I drowned in darkness so absolute it had texture—thick as molasses, heavy as grief, suffocating as the memory of Damien's eyes when he spoke the words that shattered us both.
"I reject this mate bond. I don't want you."
Even here, suspended between death and whatever came after, those words echoed. But now, dying in the space between heartbeats, I finally understood the truth I'd been too broken to see. The way his voice had cracked. The tears he'd tried to hide. The way he'd whispered "forgive me" so quietly I never heard it.
He'd been trying to save me from Victoria. From whatever she'd threatened. And it had nearly killed us both anyway.
Voices filtered through the void—my packmates, my family, my mate. God, Kieran. His anguish was a living thing, clawing at the darkness that hel
