POV: Alex
The pain woke me.
It wasn’t sharp.
It wasn’t sudden.
It was deep—a slow-burning ache that felt as if my soul itself had been struck by lightning.
I sat up in bed with a gasp, one hand flying to my chest, the other to my stomach. My heart was racing so violently it felt like it might tear free of my ribs. The moonlight spilling through the windows shimmered unnaturally, pulsing in time with my breathing.
Something had changed.
I could feel it in my blood.
In the air.
In the bond.
“Alex?” Riley’s voice was already there—tense, shaken. She was standing beside my bed, eyes wide. “You felt it too, didn’t you?”
I swallowed hard and nodded. My throat burned. “It’s like… something grabbed hold of my soul for a second. Like the world tilted.”
Before Riley could speak again, th
