The air in the suite was no longer just thick with tension; it was heavy with the metallic tang of the Void-Blight Malachi had left in his wake. Though the dark-matter shadow had receded into the stormy night with the children’s screams still echoing in the rafters, the devastation remained. Hunter stood amidst the wreckage of the shattered balcony, his breath coming in jagged, ragged hitches.
He didn't look like a King. He looked like a man who had seen the sun die twice.
He turned toward Willow, his golden eyes burning with a desperate, terrifying intensity. The "Ghost Bond"—that invisible tether he thought he had severed five years ago—was now a searing cord of white-hot agony. It pulsed with every beat of her heart, proving she was alive, yet mocking him with the distance she had pl
