Nyx POV
I woke to sunlight streaming through my window and the immediate visceral awareness that I wasn't alone in my own head.
Not Frost, her presence was familiar now, a cold constant wrapped around my consciousness like protective armor.
This was different. It was churning with confusion and pain and—
Kael.
I sat up so fast the room spun. The life-bond thrummed at the back of my mind, pulling me toward him like a compass needle to north. I could feel him. He was awake, hurting but alive.
Alive.
Relief flooded through me so powerfully my hands shook.
'He is in the next room,' Frost supplied. 'Your family tended his wounds through the night. He woke an hour ago.'
An hour. He'd been awake for an hour, and I'd slept through it.
I swung my legs out of bed and immediately regretted it. My body felt like I'd been trampled by horses. Every muscle was aching. My fingers were no longer glowing, my magic reserves completely drained. The price of the life-bond, I realized. The price of saving him.
Worth it, I told myself firmly. Worth it to keep him alive.
Even if he would hate me for it.
I looked down at myself. Someone, my mother, probably, had changed me out of the blood-soaked blue dress and into a simple nightgown. The dress itself lay in a crumpled heap in the corner, ruined beyond saving. Grandmother's perfect dress was destroyed by me.
Somehow that felt innappropriate.
I pulled on a worn day dress, not bothering with my hair, and padded barefoot toward the door. Through the bond, I could feel Kael's emotions shifting between confusion giving way to agitation, then something sharper. Anger, maybe or fear.
'Careful, child,' Frost warned. 'He is not in a receptive state.'
"When is he ever?" I muttered, and opened my bedroom door.
The house was quiet. Morning light filtered through the kitchen windows where my mother stood at the stove, stirring something that smelled like healing broth. She looked up when I entered, her face immediately creasing with concern.
"Nyx. You should still be resting—"
"I'm fine." The lie came automatically. "Where is he?"
She didn't need to ask who I meant. Her eyes flicked toward Finn's room, the only bedroom on the ground floor.
"We put him in there. Easier than the stairs with his injuries." She set down her spoon and moved toward me. "Sweetheart, before you go in there, you should know that he's been asking questions. About what happened, about how he survived. About—" She hesitated. "About you."
My stomach twisted. "What did you tell him?"
"Nothing. We thought you should be the one to explain." Her hand found mine, squeezed gently. "Whatever you did, Nyx…whatever happened last night…we'll stand with you. You know that, right?"
I nodded, not trusting my voice.
"Your father and Finn are in there with him now. Making sure he doesn't try to leave before his wounds are properly healed." A small smile. "Though from what Finn says, the boy's in no condition to go anywhere."
I took a breath. "I should talk to him."
"Are you sure you're ready?"
No. Not even remotely.
"Yes," I said anyway.
My mother studied my face for a long moment, then nodded. She pulled me into a quick, fierce hug that smelled like herbs and home. "We're right here if you need us."
I crossed to Finn's door and knocked softly.
"Come in." My father's voice, carefully neutral.
I pushed the door open.
Finn's room was small, made smaller by the presence of three people. My father sat in the chair by the window, face unreadable. Finn leaned against the wall near the door, arms crossed, his expression somewhere between protective and hostile.
And on the bed, propped up against pillows with bandages wrapped around his torso and shoulder, was Kael.
He looked terrible. Pale, drawn, with dark circles under his eyes. But alive and awake. His storm-gray eyes locked onto mine the moment I entered, and I felt the bond flare, his emotions crashing into me with startling intensity.
Confusion. Anger. And underneath it all, something that felt horribly like fear.
"Nyx." My name sounded rough, like it hurt to say. "What did you do to me?"
The accusation in his tone made me flinch.
"I saved your life," I said quietly.
"That's not what I'm asking." He shifted against the pillows, wincing at the movement. "I can feel you. Inside my head. Your emotions, your presence—it's like you're…" He pressed a hand to his chest, breathing hard. "What did you do?"
I looked at my father, at Finn. Both of them were watching me with varying degrees of concern and curiosity.
"Could you give us a moment?" I asked.
"No." Finn's voice was flat. "Whatever you need to say to him, you can say in front of us."
"Finn—"
"We are not leaving you alone with some stranger that you came home with last night." His eyes were hard on Kael. "I'm not leaving you alone with him."
Kael's gaze snapped to Finn, then back to me. Something shifted in his expression—recognition, maybe. Or shame.
"Fine." I moved further into the room, wrapping my arms around myself. "You want to know what I did? I formed a life-bond. It was the only way to save you…you were dead, Kael. Your heart had stopped. You had no pulse. The rogue wolves tore you apart, and by the time I got there, there was nothing left to save with ordinary medicine or magic."
"So you bonded us." His voice was hollow. "Without asking. Without my consent. You just decided that I was worth tethering yourself to forever?"
The words stung more than they should have.
"I decided you were worth saving," I corrected, fighting to keep my voice steady. "I didn't exactly have time to draft a contract and get your signature. You were dying."
"Maybe you should have let me die."
The room went deathly silent.
The words hit hard. Through the bond, I could feel he meant them or thought he did. The self-loathing pouring off him was almost suffocating.
"Kael—" I started.
"Do you have any idea what you've done?" He was sitting up fully now, ignoring the way the movement made him pale further. "A life-bond, Nyx. Do you understand what that means? We're connected. Permanently. I can feel your emotions. You can feel mine. We're stuck with each other for the rest of our lives."
"I know what a life-bond is—"
"Then you should have left me to die!" His voice rose, cracking. "You should have walked away and let nature take its course, because I would rather be dead than be forced to spend the rest of my life bonded to—" He cut himself off, but the damage was done.
"To me," I finished quietly. "Bonded to me. The cursed North girl who stole your destiny."
Guilt flickered across his face, but he didn't deny it.
"I'll find a way to break it," he said instead. "There has to be a way. Some magic, some ritual, something that can sever a life-bond. I'll search every text, consult every seer—"
"You can't break a life-bond." My father's voice was gentle but firm. "It's one of the oldest magics. Once formed, it's permanent. Trying to sever it would kill you both."
Kael's jaw clenched. "Then I'll find a way that doesn't kill us. But I'm not…I won't accept this. I won't be tethered to someone who—" Again, he stopped himself.
But I heard it anyway. Through the bond, I felt exactly what he couldn't bring himself to say aloud.
Someone who isn't worthy of me. Someone I never chose. Someone I don't want. Someone who stole my life.
Tears burned behind my eyes, but I refused to let them fall. Not here. Not in front of him.
"You're right," I said. My voice sounded distant, too calm. "I should have let you die. I should have walked away and let the rogue wolves finish what they started. It would have been easier. For both of us."
I turned toward the door.
"That's it?" Kael's voice stopped me. "You're just going to leave?"
I looked back at him. "What do you want me to say, Kael? That I'm sorry I saved your life? That I regret keeping you alive? Because I don't. You can hate me for bonding us together. You can spend the rest of your life searching for a way to break what I did. But I won't apologize for choosing to save you when I had the power to do it."
"Even though I never wanted this? Never wanted you?"
The words were meant to hurt.
They succeeded.
"Even then," I whispered.
"Did you do this to get back at me for breaking up with you?"
I bit my lips and closed my eyes for a moment to stop the tears from falling. This is not how I imagined my family would find out that I was dating behind their backs.