Elara POV
The seventeenth mark pulsed again.
Once.
Twice.
Like a heartbeat trying to decide whether it belonged to me… or to one of them.
My legs went weak, but neither of them moved toward me. They didn't dare. The air between Kaelen and Theron wasn't just tense — it was a battlefield waiting for the first drop of blood.
Kaelen's hand was still outstretched.
Theron's body was still in front of mine.
Mira didn't breathe.
And I—
I couldn't blink.
Not when two men who would raze the world for me stood inches from tearing each other apart.
Kaelen's voice broke the air first, lower than I'd ever heard it. "If I lose you here, I lose you forever."
Theron's jaw tightened. "If you drag her out of this fortress half-broken, you lose her tonight."
Their power crackled again — not explosive, not yet, but sharp enough that my skin prickled with static.
A tremor rolled up my wrist.
Not a normal pulse.
Not a flare.
A countdown.
"Stop," I whispered, barely audible.
