—Natasha's POV—
The bond was not a bridge, but a fault line—a seismic crack running through the core of both our beings. It was undeniable, a constant, low-grade tremor in my blood that synced with the rhythm of his breath, a phantom pressure in my skull when his focus sharpened with intent.
But it was a corrupted connection. Sensations arrived not cleanly, but in jarring fragments—a burst of heat that chilled me, a wave of possessiveness that tasted like panic, a whisper of his thoughts that arrived as a scream in a foreign tongue. It was power without clarity, possession without peace.
And with each discordant pulse through that flawed circuit, the man known as Zane Kane unraveled.
The transformation was chilling to witness. The Alpha whose control had been as much a part of him as
