Page 108 of Unveiled

Adrian stared at him. “You’re hurting.”

Connor froze.

“You hide so much,” Adrian said. “You think you’re alone. You think if you love something it will be taken. You think if you crack even a little, people will stop believing you’re strong.”

Connor’s entire body went rigid. “Stop.”

“You think your wolf will hurt me,” Adrian whispered. “But it won’t.”

Connor closed his eyes.

Adrian cupped his face with cold hands. “I see you,” he whispered. “All of you.” He didn’t retreat.

Something inside him answered. The mark burned, then split. A second presence surged up from beneath Adrian’s skin: white-hot, terrified, and alive. He gasped as the air thickened around him, the world shivering at its seams. His vision fractured into instinct, memory, and urge.

And then his wolf stepped into being. His was not as large as Connor’s. He was leaner, his dark fur streaked through with silver. His eyes, sharp and luminous, snapped open where Adrian stood.

Connor’s wolf stiffened. Not in challenge, but in recognition.

The two wolves circled once, slow and deliberate, reading scent, presence, and something deeper than either. Adrian felt it slam into him through bone and blood as surely as it did through Connor.

This is you. This is him. This is us.

Connor dropped to one knee, his breath dragging. “Adrian.”

He stumbled back into the snow, a rush of breath and heat escaping him as he collapsed against Connor with a strangled sound.

Connor caught him, his arms wrapping tight.

The two wolves stepped closer, flank to flank, their shoulders brushing. Light surged. Not blinding, not violent, but inevitable. It threaded from chest to chest, from mark to mark, knotting between them. Adrian cried out, not in pain, but in surrender as the bond locked home.

The sensation wasn’t possession. It was a meeting.

Mine, said Connor’s wolf, and Adrian’s didn’t recoil.

Mine, Adrian breathed back, equal and certain.

His wolf lay down in the snow, its head bowed, with Connor’s wolf by its side. Submitting. Accepting. Claiming.

And something between them finally stopped running.

The wind shifted. Xiathen’s voice echoed faintly from beyond the dream-snow. “Valours return now.”

The dream began to fade. Connor held Adrian’s face. “You with me?”

Adrian nodded, his eyes still shining. “Always.”

The bond pulsed. The wolves nudged each other, nose to nose, then dissolved into silver ash.

Connor pulled Adrian close as the dream collapsed around them.

Together, they fell back into waking.

Chapter Thirty-One

Adrian

Adrian woke with a gasp, Connor’s arms tight around him.