He looks at me like I’m nothing. Like I’m a bug that should be squashed.
“You’re still here.” His voice is flat, final. “Guards. Take her away. I’ll deal with her later.”
They come. Strong hands grip my arms.
And I let them. Because I’m too stunned, too embarrassed, too much in pain to fight them. No one has ever rejected their mate. It’s the law.
Chapter 1
Kassira
Six months later
Iwatch him pass by. Imposing. Powerful. Proud. The sun catches on his dark hair, the sharp lines of his jaw, the broad strength of his shoulders wrapped in black and gold. His steps are measured, confident. The kind of walk only a king has. The kind of presence only he has.
Something tightens in my chest. Familiar andhated.
He doesn’t look at me. Doesn’t even glance in my direction. But he knows I’m here. Of course he does. It would be impossible for him to not feel me so close.
Because I’m his bonded. His mate. The one he rejected and cast into the dirt, disgust etched into his face. I’m right here, lost to the darkness where he exiled me. At the edge of this cursed land of the forsaken. The unworthy. The outcasts. The ones not good enough to breathe the same air as the crown. The oneand only Kunou Forest, where sunlight doesn’t dare reach the ground.
That’s what he thinks of me. Too dirty to touch someone like him. Too weak to deserve his name on my skin. Too nothing.
Butsheisn’t.
She walks beside him like she was born for it. Beautiful. Regal. The red of her hair catching fire in the wind. Her smile is easy. Practiced. Like poisoned honey.
She doesn’t feel the ache that haunts my every step. She doesn’t lie awake at night hearing a bond that won’t stop screaming. She doesn’t have to claw her way back to life every morning.
I do.
I’ve spent six months in pain since the night he shattered me in front of the entire court. Six months living in exile, gathering every scrap of magic buried in my blood.
My power may be faint, fractured… but it’s mine. And it’s enough.
Enough to do what must be done. Enough to maybe keep me alive after this.
I raise my hand slowly. My fingers tremble — not from fear, but from the weight of what’s coming. Neris shifts inside me, her energy pulsing with mine, wild and ready.
We speak as one. It’s what always has to happen to truly destroy a bond. The wolf and the human must both agree.
“I sever this bond.”
The words fall from our mouths like a blade through silk. My magic rises, pale and trembling, wrapping around the bondtethering me to him. The invisible thread connecting our souls pulls taut, then—
It snaps.
I feel it ripping my chest apart, stealing my breath away.
Somewhere in the distance, Draven stumbles. His head jerks. His hand flies to his chest like he’s been pierced with a blade no one else can see.
I watch him. And then watch her reach for him, confused.
“Draven?” her voice rises in panic. “Draven, what’s wrong?”
He doesn’t answer.
He roars. Wild. Feral.
