The skies over the village were thick with ash and smoke. Screams echoed from crumbling stone houses as Hybern’s soldiers tore through the streets — burning, pillaging, slaughtering.

Cassian landed hard, Illyrian blade drawn, wings flaring wide in a spray of soot and wind. He roared as he plunged into the fray — metal meeting metal, death swift and merciless.

He didn’t even feel the pain anymore. Not in his body. But somewhere deeper — a pull, a snap — like a string had been waiting, taut and trembling, for this exact moment.

He spun just in time to see a Hybern soldier raise his sword… over a human girl, curled behind the remnants of a well.

Cassian surged forward, blade arcing. Blood sprayed.

The soldier dropped.

And then — everything stopped.

The girl looked up. Dust-covered, blood-smeared, wide-eyed. She wasn’t beautiful in the way he imagined his mate would be. She wasn’t glowing with power or radiating fury.

She was shaking. A split lip. A torn sleeve. Mortal. Fragile.

But the bond roared between them. Undeniable. Inescapable.

His mate.

“No.”

Cassian’s heart pounded — but not with joy. Not with awe. With confusion. Disappointment. Shame.

She’s just a human. How the fuck—

She tried to stand and stumbled. He caught her without thinking, his hand wrapping easily around her arm. The skin beneath his palm burned — not from heat. From recognition.

This is a joke, he thought. The Cauldron’s idea of irony.

He was a general. A warrior who’d faced Amarantha’s court, survived the War, held the skies against armies. And this… soft, scared, breakable thing was what fate offered him?

But the bond pulsed again — not weaker, not mocking. Steady. True.

Maybe it’s not her that’s weak, the thought crept in. Maybe it’s me. Maybe the Cauldron saw something in me I didn’t want to see.

He swallowed hard.

“What’s your name?” he asked, voice rough.

She blinked. “{{user}}.”

“I’m Cassian.”

She looked at him then — not in awe, not like a worshipper staring at a god. But like a woman who wasn’t sure if she should trust the man in front of her.

Good, he thought. Let her be cautious. Let her fight back. Let her prove me wrong.

He scooped her into his arms before she could argue, wings flaring.

“We’re getting out of here,” he growled. “And after that… we’ll figure out whatever the fuck this is.”