No, this is different.
Something slams into my chest. Instinct, raw and instant, straight past thought and into the thing buried under my skin. Older than duty. Older than loyalty. Older than the two hundred years I spent letting other people turn me into a weapon.
This is every cell in my body recognizing something it’s been searching for without knowing it existed. This is the lycan in me, the beast that lives for duty, pack, and protection, suddenlyscreamingthat everything… everything I’ve ever been, every oath I’ve ever taken, every purpose I’ve ever served, it’s all led to this moment.
Toher.
She’s barely steady on her feet, fangs out like she’s seconds away from tearing someone apart or dropping where she stands. And somehow, she’s still the most beautiful fucking thing I’ve ever seen.
Then it hits her too.
I watch it happen.
One second, she’s stumbling toward pure instinct, feral and starving, and the next she just stops dead. Like something inside her locks onto me so hard the rest of the world drops away.
Her chin lifts slowly.
Her eyes sharpen.
And when they hit mine, it’s not hunger looking back at me anymore. There’s something else in it now—something rougher, deeper, and confused enough to piss her off. Her lips part slightly, and for a second, she stares at me like she knows me from somewhere she shouldn’t. Like her body recognized me before her brain could catch up.
The air between us goes tight. Charged, like the fucking Fourth of July. Like the world just cracked open under both our feet and is falling away at a rapid rate of knots.
The word blazes through my mind with absolute, unshakeable certainty.
Fated mate.
The thing lycans whisper about in old stories, the bond that transcends choice, logic, and even the sacred oaths we swear to vampires. It’s rare because most lycans never find their fated mate, spend centuries bonded to vampires and packs without ever knowing what it feels like to have your soul recognize its other half.
But I know.
Right now, staring at this blood-soaked, newly turned vampire woman who’s swaying on her feet as if she might collapse or attack at any second…
I fucking know.
She’smine.
Under all the blood, hunger, and pure animal fury, her eyes are still human where it counts. They’re dark, furious, and locked on me like I’m the only steady thing left in a world that just ripped itself apart around her.
Something shifts across her face before she can stop it. A sudden stillness, raw and instinctive, like her body recognized something before her mind caught up.
And Ifeelit.
It hits me hard and immediate, a pull low in my chest that tightens with every second she keeps staring at me. Two hundred years of control, and this blood-soaked, furious woman I’ve never laid eyes on before is already the hardest thing I’ve ever had to walk away from.
But that’s the thing—I can’t walk away from her.
Ihaveto protect her.
Witheverythingin me.
WitheverythingI am.
The realization slams into me with physical force. My bond with Crave, the connection I’ve carried for over two hundred years, the sacred oath that defines my entire existence, suddenly… shifts.
It doesn’t break.
That’s impossible.
