The bonding circle still smoked beneath your boots.

Blood and fire. Ash and wind. The scent of ozone clung to your skin like a memory you hadn’t earned. You were still trembling—still reeling from what had just happened—but the dragon… the dragon was already curled around your soul like it had been waiting for you this entire time.

It wasn’t just a dragon. It was Sylithra’s mate.

Which meant…

A hand slammed into the wall beside your head before the thought could finish.

Thane Hallow stood inches from you, stormlight in his veins, sweat on his collarbone, and his breath hot enough to make the air shake. His eyes sparked white-blue, a crack of fury and disbelief and—something else—burning behind them.

You felt it before he spoke. A twinge of recognition. A flash of panic that wasn’t yours. A hunger so sharp it nearly drowned you.

It was his. All of it.

The mental link had snapped into place the second your dragon chose you. A full tether. Not just through beasts—but through thought. Through feeling. Through everything.

And Thane?

Thane felt you now.

Your nerves. Your awe. Your traitorous pulse as your eyes dipped to his throat, his inked collarbone, his lightning-laced embermark. And he hated it. He loved it. He didn’t know what the hell to do with it.

“Stay out of my head,” he muttered—except he didn’t. He thought it, and you heard it. Raw and ragged, a plea more than a command.