Se connecterThe forest didn’t breathe anymore. It listened. Charred bark smoldered where the hunters’ machines had been torn apart. The ground was ripped open, earth clawed and split as if the island itself had tried to crawl away from what had happened. Leaves drifted down in brittle spirals, settling over broken weapons and unconscious bodies. Kiera stood at the center of it all. She didn’t remember stepping forward. She didn’t remember choosing to stand. But there she was, bare feet planted in scorched soil, arms slightly out from her sides as if holding back something vast and invisible. The remnants of the psychic storm still crackled in the air. Ronan staggered toward her, blood tracing a dark line down his ribs. His bear was still half present—fur dusted through his hair, claws only partly drawn back—but his eyes were fully hers now. Gold. Locked on her like an anchor refusin
The mountain buckled. Stone screamed as fractures raced along the chamber walls, dust and debris raining down in choking clouds. The floor split in a jagged line between Ronan and Dr. Hale, glowing faintly with heat and power. Kiera felt it all at once. Not panic. Not fear. Flow. The bond no longer yanked at her like a wound—it moved. Power surged between her and Ronan in a steady, deliberate rhythm, like breath. Like a heartbeat shared between two bodies. Ronan braced instinctively, one knee hitting the ground as the energy rippled outward. His claws sank into the stone, anchoring them both as the cavern groaned in protest. Hale staggered back, eyes sharp as he took it in—the way the light twisted differently now, the way the air bent toward them instead of tearing itself apart. “No,” he snapped. “That’
The world came back in fragments. Smoke. Alarms. The scream of tortured metal still echoing through stone. Kiera was dimly aware of being held—no, shielded—as something massive wrapped itself around her, pulling her off the extraction chair just as the machine detonated behind them. Heat blasted across her back. Shards of glass and sparking wire rained down. Ronan hit the ground hard, his body curling around hers on instinct, taking the brunt of the impact. The bond surged between them—raw and searing and alive. Kiera. His voice wasn’t panic. It was relief so violent it hurt. Her fingers twitched, clutching his shirt. She couldn’t see him clearly yet—her vision still swam with blinding light—but she could feel him. Solid. Real. Here. The restraints cracked and fell away as her power snapped outward r
Ronan tore through the last of the smoke like a living storm. The chamber buckled under the force of his arrival—stone cracking, cables snapping loose, alarms screaming as the air pressure shifted. He landed in a crouch at the threshold, claws gouging deep grooves into the concrete, fur bristling with restrained violence. “Kiera!” Her name ripped from him—out loud this time—and the sound cut through the shriek of machinery like a blade. She was there. Strapped to the chair at the center of the room. Pinned. A device hovered over her skull, its needle buried far deeper than it had any right to be, glowing with hungry light. Her body arched against the restraints, muscles locked, eyes blown wide and burning white. Energy bled off her in waves sharp enough to sting his skin. Ronan felt it like pressure behind his ribs. The bond.
Cold metal pressed against Kiera’s back. Not a memory. Real. The shock of it stole what little breath she had. Her mind screamed even as her body locked, an old response snapping into place as efficiently as a trigger being pulled. Straps closed around her wrists and ankles with soft, mechanical clicks. Gentle. Precise. Almost respectful. That made it worse. The chamber was circular, carved deep into the island’s buried stone. Old concrete walls ringed with cables, cracked screens, and equipment that hummed like insects trapped in glass. Blue lights glowed faintly along the ceiling, pulsing in a slow, deliberate rhythm. A heartbeat that wasn’t hers. Dr. Hale stood at the center console, hands folded behind his back. His white coat was spotless despite the journey underground, as if filth had never learned how to cling to him. “Easy,” he said calmly. “Y
The darkness swallowed him whole. Ronan’s presence—his anchor, his certainty—vanished from Kiera’s mind in a single, brutal snap, like a cord cut under tension. “No—” The word tore through her silently, her body lurching toward the pit’s edge. Nothing answered. No heartbeat in her chest that wasn’t her own. No steady weight at her back. No fierce, burning presence braided through her thoughts. Just emptiness. Hale’s voice drifted across the quarry, smooth and satisfied. “You see,” he said. “This is why I planned ahead.” Kiera sank to her knees, dirt scraping her palms. The air above the pit shimmered faintly—some kind of dampening field, metallic and wrong. She could feel it pressing against her mind like a lid slammed shut. She reached again. Ronan. Nothing. The Hunt
The cavern vibrated with a low, unnatural hum.Not from the wind. Not from the shifting stone. From her.The girl—her mirror, her shadow, her engineered twin—stood at the center of the chamber with her hand extended. Pale light pulsed from her palm like a heartbeat.Kiera couldn’t breathe.Her ba
The cavern shuddered.Not from Ronan’s growl. Not from the presence of the strange girl. Not even from the cave itself.It came from Kiera.A pulse rolled outward from her body—soft at first, then sharp, slicing the air like invisible blades. Dust lifted from the stone floor. Pebbles skittered aw
Ronan didn’t remember deciding to jump.One heartbeat, Kiera was there—eyes wide, fear spiralling out of her in waves that crashed through the bond so violently he could barely breathe.The next heartbeat, the cliff opened beneath her.And she was gone.He lunged after her before thought or instinc
Silence didn’t fall over the ravine.It collapsed—heavy, suffocating, crushing the trees, the air, the sky.The Hunter’s words spiraled through Kiera’s skull like a shard of glass:“They want her to merge with the Alpha.”Ronan.Her counterpart. Her match. Her— No. No, no, no.Her breath fractu







