The silence that followed my departure from the clearing was not the peaceful
quiet of the morning woods; it was the heavy, suffocating hush of a world that
had just witnessed a miracle it wasn't prepared to name. Behind me, the wall of
thorns I had commanded into existence groaned and shifted, the black, iron-hard
wood knitting together with a sentient malice. I could still hear Kaelen on the
other side. The "God of War," the man who had bought me like a dog and treated
me like a disease, was now reduced to a sound I never thought I would hear: the
sound of a man begging.
His fists slammed against the thorns, the impact thudding through the earth and
vibrating up through the soles of my bare feet. Through the mate bond—which had
been a thin, cold thread of hate but was now a wide, roaring river of fire—I
felt his soul fracturing. It wasn't just regret. It was a localized, psychic
collapse. He was reliving every moment he had looked at me with disgust, every
