LUKAS’ POV
“I will help you,” I said again, my voice cold and steady as the night around us now. “But under one condition.”
Her head snapped toward me, her golden eyes narrowed in suspicion. The tension between us was palpable, a thread stretched tight enough to snap at any moment.
Her lips parted as she hesitated, studying me with the guarded wariness of someone who’d been burned one too many times. “What condition?” she finally asked, her voice trembling ever so slightly.
I folded my arms across my chest, leaning backs against the rough bark of a nearby tree. The words felt foreign as I said them, but there was no hesitation. “You will accept the mate bond,” I said. “And you will be my bride.”
The forest seemed to hold its breath, the silence pressing down on us like a physical weig
