For a moment, everything else faded.
The noise.
The crowd.
The tension.
It was like a spark passed between us—sharp, sudden, and impossible to ignore.
We just stared at each other.
Frozen in that moment.
My heart skipped a beat, as if I had been dead all along and just came alive.
After everything he had done to me… after all he had put me through… after what he did to me last night, yet my heart still raced and pounded from just his gaze.
Was this the power of the mate bond? I asked myself, or was it his influence over me?
Did he bewitch me?
I turned my gaze away from him and focused on other things. I wouldn’t give him that pleasure of controlling my life and subjecting me to ridicule in his pack, or become a tool to quench his desires.
As all ten Lycan lords gathered on the
