Page 2

Kassira

Six months later

I watch him pass by. Imposing. Powerful. Proud. The sun catches on his dark hair, the sharp lines of his jaw, the broad strength of his shoulders wrapped in black and gold. His steps are measured, confident. The kind of walk only a king has. The kind of presence only he has.

Something tightens in my chest. Familiar and hated.

He doesn’t look at me. Doesn’t even glance in my direction. But he knows I’m here. Of course he does. It would be impossible for him to not feel me so close.

Because I’m his bonded. His mate. The one he rejected and cast into the dirt, disgust etched into his face.

I’m right here, lost to the darkness where he exiled me.

At the edge of this cursed land of the forsaken.

The unworthy. The outcasts. The ones not good enough to breathe the same air as the crown.

The one and only Kunou Forest, where sunlight doesn’t dare reach the ground.

That’s what he thinks of me. Too dirty to touch someone like him. Too weak to deserve his name on my skin. Too nothing.

But she isn’t.

She walks beside him like she was born for it. Beautiful. Regal. The red of her hair catching fire in the wind. Her smile is easy. Practiced. Like poisoned honey.

She doesn’t feel the ache that haunts my every step. She doesn’t lie awake at night hearing a bond that won’t stop screaming. She doesn’t have to claw her way back to life every morning.

I do.

I’ve spent six months in pain since the night he shattered me in front of the entire court. Six months living in exile, gathering every scrap of magic buried in my blood.

My power may be faint, fractured… but it’s mine. And it’s enough.

Enough to do what must be done. Enough to maybe keep me alive after this.

I raise my hand slowly. My fingers tremble — not from fear, but from the weight of what’s coming. Neris shifts inside me, her energy pulsing with mine, wild and ready.

We speak as one. It’s what always has to happen to truly destroy a bond. The wolf and the human must both agree.

“I sever this bond.”

The words fall from our mouths like a blade through silk. My magic rises, pale and trembling, wrapping around the bond tethering me to him. The invisible thread connecting our souls pulls taut, then—

It snaps.

I feel it ripping my chest apart, stealing my breath away.

Somewhere in the distance, Draven stumbles. His head jerks. His hand flies to his chest like he’s been pierced with a blade no one else can see.

I watch him. And then watch her reach for him, confused.

“Draven?” her voice rises in panic. “Draven, what’s wrong?”

He doesn’t answer.

He roars. Wild. Feral.

The sound tears through the air, raw and primal and deafening. The very ground trembles beneath my feet. Trees groan. The wind dies.

The sky splits in half. Windows shatter. Birds scatter away, knowing what’s to come. A woman screams somewhere behind the market stalls.

And then he shifts.

Bones break. Muscle tears. Magic rips through the air in waves that shake the cobblestones.

One second of silence follows, so heavy it feels like the town itself is bracing for death.

And then a lycan comes forward. Not a wolf!

Holy shit! My eyes are about to pop out of my skull.

He erupts out of Draven like wildfire out of stone.

Ten feet tall. At least. Muscles rippling in fury under black fur.

Claws that glint like obsidian. His wings unfurl behind him like a storm made of flesh.

Each flap sends debris flying. Market tents collapse.

Horses rear and bolt. People run, scream, dive behind anything that might keep them alive.

He unleashes a howl that doesn’t sound like pain.

It sounds like rage. Like loss. Like pure madness. It’s a sound that doesn’t belong in this world. It shouldn’t exist.

People don’t stop screaming.

He slams a clawed fist into the cobblestone, and the ground splinters. Shards of stone crack upward like jagged teeth. He reaches for a wagon and throws it into a building without hesitation. Wood explodes. Flames catch. Smoke starts to billow.

I feel every ounce of his rage like a phantom pressing into my chest. It wasn’t just pain. The bond didn’t just snap. It shattered him.

Guards rush in, but it’s a mistake. They don’t last.

He swipes one aside with a single claw and sends the man flying across the square. The next is crushed instantly. Another tries to shift mid-air, but the lycan grabs him by the throat and throws him through a bakery window.

Shit. That used to be my bakery.

I flinch, but I don’t look away. I can’t look away. Neris is entranced, too.

Because we feel him. Not just his rage. His grief.

The animal inside him is unraveling. Tearing through control and logic like it's paper. And the worst part?

He still doesn’t know why.

Amira screams Draven’s name, her hands glowing, magic forming in her palms. She tries to cast something — I don’t know what — but the second the lycan sees her, he snarls. Wings spread wide. He doesn’t attack, but she freezes.

She starts backing away with wide, terrified eyes. There’s nothing she can do. She is not the lycan’s mate. She cannot tame him. Some part of her knows she’s lost him. The king.

The lycan suddenly goes still in the center of the chaos. Amid fire and dust and blood.

His head lifts slowly. Nostrils flare. And then his eyes — burning molten silver, laced with black — turn.

Toward me. “Shit,” I whisper under my breath.

The forest’s shadow brushes the town’s edge. I stand just beyond it, my hand still lifted, heart still aching.

And in that one breathless moment, he sees me.

Really sees me.

The bond may be gone. But the echo of it? The memory of what we were meant to be?

It’s still there and I see the exact second it slams into him, powerful and undeniable.

A sound leaves his throat — half snarl, half sob. His wings falter. He stumbles, just once.

And then he starts to move toward me.

I turn fast, ready to run. But the moment I take the first step, I sway. The severing of the bond took too much out of me. I knew this might happen, but I had to take the risk.

“Neris, we need to run,” I say to my wolf but it’s too late. She’s already fading in and out of consciousness. Just like me.

I start falling but before I reach the ground, strong arms grab me.

“No,” is the last word I whisper before I’m lost to the darkness.