Chapter 170

Maren

I wake with the bond snapping tight.

Not pain—alarm.

It yanks me up from sleep like a hand around my ribs, breath tearing out of me as my eyes fly open. For half a second I don’t know where I am, only that something has shifted so violently it rattled straight through me.

“Kaelen—” I gasp.

The space beside me is empty.

The air still smells like him—heat, smoke, something unmistakably alive—b