KAEL'S POV
Her body went slack in my arms—then stiffened again, her skin glowing like molten metal under moonlight. I could barely hold her; every breath from her chest pulsed heat through me, like clutching a star.
"Ayla." My voice cracked, hoarse from shouting, from begging. "It's over. You're here. You're safe."
But the thing in my arms didn't look safe.
Her eyes opened. Brown at first, soft and familiar. Then silver bled through them like spilled mercury, threaded with fire. The bond between us thrummed hard enough to shake my ribs, pounding with two heartbeats, two forces, colliding inside her.
She smiled at me—except it wasn't a full Ayla smile. It was sharper. Wilder. Something feral in it, something that made every wolf in me bristle.
"I told them I wouldn't choose," she whispered, voice both hers and not hers. "So I took everything."
