CLAIRE
For a moment, all I could hear was my own heartbeat.
It pounded in my ears, loud enough to drown out the forest around us and the way Aiden stood in front of me, his chest still rising and falling too fast to be normal. Moonlight sharpened every edge of him, turning familiarity into something unsettling.
I had never seen him like this before. He was not simply tense or angry, but visibly afraid of himself, as though he were standing at the edge of something he did not trust himself to contain.
"What do you mean you bound me to you?" I asked quietly.
Aiden swallowed, and the movement looked painful. "I mean exactly what it sounds like."
"That is not an explanation," I said. "That is a statement without context."
"It is the closest I can come before telling you
