My armor’s half-buckled, blood at my collar, and I’m running on pure fury and the kind of desperation that makes people do spectacularly stupid things. Like stealing your mate from a palace full of people who want her dead.
“Pack what you need,” I growl, breathing like I’ve run a marathon through hell. “Now. We’re leaving.”
“What the fuck—”
“Don’t ask questions. There’s no time.” My eyes lock onto hers, and I watch her stomach drop as she reads the truth in my face. “They’ve decided. The King signed off hours ago—they’re sending you back. To Valen.”
She stumbles backward, nearly taking out a chair. The bond between us recoils like it’s been slapped.
“What do you mean, sending me back?”
“A peace gesture. Wrapped in silk, chained with apologies.” The words taste like poison. “They were going to drug you, Lucy. You wouldn’t have even known until it was too late.”
Through the bond, I feel her world tilt sideways. “No. They wouldn’t—”
“I caught the guards outside your chamber. Found the vial in the apothecary’s hands.” I’m moving now, shoving things into a bag with violent efficiency because standing still means thinking, and thinking means remembering what almost happened. “When I went to Toren, he said it was the only way to avoid war.”
“So I’m a trade now. A body for blood.”
“You are not a bargaining chip.” I cross to her in three strides, hands gripping her arms with desperate force. “You are mine. And they’ll tear you from me over my dead body.”
“Then let’s run,” she whispers. “Let’s run right now.”
I nod once. Then I shatter the lock with my bare hands because subtlety’s for people who aren’t about to lose everything.
We ride like hell itself is chasing us. Which, technically, it is.
No banners, no torches, just moonlight and the kind of cold that turns your breath into ice crystals. I take us through paths that exist more in legend than reality—cliff edges, frozen rivers, woods so dark they feel like they want to swallow us whole.
She clings to my back, heart hammering against my spine, and I feel every muscle strain as I push the horse beyond its limits. The bond stretches between us like a rubber band about to snap, but it’s still there. Still connecting us. Still promising that maybe—just maybe—we can outrun this nightmare.
“How far?” she shouts over the wind.
“Southern stronghold before daybreak,” I call back. “They won’t dare cross the border.”
Every mile feels like borrowed time. Every hoofbeat sounds like a countdown to the moment they catch us.
Hours pass. Dawn stays stubbornly absent, like even the sun knows this isn’t going to end well.
I slow near a frozen stream, scanning the ridgeline for threats. My shoulder’s on fire from the arrow wound I haven’t told her about, and the horse is starting to foam at the mouth.
“We’ll make it,” I say, but my voice holds doubt now because I can smell them. Valen’s men. Close enough to taste.
That’s when the air changes. The bond doesn’t just stretch—it recoils, like Lucy’s soul just sensed its own death approaching.
She turns.
Valen’s men materialize from the snow like nightmares given form. Silent, pale, blending into the landscape until they’re practically ghosts with weapons.
“Cassian!” she screams.
The first arrow hits my shoulder with a wet thud that makes my vision blur. I jerk, blood already darkening my coat, but stay upright because falling means she dies.
The second arrow slams into my side.
I snarl—not human, not quite wolf—and start to shift, bones cracking as the monster inside fights to get out. This is what they’re afraid of. This is what they want to destroy.
Good. Let them see what happens when you corner a Dire.
“Stay behind me,” I growl. “No matter what.”
Then I charge.
I move like violence incarnate, like every nightmare their mothers warned them about. One attacker goes down with his throat torn out—efficient, brutal, necessary. Another tries to flank me; I break his ribs with a casual swipe and keep moving.
But there are too many. There are always too many.
Through the bond, I feel Lucy trying to run—stupid, fucking stupid—but hands grab her from behind. One wrenches her arms behind her back, another shoves her face-first into the ice.
“Let go!” she screams, thrashing like a feral cat. “He’ll kill you all!”
She’s not wrong. I’m planning to kill every last one of them.
Chains clamp around her wrists, cold metal pressing down on the bond mark. A blade finds her throat, sharp enough to draw blood that I can smell from here.
“Move and she dies!” someone shouts.
I freeze mid-strike.
Turn to see her on her knees, blood trickling down her neck, chains cutting into skin that should never know pain.
“No,” she chokes. “Don’t stop. Please don’t fucking stop.”
My eyes flicker. Just for a second. But hesitation is all they need.
The arrow slices through the air with a whistle that sounds like death approaching.
It strikes me clean through the side, punching through armor like it’s made of paper.
I stagger, breath caught in my throat like a broken prayer. Through the bond, I feel her scream before I hear it.
“Cassian!”
Another arrow slams into my shoulder. The world tilts, goes gray at the edges, but I rise anyway. Bleeding, broken, barely holding together—but I rise because she needs me to.
“No!” she shrieks. “Don’t—please don’t—”
I charge again anyway, dragging one leg, leaving a trail of blood in the snow like breadcrumbs leading to hell. Because what else am I supposed to do? Watch them take her? Let them drag her back to Valen like some prize they won?
Fuck that.
I make it three steps.
Then I fall.
The snow hits my face like a slap, cold and final. Through the bond, I feel her horror, her desperation, her love burning bright enough to warm me even as everything else goes dark.
I failed her. The one thing I swore I’d never do, and I failed her.