Hunter’s POV
I felt her before I saw her.
It wasn’t the mate bond—not entirely. That throbbed faintly in the back of my mind like a phantom ache, one I had tried to ignore for days now. But this was something else. Something quieter. Yet stronger.
A ripple in the air. A shift in the atmosphere.
Jade was here.
And not just physically. She was here with presence. With fire. With something that had been dormant inside her for far too long. Something I had helped bury.
When I saw her walk through the hall that morning, it hit me like a punch to the gut. She didn’t cower anymore. Didn’t hide behind her hair or her hoodie. No hunched shoulders or shuffled feet.
No invisibility cloak.
She walked like someone who remembered who she was.
No—who finally realized it for the first time.
I st
