Vale's POV
Pain exploded through my chest like someone had stabbed me with a burning knife.
I dropped to my knees in the middle of the hallway, gasping and clutching my ribs. But there was no wound, no injury I could see. The pain was coming from somewhere else, somewhere deeper.
"Dante," I whispered, knowing somehow that he was in trouble.
I ran toward the training room where I'd left him twenty minutes ago. Each step sent another wave of agony through my body, but it wasn't my pain. It was his. I could feel it as clearly as if we shared the same nervous system.
The door to the training room hung off its hinges. Inside, chairs were overturned and weapons scattered across the floor. Signs of a fight were everywhere, but no people.
"Dante!" I shouted, panic rising in my throat.
A weak groan came from behind an overturned table. I rushed over and found Dante lying in a pool of blood, three silver darts sticking out of his chest.
"No, no, no," I muttered, kneeling beside him. His face was gray and his breathing was shallow. The silver poison was working fast.
The moment I touched his forehead, the pain in my own chest got worse. But now I understood what was happening. I was feeling his agony, his body fighting against the deadly silver.
"Who did this?" I asked, pulling out the darts one by one.
"Dr. Voss," he whispered. "She had help. They took... your father."
My heart stopped. "What?"
"Grabbed him from his office. Left me these darts as a message." Dante tried to sit up but fell back down. "They want you to come after them."
I placed my hands on his chest, letting silver light flow from my palms. The wounds began to heal, but much slower than before. The silver had been in his system too long.
"Why can I feel your pain?" I asked while I worked. "It's like we're connected somehow."
Dante's silver eyes met mine, and I saw something there I'd never noticed before. Something deep and ancient and impossible to explain.
"You don't remember," he said softly.
"Remember what?"
Before he could answer, one of the mansion's alarms started blaring. Red lights flashed in the hallway, and I could hear my father's guards shouting orders. The attack wasn't over.
"We have to go," I said, helping Dante to his feet. "Can you walk?"
"I can run if I have to."
We made it to the main staircase before the next wave of attackers burst through the front doors. Men in black tactical gear, armed with silver bullets and tranquilizer guns. They weren't trying to kill us – they wanted us alive.
"This way," Dante said, pulling me toward a hidden passage behind a bookshelf.
But as we ran through the secret corridors, I couldn't stop thinking about what had happened in the training room. The way I'd felt Dante's pain like it was my own. The way my body had known he was in danger before my mind caught up.
"There's something you're not telling me," I said as we climbed down a ladder into an underground tunnel.
"There's a lot I'm not telling you," Dante replied grimly. "But this isn't the time."
We emerged from the tunnel into a small clearing in the forest behind the mansion. The night air was cold, and somewhere in the distance I could hear helicopters searching for us.
"Now," I said, grabbing Dante's arm. "Tell me now. Why can I feel your emotions? Why does it hurt me when you get injured?"
Dante stopped walking and turned to face me. In the moonlight, his silver eyes looked almost supernatural.
"Because we're bonded," he said quietly. "Have been since we were children."
"What kind of bond?"
"The strongest kind. The kind that connects souls."
Before I could ask more questions, a voice spoke from the shadows between the trees.
"The kind that can't be broken, even by death."
An old woman stepped into the moonlight. She was small and bent with age, but her eyes were sharp and knowing. She wore simple clothes and walked with a wooden staff, but something about her presence made the air itself feel different.
"Who are you?" I demanded, stepping protectively in front of Dante.
The woman smiled. "I am Luna Silvermoon, child. And I've been waiting a very long time to meet you."
"Another person who knows more about me than I do," I muttered.
"I know you because I helped create what you are," Luna said, walking closer. "I was there the night your mother died. I was there when the moon magic passed to you."
My heart skipped. "You knew my mother?"
"I trained her, just as I trained her mother before her. Your family has served as moon witches for over a thousand years."
"But I'm not a witch. I don't know any spells or potions or—"
"Magic isn't about spells, lost luna," Luna interrupted. "It's about connection. Connection to the earth, to the moon, to the creatures who need your healing touch."
She looked between Dante and me with ancient, knowing eyes.
"And most importantly, connection to your mate."
I felt heat rise in my cheeks. "He's not my mate. He kidnapped me."
Luna laughed, a sound like silver bells in the wind. "Oh, child. You have so much to remember."
She reached into a small pouch at her waist and pulled out what looked like a glowing stone. But as she held it up to the moonlight, I realized it wasn't a stone at all. It was crystallized moonlight, somehow captured and made solid.
"This will help your memories return," Luna said, offering me the crystal. "But be warned – once you remember the truth, there will be no going back to ignorance."
"What truth?" I asked, but I was already reaching for the crystal.
The moment it touched my skin, images flashed through my mind like lightning.
I saw myself as a seven-year-old girl, standing in a moonlit clearing with Luna and a woman who had to be my mother. They were performing some kind of ceremony, speaking words in a language that sounded familiar but forgotten.
I saw a young boy lying wounded in the same clearing – Dante, maybe eight years old, dying from injuries that should have killed him. I watched my younger self place glowing hands on his wounds, healing him with power I barely understood.
But there was more. I saw Luna weaving threads of silver light between the boy and me, binding us together with magic older than memory.
"A mate bond," Luna's voice whispered in my mind. "Forged in moonlight and sealed with your healing touch. Two souls becoming one."
The visions faded, leaving me gasping and confused. But now I understood why I could feel Dante's pain, why my body responded to his presence, why saving his life had felt like the most natural thing in the world.
We weren't just connected by shared memories or mutual attraction.
We were literally two halves of the same soul.
Luna was watching me with patient eyes, waiting for me to process what I'd seen.
"The mate bond is awakening," she said softly. "Soon, you'll remember everything – including why you saved his life."
I looked at Dante, who was staring at me with an expression of hope and terror mixed together.
"Because we're bound together," I whispered. "Because we always have been."
Luna nodded. "And because, my dear child, when one mate dies, the other follows shortly after."