[Isolde]
I couldn’t help but feel confused until my discharge from the infirmary. Worried, because Nikolai would fall into such a fate after his efforts to save my life. Helpless, because I couldn’t mark him back.
I didn’t love him. Hell, I barely even knew him.
He’d only marked me to save my life, and despite how grateful I was, I knew just how serious spousal bonds were. How permanent. It wasn’t something that could be severed—not by choice, not by distance and not by anything short of death itself. And that was the terrifying part: the death of one mate could kill the other. A biological fail-safe written into our DNA, meant to ensure we chose carefully, lived fully and loved even harder.
Many modern werewolf couples refused the bond entirely. Too much risk, they said. Too much comm
