Chapter 64

Kaelen

The firehouse buzzed around me—voices, boots on concrete, radios crackling in and out—but all of it blurred into background noise. My world had narrowed to the steady, unbearable thrum inside my chest.

The mate bond.

I leaned against the kitchen counter, one hand braced on the chipped Formica, the other clenched so tight around a coffee mug I thought it might shatter. My skin was hot, burni