I woke up with her name caught between my teeth and the taste of her still thick in my mouth. I hadn’t touched her. Not truly. But the dream had, and the dream felt real enough to set my body burning and split my thoughts apart like kindling.
As the haze faded, the other truth pushed in: the Houses were listening these days, counting every misstep. Our bond was no longer only about the two of us; it was a lever others could use to pry open a war. If I misjudged one moment, pack lines could bleed.
I shoved the covers off with a rough growl and stalked to the basin to sluice my face with cold water. The shock did nothing. Tension locked my jaw.
I pulled on training gear and headed for the pit before the sun could fully rise, hoping sweat might bleed the conflict out of me. If I could not quiet the bond, perhaps I could drown it in motion.
By the time Raena arrived, my hands were torn open, blood mixing with dirt across my knuckles. Blade, fists, rage—repeat. My muscles screamed, but my mind refused to still. Images of councils and banners kept intruding: Redpine calculating, Frosthollow smirking, Hollowmoor advisers weighing my every breath against our borders.
She did not speak at first. She stood a measured distance away, watching me from across the pit with a look that had sharpened into something gentler.
Then, cool and cutting, she said, “Beating yourself into the dirt won’t fix it.”
I didn’t look at her. “Didn’t ask for your wisdom.”
She stepped into the ring. “Didn’t wait for you to ask.”
I slammed my fist into the post one last time and turned to face her. The wind shifted, and with it came the quiet awareness that she had changed, too. The hard edges were still there, but she carried them differently—shoulders less braced, gaze more open, like she had decided to meet me rather than only test me. “What do you want, Raena?”
“To stop watching you unravel.”
“Too late,” I muttered. “Let me fall apart in peace.”
She came closer, close enough for me to see the challenge in her eyes softening at the edges. “You think I’m the reason you’re like this?”
“You are,” I snapped. “You marked me.”
“And you wanted me to.”
I flinched, and she caught it. “You keep acting like this bond is some kind of prison, like wanting me is a disease.”
I clenched my jaw. “It is.”
She laughed, but the sound lacked its usual blade. “Then why are you still here? Why not run?”
“Because I can’t,” I admitted, voice low and raw. “You’re in my head. In my fucking blood. I breathe and it’s you.”
Something flickered in her expression—understanding, not triumph. She stepped closer until we were nearly chest to chest, the bond warming like an ember coaxed by breath.
“Then say it.”
“No.”
“Say it,” she said again, voice sharper. “Say you want me.”
I shook my head. “Desire is the enemy. It clouds everything. I want control.”
“You want control because you don’t trust yourself.”
“I don’t,” I growled. “Not with you. You get too close and I forget who I am.”
“And who are you, Silas?” she whispered. “Some broken thing trying to hold himself together with silence?”
I stayed quiet. Silence was the only thing I still owned when every House wanted a piece of my voice. If I said the wrong word to her, someone else might die for it.
“You think I can’t see it?” she continued, her voice low and razor-edged. “The way your hands shake when I’m near? The way you watch my mouth when I talk like you’re afraid of what might happen if you stop resisting for even a second?”
I turned away because the truth of it landed too cleanly.
She didn’t let me.
“Do you want me to stop?” she asked, stepping behind me so close that her breath brushed the shell of my ear. “Say the word and I’ll leave you in peace.”
I said nothing, because peace was not what my body wanted and war was what my mind feared.
Her hand grazed my back—light, careful, like testing a live wire without the intent to wound.
“Tell me to stop,” she whispered again.
I closed my eyes and felt the two futures pull: one where I chose her and Houses burned, another where I chose the banner and lost the only person who ever made me feel stronger rather than savage. I did not tell her to stop.
She struck—not with words but with motion—her body hitting mine hard and fast, her arm sweeping my feet from under me. I hit the ground with a grunt, and in a blink she was on top of me, knees braced to either side of my waist, one hand steady on my chest.
Even in that pin, the pressure of her palm was gentler than it used to be, more anchoring than conquering.
My heart roared. Her hair framed her face like a curtain of fire, lips parted, breath fast.
“You want me,” she said, voice like thunder and velvet. “Say it.”
I stared up at her and said nothing—because wanting her felt like salvation and treason at once. Above us, the sky lightened toward morning, and I held my tongue like a shield I was quickly growing too tired to carry.