Chapter 113
Astrid's POV
My hand was frozen on the cold brass of the doorknob, a single point of contact with a world I was about to either embrace or reject. My entire being was a battlefield, torn between two warring imperatives.
'Go to him.'
The command was not a thought; it was a physical agony, a primal scream that echoed through the very marrow of my bones. The mating bond, which had always been a source of warmth and strength, was now a torsion bar, twisting my soul with a phantom pain that mirrored what my mate must be feeling. It showed me flashes of him, broken, bleeding, alone in the sterile white of a hospital room. It was a pain that bypassed reason, a biological imperative that demanded I run to his side and offer what little comfort I could.
Elara's warning was the opposite, a cold, sharp anchor of logic in the swirling chaos. Her voice in my memory was clear and absolute, a bulwark against the emotional tide.
