The dampness of the cave floor was the most honest thing Elara had felt in a lifetime. It wasn't the sterile cold of the lab or the cinematic frost of the simulation; it was gritty, smelling of ancient mineral and slow decay.
She looked at her hands. They were trembling, the knuckles raw and bleeding. There were no barcodes. No glowing runes. Just the frail, translucent skin of a woman who had been kept in a stasis pod for too long.
Beside her, Kaelen groaned. His eyes flickered open—not the blinding amber of an Alpha god, but a muddy, pained hazel. He looked at Elara, and for the first time, there was a terrifying blankness in his gaze.
"Who...?" he rasped, his voice catching on the dryness of his throat.
The simulation hadn't just ended; it had stripped him. The "Mate-Bond" that had
