The echo of my pulse inside the trees haunted the clearing long after the hybrid vanished. It was not a fading echo. It was a living one. A thread of sound that vibrated through the soil, through the branches, through the air itself. My pulse. My signature. My power. Not stolen, but copied. Replicated. Reflected back at me from something that should never have been able to claim it.
Jax tightened his arms around me, his breath harsh against my temple. “Sage. Tell me you are still you.”
I swallowed hard. My throat felt tight. My chest felt worse, like something inside me had been loosened and then rearranged. “I think so. I should be. I do not feel gone. I just feel wrong.”
Hazel dragged herself upright, clutching Zack’s shoulder as she used him for balance. Her voice trembled. “The hybr
