KAEL'S POV
The shadows swallowed me whole.
Cold, bone-deep, airless—like the world itself had clenched a fist around my throat. The chamber, the wolves, Ayla's silver light—it all vanished. Only black remained.
Not darkness. Darkness I knew. This was absent.
I tried to roar, to call my wolf, but sound didn't exist here. My throat strained, my chest heaved, but nothing left me.
Kael.
The voice didn't come from outside. It coiled through my skull, slick and ancient. The Binder.
"You've bound yourself to her," it whispered, sliding around my mind like oil. "But bonds are threads, Alpha King. And threads break."
Silver flashed in the black—our bond, faint and frayed, straining against the void. Ayla. My chest burned. She was still there, fighting to hold me.
I bared my teeth, though no one could see it. You can't sever us.
