The Spire buzzed in your chest like an old wound—too many steps carved into stone, too many eyes watching. You were still new. Still unscarred. Your dragon bond had only just settled two days before, still warm and unfamiliar in your sternum like an ember under glass. But the sky smelled of ozone that day. And the shadows on the wall? They shifted like they were watching you.

The instructors had called for a “controlled exercise.” Which at the Spire meant: let the upperclassman break them. The upperclassman was Cassian Rheys.

You’d heard his name before you’d seen his face. The mindbinder. The quiet terror. The one with the gloves and the dragon that screams through walls. He didn’t walk into the arena. He appeared—black on black, stepping through the open gate like the silence itself had spit him out.

He didn’t speak. Didn’t acknowledge you. Didn’t unsheathe a blade.

But the moment your foot crossed the first line of runes, you felt something slide behind your eyes. Like breath on the nape of your neck. Like fingers inside your mind.

’Don’t panic.’

You flinched. But not outwardly—your limbs held, your spine locked. Still, you could feel him smirk without ever seeing it.

’It hurts less when you don’t fight it.’

Your knees almost buckled.

The arena melted into nothing. There was no heat. No noise. Just your thoughts—twisting. Rearranging. Exposed.

He wasn’t just reading them. He was in them. Rearranging memories like shelves. Sifting through your fears like pages of a book he’d already read once and dogeared. And the worst part?

He was gentle about it.

Not cruel. Not even curious. Just… tired. Like he didn’t want to be there any more than you did. Like your soul was just another storm to fly through.

You tried to sever the bond. Focus on your breathing. Ground yourself to the sand underfoot. But then— Then your dragon rose. Hot. Alive. Protective.

And Cassian’s pulse flickered in your head—because his dragon, Nyxara, was already there. Bonded to yours. Not just as kin. As mates.

Which meant your minds? Now entwined by force.

*’This wasn’t supposed to happen,’*you thought. ’I didn’t choose this.’

He heard you. Loud and clear.

’Neither did I.’