Updated Nov 20, 2025 • ~7 min read
The Council assembly was held in an old cathedral that had been converted into their headquarters decades ago. Liana had been there exactly once before, for a “community outreach” event that had been more propaganda than outreach, and she’d hated every second of it.
Tonight was worse.
The main hall was packed with people—hundreds of them, maybe more, all sporting fresh marks in various states of glow. The air was thick with tension and fear and desperate hope. Council members stood on a raised platform at the front, looking grave and important in their formal robes.
Liana wanted to turn around and walk right back out.
“Stay close,” Maya murmured, gripping her hand. “We’re just here for information.”
Right. Information. Not to be catalogued or controlled or whatever the Council had planned.
They found spots near the back, which gave Liana a clear view of the exits and made her feel fractionally less trapped. Around them, people whispered and compared marks, some excited, others terrified. A young guy next to them was crying quietly. His friend had an arm around his shoulders, murmuring reassurances.
Liana’s mark pulsed, a steady throb that had been building all day. He was here. She knew it with the same certainty she knew her own heartbeat. Kaelen was somewhere in this building.
The thought made her skin prickle with something that definitely wasn’t fear.
A Council elder stepped forward—Magistrate Voss, a severe woman with white hair and eyes that missed nothing. The crowd fell silent.
“Thank you all for coming,” Voss said, her voice amplified by some trick of acoustics that made it seem like she was speaking directly into each person’s ear. “We know you have questions. We know you’re afraid. Let me start by saying this: you are safe here.”
A laugh bubbled up in Liana’s throat. She swallowed it.
“Three nights ago, a cosmic event occurred that has marked thousands of individuals across the globe,” Voss continued. “These marks are not random. They are not a curse. They are the manifestation of an ancient bond—one that has been prophesied for generations. You have been chosen.”
Murmurs rippled through the crowd. Chosen for what? someone called out.
“For greatness,” Voss said simply. “The marks indicate a connection to another soul—your fated mate. This bond is sacred. Powerful. And necessary for what is to come.”
What is to come? Maya whispered. That sounds ominous.
Liana’s mark burned hotter. She rubbed at it absently, trying to focus on Voss’s words, but her attention kept drifting. Scanning the crowd. Looking for—
Silver eyes met hers from across the room.
Everything else fell away.
Kaelen stood near the far wall, partially hidden by the crowd, but Liana would have known him anywhere. Would have recognized him in pitch darkness, in a room of a thousand people. The bond sang between them, a live wire of connection that made her whole body light up.
He was taller than she’d realized. Broad-shouldered and built like someone who knew violence intimately. He wore all black—simple clothes that somehow looked deliberate on him—and his steel-gray locs were pulled back from his face, revealing sharp cheekbones and a jaw that could cut glass.
He was staring at her with an expression that was equal parts shock and fury.
Liana couldn’t breathe.
The bond pulled taut between them, and suddenly she could feel everything he felt: recognition, anger, desire, fear, all tangled together in a knot too complex to unravel. His pulse was racing. So was hers. The mark on her shoulder blade felt like it was on fire.
Kaelen broke eye contact first, turning sharply and pushing through the crowd toward a side exit.
Oh no. No way.
Liana moved without thinking, pulling free of Maya’s grip and threading through the packed bodies. Behind her, Maya called her name, but Liana was already gone, following the pull of the bond like a fish on a line.
She caught up to him in a side corridor, empty and dim after the crowded hall.
“Wait,” she called.
He didn’t slow down.
“Kaelen.”
That made him stop. He spun to face her, and the force of his presence—unfiltered, without distance or walls between them—hit her like a physical thing. Her knees almost buckled.
“Don’t.” His voice was rough, that accent more pronounced now. Caribbean, she thought, though she couldn’t pin it down more specifically. “Don’t say my name like you know me.”
“I saw—in the vision—”
“I don’t care what you saw.” He took a step toward her, and Liana’s body responded without her permission—heart racing, skin flushing, every nerve ending suddenly aware of exactly how close he was. “I don’t want this. I don’t want you.”
The words should have hurt. They did hurt. But underneath them, through the bond, Liana could feel what he actually felt. The lie of his words. The truth of his body.
He wanted her. He hated that he wanted her. But he did.
“You think I want this?” Liana shot back, anger rising to meet his. “You think I asked for some cosmic bond to chain me to a stranger who clearly has anger management issues?”
His eyes flashed. “You know nothing about me.”
“I know you’re scared.” The words came out before she could stop them. “I know you’re alone. I know you think you don’t deserve this.”
Kaelen went very still. The fury in his expression shifted into something more dangerous. “Stay out of my head.”
“I can’t. That’s the whole problem.” Liana closed the distance between them, driven by frustration and exhaustion and the pull of the bond. “You think I want to feel your emotions? See your memories? I didn’t ask for this any more than you did.”
“Then we agree.” His jaw clenched. “We don’t want each other. So we stay away. Break the bond.”
“You think I haven’t tried?” Her voice rose. “You think I haven’t spent every waking moment since this happened trying to figure out how to undo it?”
“Try harder.”
They were inches apart now, close enough that Liana could see the silver sheen in his eyes wasn’t just a color—it was light, actual light, moving and shifting like liquid metal. Close enough to feel the heat radiating off his skin. Close enough that the bond between them was a roar instead of a whisper, demanding, insistent.
Close enough that when Kaelen’s gaze dropped to her mouth, Liana felt it everywhere.
The air between them crackled.
“This is a mistake,” Kaelen said, but he didn’t move away.
“Agreed.”
Neither of them moved. The bond pulled tighter, and Liana’s whole body was screaming at her to close the gap, to touch him, to—
Footsteps echoed down the corridor.
They sprang apart like they’d been burned. A Council guard rounded the corner, looking harried.
“The assembly’s starting the registration process,” the guard said. “Everyone needs to return to the main hall.”
Liana didn’t take her eyes off Kaelen. His expression had shuttered, all that intensity locked away behind a mask of cold indifference. But she could still feel him through the bond. Still feel the want and the resistance warring inside him.
“We should go back,” she said quietly.
“You go. I’m leaving.”
“They said registration is mandatory.”
“Let them try to stop me.” Kaelen turned to go, then paused. When he looked back, something in his expression had shifted. Softened, just for a second. “Stay away from me, Liana. For both our sakes.”
Then he was gone, disappearing down the corridor before she could find words to respond.
Liana stood there, shaking, her mark burning like a brand. The bond stretched between them, and even though he was leaving, even though he’d told her to stay away, she could feel him.
He’d made it two blocks before he had to stop, one hand braced against a wall, fighting the urge to turn around.
Liana closed her eyes, overwhelmed by the echo of his longing.
This was going to destroy them both.
And she had no idea how to stop it.
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