I didn’t sleep.
Even when the fire crackled low and Cassian went still beside it, blade still in hand like his body didn’t know how to rest—I stayed awake. Watching the mark on my wrist glow faintly beneath my skin like it had a mind of its own.
If the mate bond was a leash… and I was born without the collar… then what did that make me?
A weapon?
A mistake?
A glitch in the Elders’ system?
Cassian hadn’t answered when I asked him what I was. But he didn’t need to.
The silence said enough.
By the time the sun rose, I wasn’t tired—I was wired. Too many questions. Too much rage. Too much *truth* unraveling inside me like a snare snapping loose.
I wasn’t broken.
I was unfinished.
And now… they’d come to finish the job.
---
Cassian stiffened the second we hit the ridge.
One moment
