Page 56 of Saving Her Dragon

Another long, agonizing silence stretched through his mind, then Leviathan kept right on going, “You were the entrance.”

The revelation reframed years of agonizing captivity, solitary confinement, and torture into a brutal, terrifying truth. Garrett’s posture fractured, his shoulders sinking an inch against the wall as a sudden, suffocating wave of guilt crashed over him. He thought of every step he had taken since his rescue. Every piece of his life he had reclaimed. Every connection he had meticulously rebuilt.

The sick conclusion arrived before Garrett could stop it. He hadn't been healing. He'd been feeding the doorway. Every connection he'd rebuilt. Every person he'd allowed himself to love again. Sydney. Grey. Carrick. What if every one of them had simply given Leviathan another way in?

No!

The word didn't arrive as a mental whisper. It slammed through the Mating Bond with the force of an iron shield, instantly intercepting the toxic spiral of his thoughts. Garrett hadn't spoken a single word aloud, but Sydney caught the self-inflicted wound the exact microsecond it formed within his consciousness.

"No," Sydney said fiercely aloud, stepping right into his space and locking her hands onto his forearms, forcing him to look down into her blazing blue eyes.

Garrett swallowed hard, his voice raw. "No, what, Syd?"

"You do not get to turn our love into another crime, Garrett," she commanded, her jaw set with absolute, unyielding iron.

"He used it," Garrett whispered, a broken plea bleeding through his tactical defenses. "Every time I reached for you, every time I remembered Grey or helped Carrick, I gave him another permission token. I fed the road."

"He corrupted it," Sydney corrected instantly, her White Dragon Magic thrumming with a quiet, dangerous intensity beneath her skin. "That is not the same thing. Leviathan takes connections created by pure love and twists them into weapons because he is the Lord of Envy. It is his SOP. He cannot build anything of his own. Our answer isn't to isolate ourselves, Garrett. It's to weaponize the connection right back at him."

Stepping closer to the bed, Ginnie studied Garrett and Sydney, her gaze moving between them as the energy of their Mating Bond vibrated through the room.

“I think I know where we have to attack it.”

Every eye turned toward her.

“Everything we've seen points back to the separation Leviathan created inside Garrett. The door. The barrier between Garrett and Han. The place where Sydney loses him during the void.”

Carrick frowned. “Break the barrier, break the road?”

“That's my theory.”

Garrett's jaw tightened. “And if you're wrong?”

Ginnie looked at Sydney, then back at him. “Then we find out very quickly.”

Nobody laughed.

Ginnie continued, “But if we can restore the natural connection between you, Han, Sydney, and Kara, your Magical signature should change. The road may lose the protection it's been hiding behind.”

Carrick straightened. “And the wards?”

“They may finally be able to recognize Leviathan's frequency as something foreign.”

“May?” Garrett repeated.

“May,” Ginnie confirmed. “I'm not promising you something I can't prove.”

She took a breath. “The problem is, we can't break the barrier from out here. My Tracking Spell already tried. Han can't breach it from his side. Which means we need another way in.”

Sydney didn't look away from Garrett's face. “We need someone who can cross through Garrett's side of the Mating Bond without touching the stolen anchor architecture.” Turning her head, she looked at Ginnie. “I'm going in.”

"No," Garrett instantly commanded, his Warrior instincts flaring in pure panic.

Sydney offered him a small, tight smile. "Oh, now you understand how annoying that word is?"

"Sydney, be serious," Garrett pressed, his grip tightening on her wrists. "Leviathan wants access to Kara. He's been targeting your blue flame all morning. If you step inside that hidden compartment, you might be marching right into a trap. You could hand him the exact frequency he needs to complete his network breach."

"She's right, Sydney," Ginnie agreed. "It is an astronomical risk. But you are the only asset whose connection can reach Garrett's human soul without passing through the corrupted road. Your Mating Bond is stronger than the Demon Lord’s bridge. It connects one soul to another, completely bypassing the external locks."