I wake with fire in my chest.
Not the kind that crackles through broken ribs or battle wounds. No—this is worse. Deeper. Older. Like something sacred is being torn from the marrow of me, strand by strand.
The bond.
It’s unraveling.
I sit up so fast the pain nearly blinds me. My claws rip through the blanket without meaning to. Cold sweat clings to my back, but it’s the emptiness beside me that paralyzes me.
She’s gone.
“Lucy?” My voice is hoarse. Useless.
No answer. Just silence—and a single folded piece of parchment on the stone bench where she last sat.
Don’t follow me.
That’s all it says. No signature. No scent. But the parchment trembles in my hand from how hard I’m shaking. Through the fraying bond, I feel it—distance like a knife. Grief like thunder.
She didn’t just leave.
She fled.
I tear through the sanctuary barefoot, ignoring the calls from guards, the bark of startled wolves. Doors slam behind me. The air thickens with ash and fury. I reach the cliff’s edge, breath ragged, eyes scanning the horizon like I might catch a glimpse of her trailing cloak, a flash of brown hair vanishing into the trees.
Nothing. She’s already gone.
I fall to my knees.
My claws rake through the earth, through the sacred soil we swore would be our second chance. The wind howls across the cliffside, but it’s not loud enough to drown me out. My roar splits the sky. My voice fractures into something less than human—less than Alpha.
I don’t care.
The trees bend from the force of my rage. Birds scatter. Branches snap. The forest trembles beneath me. Magic sparks in the dirt, lighting the roots with pulsing crimson. The world is too small to hold this fury.
She’s gone. She left me.
And still, I’d tear the realms apart just to find the scent of her skin again.
I was a prince once. A warrior. A Dire Alpha.
But none of that means a godsdamned thing when your mate runs from you and takes your soul with her.
I throw back my head and howl—not for help.
For vengeance.
Because if she breaks the bond,
I’ll burn the world to find the pieces.