I hadn’t known the meaning of weight until now. Until the words Ezekiel had spoken settled into my skin like poison, heavy and suffocating. I had thought the mark on my wrist was a curse, a connection to Cassian, a tether that bound us together in some way I couldn’t understand.
But the truth was so much darker, and I wasn’t sure I was ready for it.
The mark on my wrist wasn’t for love. It wasn’t for a mate.
It was a crown.
A birthright.
I had no words for the wave of nausea that hit me as I processed what Ezekiel had said. The bond, the power that surged within me, wasn’t just a byproduct of my bloodline. It was everything. It was my inheritance. The thing the Elders had tried to suppress, the thing they feared more than anything else.
The Moon-Blessed weren’t meant to bond. They we
