Page 108 of The Huntmaster

His breathing stopped. The frantic, wild thumping of his twin hearts seemed to completely skip a beat against my back. Slowly, terrifyingly, he lifted his head.

When his eyes met mine, the great alpha looked completely, utterly undone. The brilliant, fierce gold of his gaze was completely bloodshot, drowned in a sea of unshed tears, his jaw slack as he stared down at me. For a long, breathless second, he didn't look like a king or a warrior—he looked like a frightened, stunned child staring at a miracle, entirely paralysed by the sheer shock of it. He didn't dare breathe, his hands trembling so violently against me that he seemed terrified a single movement would make me dissolve into ash.

"Lyra...?" he whispered, his voice cracking into a tiny, fragile sound that broke my heart. "By the roots... little star... are you...?"

Through the profound silence of our severed connection, a tiny, microscopic spark suddenly flared.

It was the size of a dying ember, but the moment it ignited, a fierce, roaring rush of golden warmth flooded back into the void. The mate bond didn't just snap back; it slammed into place with a deafening, spiritual thud, locking our souls back into perfect, brilliant alignment. His relief crashed into me with such a staggering, weeping torrent of gratitude and love that a ragged, choking sob tore from his lungs.

He pressed his forehead flush against mine, closing his eyes as fresh, hot tears spilt over his lashes and splattered onto my grimy cheeks. "You came back," his voice a broken, reverent whisper. "You heard me. You came back to the light."

Frowning weakly, my fingers drifted down from his cheek to touch my own throat. Expecting the slick, hot rush of an open wound, I blinked in shock as my fingertips brushed against solid, unbroken skin.

The gaping laceration Sila had carved was gone. In its place, stretching from ear to ear, lay a raised line of shimmering silver scar tissue. It was warm beneath my fingertips, pulsing with a slow, steady rhythm that echoed the forest’s heartbeat.

Kaelen's thumb brushed over the raised silver line, and his face crumpled all over again.

"The Alu'un marked you..."

We sat in silence, neither of us willing to break the fragile miracle unfolding between us. The bond had returned to where it belonged, humming warm and whole beneath my ribs. And so had I.

I was exactly where I was meant to be.

With Kaelen.

My mate.

"She... she is alive?"

The voice came from the edge of the platform. I blinked past Kaelen's shoulder to see Tyler, his face pale and tear-stained, staring at us with wide, disbelieving eyes. Beside him, Toren was slumped against a collapsed piece of the bone gate, his mutilated forearm still clutched tightly against his chest, but a profound, solemn look of reverence settled over the massive warrior's features.

"The Alu'un have spoken," Toren rumbled softly, his voice thick with pain but filled with an unyielding respect. "The canopy does not forget its protectors."

But the victory was short-lived.

A sudden, violent tremor rocked the entire cavern, far worse than the earlier tectonic shifts. The blinding white beam of energy shooting from the console flared, its light turning a dangerous, flickering shade of crimson as the scrolling numbers on the display flashed in angry, erratic patterns. The ancient translations were warping, melting into symbols that looked less like a beacon and more like a countdown.

The air grew suffocatingly hot, the smell of ozone and burning metal filling the space.

Kaelen’s jaw tensed, the lethal huntmaster instantly snapping back into place as he looked from the volatile machine to the crumbling ceiling. Debris was raining down in heavy sheets now, large chunks of stone crashing onto the lower levels.

"The device is collapsing," Kaelen growled softly, his golden eyes locking back onto mine with fierce, protective urgency. He carefully gathered me fully into his arms, lifting my fragile weight from the grated floor as if I weighed nothing at all. "The transmission has finished, but the core is burning itself out. We have to leave. Now."

I clung to the leather of his collar, my eyes drifting one last time to the flashing primary display. The beam cut a direct path into the stars, a frequency of ruin that had already been unleashed into the vastness of the universe. Sila had gotten what she wanted. The door was open.

But as Kaelen turned and sprinted toward the escaping vanguard, his grip around me unyielding and warm, I closed my eyes against his chest.

Whatever was coming from the sky, we would face it together.

Chapter 69

Kaelen-Thul

The cavern was tearing itself apart, but the only weight that mattered was the heat of the female pressed against my chest.

Every stride I took away from the collapsing platform felt like racing through a falling mountain. Dust and shards of ancient stone rained down, shattering against my heavy shoulder guards, but I kept my body tightly curled over Lyra, shielding her from the debris. The newly restored mate bond roared in my mind—a blazing, white-hot sun of her presence that filled the hollowed-out chambers of my soul. I kept checking it, pulse after pulse, terrified that the golden light would suddenly sputter and leave me in the dark again.

I have you, I projected down the line, my mental voice rough and fiercely possessive. Hold on to me, little star.