Lucien's POV
Feeling her was something I had not adequately prepared for.
I had thought I understood what the blood bond meant. I had read the texts. I had the theoretical understanding of what it felt like to carry someone else's emotional presence alongside your own.
Theory was not the same as having her there.
She was warm. That was the first thing I noticed, walking back to the compound after the ceremony, the pack celebrating behind us with the particular joyful intensity they brought to things they had been anticipating. She was warm in the bond, not temperature — presence. The specific quality of her, curious and fierce and deeply certain of herself, sitting alongside my own steadiness like a counterpart.
I had carried an absence for four years.
Now I carried this.
She was lo
