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DANTE

T he words won’t leave me alone.

I see them every time I close my eyes.

The bond between a Guardian and a fae of the cursed line is forbidden... not because it weakens him—but because it unlocks the oldest part of what he is…

I didn’t sleep much last night. Or maybe I did, and just don’t remember what was dream and what was memory tearing itself back open.

My hands keep drifting toward the journal like it’s calling me.

I spread it open again on the table, the yellowed pages dry as bone, the ink like old blood. That same passage stares back at me, practically pulsing with energy now.

And I swear, the longer I stare at it, the more I feel it.

That pull. The low thrum beneath my skin. Magic. Not shifter instinct. Not brute strength.

Something else entirely.

I go to sleep with the book beside me.

Not because I think it’ll help, but because I’m running out of things that might. And when sleep finally drags me under, I fall hard and fast?—

—into her.

I don’t see her clearly at first. Just pieces. A flash of violet eyes. A laugh that aches in my ribs. A hand brushing mine—barely touching—and it feels like fire. My chest tightens. I know this feeling. This craving.

She’s standing at the edge of something endless. Wind whips her hair around her shoulders, long and black and shimmering with strands of silver like night’s been woven into it. She’s facing away from me. But I know it’s her.

Even without a name. Even without the memory.

“Hey!” I call out, stepping forward.

She doesn’t turn. She’s fading. And I can’t lose her again.

“Wait!” I yell, louder now. Desperate.

She pauses.

Half-turns.

And her eyes?—

Gods.

Her eyes find mine like they’ve been waiting for this moment. Like some thread between us has snapped tight again.

And when I speak, it’s not a question. It’s a truth rising from the deepest part of me.

“…Liora.”

The dream cracks. A bolt of light slams through my chest like I’ve been struck by lightning. And I wake up almost howling.

I jolt upright, gasping, heart punching against my ribs like it’s trying to break out.

I feel heat radiating from my skin, sparks crackling in my fingertips. My tattoos—scars, mostly— glow. Faint, but unmistakable. Like something in my blood just woke the hell up.

“What the fuck,” I breathe, voice rasped and wrecked.

My hand trembles as I reach for the pendant from the Guardian box.

It’s hot. Like it’s been sitting in fire.

The air in the loft is charged now. My shadows—the ones I never fully learned to command—curl around my feet like they recognize something ancient just bled through the cracks.

And through it all, one name keeps echoing in my skull.

Liora.

Liora.

Her name wasn’t just in my dream. It was mine.

Mine to know. Mine to say. Mine to protect.

She’s real. She was here. She loved me and I loved her.

And I let someone take that from me.

Suddenly, all my old schooling comes racing back to me as I try and sort through my memories.

A spell.

It has to be a fucking memory spell.

Fae magic. Old. Forbidden. Powerful enough to wipe me clean of her—but not my soul. That’s what it couldn’t touch. That’s why I’ve felt this emptiness like it’s screaming through my blood.

Everything comes rushing back to me the moment I recognize what has happened. The spell wasn’t strong enough, not for what is between us and I just broke it.

It’s the bond. It’s still there. Damaged. Suppressed. But not broken. Because some things can’t be undone by a spell, no matter how powerful.

She tried to protect me. That’s the part that guts me the most. She did this for me. And now she’s gone.

No.

Taken.

I feel it like a missing limb. A void somewhere far, far away—calling me. Crying out with no sound.

Seraphiel.

It has to be him.

I don’t remember how I knew him before, or what she told me—but I know he’s the one pulling the strings behind this nightmare.

And he has her.

My body shakes.

My magic keeps flickering in waves I can’t control yet as my memories try to come back to fill in the blanks. Not fully. But I will them. If it takes blood, if it takes fire, if it takes burning every realm between here and hell?—

I will get her back.

And this time nobody’s erasing shit.