The pain did not arrive all at once. It crept in slowly like winter spreading through bone.
Mira curled on the narrow bed in the small stone room where they had taken her. It was not a dungeon, just an empty chamber near the healer’s quarters. No chains, no guards inside only a locked door.
Ryker had kept his word but the bond had not.
Her chest burned where the silver mark had appeared under the moonlight. It pulsed faintly beneath her skin, warm and alive, like something watching from inside her body.
She pressed her palm against it and the pain sharpened immediately.
Mira sucked in a breath and pulled her hand away.
“Okay,” she whispered. “Okay… I understand.”
But she didn’t.
Not really.
Her wolf paced restlessly inside her mind, agitated and confused. It did not understand why
