“Yes.”
“And when I touched the core—” She hesitated, searching for words to describe something she didn’t understand. “The pure one, in the wreck. And again tonight, the tainted one. Something...happened. To me. To us.” Her fingers curled against his chest. “I can feel you now. Not just your heartbeat. Something deeper. Like a thread running between us that wasn’t there before.”
His body went tense against hers.
“A bond,” he said quietly. “When you touched the pure core—when the energy surged through both of us—it created a connection. A link between your consciousness and mine.” His claws stopped their absent tracing, pressing flat against her back instead. “The ceremony tonight...strengthened it. Deepened it in ways I didn’t anticipate.”
Elsa processed this. The thread of awareness she’d noticed—the pulse of connection between his chest and hers—made sudden, terrifying sense.
“What does that mean? This...bond?”
“Among my people, bonds are rare. Most matings are political—alliances forged for territory or power. True bonds are...different.” His voice dropped lower. “They’re permanent. Unbreakable. The connected parties can sense each other—emotions, physical state, sometimes thoughts. It’s considered Lux’s highest blessing.”
“And we have that now?”
“The beginnings of one.” His voice dropped. “It will deepen with time. With proximity. With—” He hesitated. “With intimacy.”
Elsa processed this. The thread of awareness she’d noticed earlier—the pulse of connection between his chest and hers—made sudden sense.
“You’re saying every time we...touch...the bond gets stronger.”
“Yes.”
“And there’s no way to break it.”
“None that I know of.” His arm tightened around her. “But I wouldn’t break it even if I could. That’s the truth you deserve to hear, Elsa. Whatever else I am, whatever I’ve done—I’m not letting you go. Not now. Not ever.”
20
Elsa
The summons came through Yarx.
Not Sylas. Not a Lux Saber with orders and cold eyes. The healer appeared at the door of Sylas’s chambers while Elsa was still dressed in nothing but borrowed furs and the memory of what had happened in this bed, his scent clinging to her skin like a second language she hadn’t asked to learn.
“The Alpha King has granted you an hour,” Yarx said. His voice carried that same careful neutrality she’d noticed in the medical bay—professional distance wrapped around something that might have been concern. “In my infirmary suite. With the other human females.”
Elsa sat up too fast. The furs pooled at her waist, and she didn’t bother reaching for them. “Mia and Ari?”
“Both. Private suite. No guards inside the room.” Yarx’s amber gaze flicked to the door, then back. “The Alpha King arranged it.”
The Alpha King arranged it.
The words rattled around in her skull, refusing to settle. The same male who’d put a collar around her throat, who’d admitted he’d never let her go, was now...what? Giving her social time like she was a pet that needed enrichment?
Or maybe he understood something she hadn’t credited him for. That humans frayed when isolated. That survival required more than food and warmth and a monster’s obsessive attention.
She didn’t examine the thought too closely. She was already reaching for the gray silk gown draped over the carved stone chair, already calculating how quickly she could make herself presentable enough to leave.
“Give me five minutes.”
Yarx inclined his head and stepped outside.
The private suitewas nothing like the medical bay where she’d first woken—no translucent domes, no pulsing blue light, no antiseptic chill that tasted like alien technology and captivity. This room was smaller, warmer, carved from the same volcanic stone as the rest of the fortress but softened somehow. Furs lined a curved bench along one wall. A low table held ceramic cups and a steaming pot that smelled faintly of herbs she didn’t recognize. Heat radiated from vents in the floor, turning the space into something almost comfortable.
Almost safe.
Mia sat on the bench with her knees drawn up, the remains of her red wedding dress replaced by something simpler—dark fabric, practical cut, probably borrowed from whatever stores the fortress kept for their captives. Her black hair was cleanerthan the last time Elsa had seen her, pulled back from a face that had lost some of its terrified pallor.