flat. Cold.

“They burned the whole house. With us in it.”

“Jesus,” I whisper.

“My father died shielding the escape tunnel. My mother bound her soul into mine so I could live. Everyone else—gone.”

I stare at her.

And suddenly, every moment she’s flinched at kindness, every time she’s pulled back just before something good could happen—it all makes sense.

“I survived,” she says. “And I learned how to hate. ”

Her voice shakes now.

“I hated the humans. The laws. The idea of peace that only meant silence and fear. I hated the softness in me that still missed my mother’s hands in my hair. And for a long time, I hated myself for not dying with them.”

I stand.

Cross the room slowly.

Reach for her hand.

She lets me.

“I don’t hate anymore,” she says. “But I don’t trust easily, Jackson. And now…”

She finally turns to me.

“…now, you’re not just part of this. You’re tied to it. Tied to me. And that makes you a target Black Sun will tear the world apart to get to. I tried so hard to keep myself a secret all of these years. I still don’t know how… But that doesn't matter. I need to find a way to break this bind so they can’t use you.”

My grip tightens on hers.

“I’m not going anywhere.”

“You should. ”

“I can’t.”

“I won’t survive this if you die because of me. Too many have already.”

“And I won’t survive it if you push me away.”

Her breath catches. Then she leans into me.

And for the first time since the bond locked, I feel her stop resisting it.

Just for a moment. Just enough.