005

THE MATE BOND

~Mira's POV~

Nobody moved.

The wind stopped as fast as it started. But something it brought stayed between us. It hung in the air, like a song note you can't hear yet.

Or like right after lightning, before you hear the thunder.

Lucien's words faded into the dark.

'That's her.'

Her? Like they had been looking for something. Like I was the answer to a question they had not meant to ask.

I didn't understand it yet.

My wolf did.

She was pressed so hard against the inside of my chest I could barely breathe around her. It was not fear. It was not aggression.

It was like nothing I had ever known. I did not have words for it because I had never felt it before. Maybe it was like realizing you found something you did not even know was missing.

'Stop it,' I told her.

She didn't even flinch.

Ronan moved first.

He crossed the space between us in three steps and grabbed my arm and I did not have time to react before he was right there, close enough that his breath fogged the air between us, his eyes burning a bright and furious gold.

"Why do you smell like that?"

He sounded different, not like his usual bossy or threatening voice. This was more real, like the words had come out before he could decide whether to say them.

"Let go of me."

"Why do you smell like that?"

"Ronan." Kael's voice was harsh.

Ronan kept holding my arm. It was not a painful grip, but he wasn't letting go. He looked at me strangely, like he had accidentally grabbed something and wasn't sure what to do with it now.

Then it hit.

I don't know how else to describe it. There's no word that fits. It wasn't pain exactly....it was too electric for pain, too alive.

It started in my chest where my wolf had been pressing and it spread outward through my whole body in one huge wave, like every nerve I had suddenly woke up at once.

Like a door blowing open.

Ronan made a sound like he had been hit.

Kael staggered. Like actually staggered — one hand dropping to his knee, head down, breathing hard. Kael, who moved through the world like nothing had ever touched him, braced himself against his own legs like he couldn't trust them.

Lucien had both hands wrapped around the tree behind him. His book was on the ground. He hadn't noticed.

The forest had gone completely silent. No wind. No animals. Like the world had paused to watch.

My wolf surged up inside me.....not the hesitant stirring from the courtyard, not the flash from the arena. This was a full roar.

This was her, finally, completely, taking up the space she had apparently always been meant to occupy, and her voice when it came wasn't something I heard with my ears.

I heard it somewhere behind my ribs.

'Ours,' she said as clear as a bell and certain as anything I had ever known.

'They are ours.'

"No," I said out loud, to her or to myself or to the forest, I wasn't sure.

Ronan's grip tightened slightly.

"You feel that," he said.

It was not a question. I couldn't lie about it. It was too big to lie about. "What's happening," I said instead, which was also not an answer.

Kael straightened up. It took effort....I could see the effort...but he pulled himself upright and turned to look at me and his face had gone through something terrible and come out the other side into something I recognized.

He looked at me for a long moment.

His jaw shifted.

Lucien had let go of the tree. He was watching Kael the way you watch someone make a decision you're not sure about.

"Kael...." he started.

"Don't." Kael's voice came out flat and final.

It was the same voice he used when things were decided. He looked at me one more time.

Something passed through his eyes that might have been....for just a half second....something other than cold. Something almost human.

Then it was gone.

"No," he said quietly.

It was not to Lucien, not to Ronan, but to me. Directly at me, like I was the one who had done this. Like it was my fault. Like the thing burning in my chest right now was something I had manufactured and aimed at them on purpose.

"She isn't our mate."