I staggered, my knees nearly buckling. Yet strangely, it didn’t hurt; it felt as though he was using every ounce of his power to pin me to the spot without causing me harm. Magnus surged to his feet, straining to yank his trapped wrist free from the wooden frame, his dark eyes never leaving me.
I forced myself up and bolted for the door as a deafening crack echoed behind me. He had finally snapped the remaining armrest. The thunderous crash of the parlor door slamming open sent a cry tearing from my throat, and I sprinted down the corridor like the devil himself was on my heels. And he was. He was the devil. My only advantage was a mere minute’s head start—maybe even less.
"Jane! Stop!"
His snarl drove me into a blind panic, my legs moving faster than my mind could process. Reaching the end of the long hallway, I cast a glance over my shoulder and saw him closing the distance.
I burst onto the porch, the freezing night air slamming into my face. Derek was already waiting, frantically shoving the motorcycle key into my trembling hands. Without losing a fraction of a second, I threw my leg over the bike. Behind me, the grand front doors burst open as if kicked off their hinges. The final image I caught over my shoulder was his face.
Shocked.
Raw.
Alive.
He stared at me, then at the bike, surging forward in a desperate attempt to reach me. I knew he wouldn’t be able to shift yet, but I couldn’t help feeling mortified.
He took one step, then another—and I slammed the throttle, launching the bike forward into the night. If I didn’t leave that very second, I would never leave at all, because the mate pull was already dragging me back, whimpering and begging me to turn around. But I had to ride. I had to go faster.
His roar echoed through the dark, shattering a heart—not mine, but his mate’s. Though perhaps they were one and the same. The only difference was that my human mind could force itself to ignore the sound. I could force myself not to turn back.
What I couldn’t do was make the pain stop.
The handlebars vibrated violently in my grip, and I fought to stabilize the bike, knuckles white as I squeezed the grips. The night around me was pitch-black, the road deserted, the estate already fading into the distance. I sped ahead into the dark, yet I felt not a single drop of the relief I should have felt.
I had secured his blood. I had escaped. I was almost home.
But damn it, I did not feel anything close to calm. Because he would not let this go. I knew this with terrifying certainty the second I entered the bridge, as my eye caught a glint in the rearview mirror—a black sports car, barreling down the road after me. The ferocious speed at which it was moving left no room for doubt as to who was at the wheel.
It was Magnus.
My heart was demanding I turn around. I was in pain. Physical, crushing pain from the distance stretching between us with every passing second, and I kept telling myself it wasn’t my pain, it was the pain of his dead mate, but the distinction was vanishing. Between that mate and me. I could no longer separate her feelings from my own...
He had looked at me with such disbelief. He had whispered my name with such heartbreaking tenderness. As if he had been yearning for me all those five years, just as I had yearned for him.
His mere existence had caused me so much agony that I had forbidden myself from knowing anything about him. I never looked him up online. I never asked anyone... Annie tried to talk about him once. But the single sound of his name gripped my heart in such a savage agony that I swore to forget.
Yet I named our son almost exactly like him...
I was delirious when I gave birth. In the grip of wild, soul-shattering pain, I barely remembered anything. Only his name on my lips. Only how desperately I wanted him to see our boy... to hold him against his chest as all fathers do.
To share his warmth with his tiny cub. I sobbed and cursed him for everything. For the sheer pain I had to endure completely alone. For his refusal to believe me... For not claiming me. Even though the mark on my neck screamed otherwise.
I must have opened that article researching eternal bonds a thousand times and closed it, desperately trying to protect the fragile fragments of my heart. I knew I couldn’t survive another ounce of that pain...
I didn’t know anything about what was happening while I was hiding in the Lower District, raising our son, convincing myself every single night that he hated me. That he always hated me. That what was between us was never anything real. Tears blurred my vision, but they were nothing compared to what my heart had turned into after seeing him.
I pushed the bike to its absolute limit, tearing forward at a breakneck speed, weaving sharply between the scattered night traffic. I was terrified. Truly terrified—not just because he was catching up, but because I didn’t know what would happen when he realized where I was.
And he would realize. He always found what he was looking for. But what scared me the most was that he wouldn’t find me. Damn it... It was like two entirely different people were fighting inside me. Each pulling me in opposite directions...
The comm system in my helmet switched on, and Askold’s voice made me jump so hard that the handlebars lurched sharply to the right for a terrifying second.
"Derek was caught. A man called just now—introduced himself as Sayan."
"I’m almost at the tunnel," I said softly, my voice barely cooperating. There was a suffocating lump in my throat that made it impossible to breathe normally.
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