Slade didn’t answer.
I lifted my chin. “Mine,” I said.
Thorne’s smile didn’t reach his eyes. “Of course.”
“Thorne,” I said, trying to steady my voice, “I don’t know what happened to you—what Vael or Ashton did—”
“What they did?” His voice cut through mine—too calm, too sharp. “They tore into my mind and poured me out like water. Like I was nothing.”
His gaze hardened. “Then they remade me.”
“This isn’t you,” Slade growled. “None of this is.”
“Oh, but it is,” Thorne murmured, voice cold with certainty. “I know what I am now. I know whatyouare. Betrayers. Traitors. Criminals.”
“We were your friends!” Slade snapped, fists clenched tight, metal vibrating faintly with tension. “Your family!”
Thorne looked up. “I have no friends.”
His eyes changed.
Not black. Not void.
But bright.
A shimmer like silver caught in flame.
Compulsion.
“Slade—don’t look at him!” I shouted—but the warning came a heartbeat too late.
Thorne’s voice dropped to a whisper. Gentle. Poisonous.
“Release me, Slade.”
Slade flinched. His jaw clenched. A vein bulged in his neck as he fought it—but his hands… gods, his hands were no longer his. They trembled, then shifted, loosening the steel by inches, as if dragged by invisible chains.
“No,” I breathed. “Slade—don’t.”
Thorne’s gaze turned to me. My breath caught. That shimmer burned into gold, bright and terrifying.
And the world— it began to tilt.
I turned my head away before his words could reach me.
But it was close. Too close.
“Slade,” Thorne said again.
Sweat poured down Slade’s face as he fought the urge. His jaw clenched, hands trembling. But Thorne was already shaking off the bindings—one by one—like they were nothing.
I threw my shadows between them, forcing Thorne to still.
He snarled, halted in place.
Thorne was powerful. He always had been.
“Elle,” Slade ground out, voice strained. “Run. Go back to Leo.Now.”
