I cry out as I’m forced to turn around and present my back to the pride. My gaze darts wildly, seeing nothing but the front double doors of the meeting hall before me.

This is it.

Hands grasp my wings, stretch the wiry-thin membrane uncomfortably taut. I gasp at how much this hurts my injured wing.

I compress my lips and steam escapes my nostrils. Fingers poke and prod, searching for the best place to cut. Bile surges in my throat. I feel violated, ravaged, from the rough groping.

Instinctively, fire surges to the back of my throat, ready to defend, to protect myself. I bite my lip until the taste of blood flows over my teeth. Coppery sweet, it mingles with the flavor of char and ash.

A hard hand shoves my head down until my chin touches my chest. The pose forces my back into a high curve. My wings stretch tall above me, on display, the fiery gossamer sheets poised for the perfect cut.

I hiss, tremble violently as the first cold tip of steel touches one of the wiry tendons latticing my right wing.

The hands on my arms grip harder, squeeze until I can’t feel the blood in my biceps. . . .

“Don’t move,” a voice warns. “I’d hate to take off your entire wing.”

I choke on a sob and hold still. Then I’m free.

No one touches me anymore. No cold steel kisses my wing, ready to break and sever. . . .

I stumble off the block. Fall to the concrete. Tears sting my eyes, clouding the vision of Cassian standing above me, looking down at me with unnaturally bright eyes, his chest lifting on heated breaths.

Severin’s voice booms across the air, silencing the rumblings of the pride. “An alternative to the wing clipping has been proposed and deemed acceptable.”

My head whips in the direction of Severin. Hope springs in my heart and I can only think that I’ll do it. Whatever it is. Any alternative would be better.

What could be worse than being hobbled, potentially crippled for life?

“Should Jacinda agree to enter into bonding on this day with Cassian she shall be spared. . . .”

All heat drains from my body. I’m cold inside.

I rise shakily, stand distant and still as any statue overlooking the sea of stunned faces. However, none more stunned than mine.

My gaze finds Cassian. His eyes are as cold as I feel inside, black with no hint of light. No wind. No sky. Nothing.

His lips press into a flat line as if to stop himself from explaining why he has done this.

I search his face, looking, seeking something, trying to understand, trying to find the answer there.

This? This is what he offered to his father as a solution? Why has he done this? Does he truly want to bond with me? Or is he just making the grand sacrifice? He doesn’t look happy about it . . . about forfeiting himself to save me.

“She agrees,” Cassian announces, staring into my eyes, daring me to disagree. Because he knows I can’t. Not with the alternative before me.

No one waits for me to confirm Cassian’s claim. I’m whisked away. The elders thrust me into the arms of their mates, females ever happy to serve only them and the pride. The very thing they expect me to become. Complacent. Dutiful. I almost laugh at this image. That could never be me.

I crane my head, look to my right as I descend the steps, trying to catch a glimpse of Tamra’s face, needing to see her.

Ice shoots to my heart when I finally do. Everything about her is a wash of paleness. Her hair. Her face. Even her eyes are colorless, clear frost. Her lips part, sag slightly open with words that don’t emerge.

And Mom. In the nightmare of the last moments, I forgot about her. I look for her, but of course she is gone. Her banishment hasn’t been revoked just because I’ve been spared. Spared. Have I really?

I lock eyes with Tamra as I’m swept past, trying to convey to her that I’m sorry, that I don’t want this to happen, that it won’t happen. It won’t.

But as I’m borne away I realize that’s a lie. I can’t stop any of this.

Maybe I’ve been kidding myself to think that I can control anything—that I could ever avoid the fate the pride chose for me long ago.

Chapter 23

The night is quiet, even with so many surrounding me on every side. This mist seems darker, more gray than its usual chalky white, and I wonder if this has to do with Tamra’s mood.

I’m led to the flight field. Tall grasses ripple against my legs as we move to the center. The mountains sit in silent witness, great jagged shapes splashed against the skyline.

Garbed in a lush amber cloak, I feel like the proverbial lamb being led to the slaughter. When we arrive at the site where generations of draki have been bonded, I locate the titanium-edged circle on the ground. Not difficult to do. The sapphires outlining it glow in the night, a beautiful blue, mesmerizing. Only sapphires, one of the strongest stones on earth, edge the circle of titanium. The ring symbolizes the unbreakable union between two draki.

I look away from the circle even as I’m guided toward it. They position me just outside it. Cassian already waits on the other side of the ring, wearing a cloak of shimmering black. I stare for a moment at his face, fully manifested as I am.

The pride is silent, watching raptly.

I don’t look around me. I don’t look for Tamra, but I know she is here. Watching alongside everyone else as I prepare to bond with Cassian. I feel her eyes on me.

Hands remove our cloaks, and we’re directed to drink from the ceremonial chalice.

My lips hug the edge of the goblet that generations of draki sipped from to seal their bonds. My own parents. I blink burning eyes. This is harder than I imagined. Doing this and then telling myself it doesn’t mean anything is harder to believe than I thought.

It isn’t a true bonding. I don’t enter the bond freely, so it doesn’t count.

Except I remember my mother’s words, Something happens, something changes, when you’re bonded in that circle, Jacinda.

Was she right? Would this change things? Will’s face rises in my mind. I can’t let this ceremony take any piece of him from me and replace it with Cassian. I can’t. I won’t.

I lick the last drop of wine from my lips and watch as Cassian drinks from the jeweled chalice, his lips touching the same edge from which I sipped.

Severin speaks, but I deliberately block out his words, his voice. I’ve attended bonding ceremonies before. I know what he’s saying. I don’t want to hear him speak the words.

Then it appears. My family’s cache of jewels.

I fight down the sudden lump in my throat and stare hard at the lockbox, thinking of the amber stone already lost from it—sold away when we were in Chaparral. I feel a surge of possession as an elder’s hand delves inside, riffling among the contents. It’s not his right. Usually a parent of the bonded couple does this, but in this case I’m without a parent.

Cassian’s gems are next. His father digs inside their family’s box.

The gems are pulled free at the same time. I blink at the beautiful black pearl removed from Cassian’s box. Perfectly round, it fills his father’s palm. An amber piece is selected from my family’s cache. I distinctly remember every gem in that box and know it to be the last amber left. I know why they chose this one. It’s the stone that most represents me.

The amber and pearl are held high in the air, displayed before the pride. A gem from each of our family’s caches. Two gems to begin our legacy together. Our own family.

The lump in my throat grows and no matter how hard I try, I can’t swallow it.

Together, united, the two stones project a different glow, a different energy altogether. I hear their whispering song and watch as they are placed in a new box. Black lacquer with fiery red coiled carvings etched on top of the lid. This one is ours. Mine and Cassian’s. And I wonder how long ago it was made in preparation for this moment.

Then it’s time. We must begin our ascent. Our last flight as independent individuals.

Eyes locked, we lift off the ground and soar. I ignore the twinge in my injured wing and lift, lift, lift.

Face angled into the cool, wet wind, I luxuriate in the taste of sky again—despite myself. Despite wanting to like nothing about this moment. Flying has always been my balm. I can’t resist the sweetness of it . . . not after knowing I almost lost this when I came so close to a wing clipping.

My wings work, slap the air, take me higher and higher. It’s as though I’m racing away from it all, straining to get as far from the pride as possible. I close my eyes, savor the speeding wind rushing against my face.

For a moment, the thought flashes through my mind to just keep going, melt away, vanish into the sky. Never come down. At least not on pride grounds.

Then I see Cassian, winding through the mist and clouds with me. His great wings gleam darker than the night, powerful sails of onyx with winking undertones of purple.

His gaze holds mine as we twist and twirl upward. And I know. He knows my thoughts. He knows but his face reveals nothing.

And then I understand. Feel it deep in my chest where fire and char dwells.

He would let me go. Escape into the night, disappear into the sifting mist and clouds.

The choice is in my hands.

I imagine this. Imagine him drifting back down to the pride without me. Facing everyone, shamed and abandoned. Of course, they would come after me. I probably wouldn’t get very far. Not much of a chance, really.

Suddenly, he stops. Floats adrift.

I stop, too, buoyed on the air.

I face him. Several inches separate us. Night clouds drift below us, above us. Cold vaporous wisps float around us like chilled smoke.

I catch glimpses of his face through breaks of cloudy air. A flash of shimmering charcoal, eyes like obsidian.

“It won’t be real,” I call to him. My voice is swept up in the wind, and I’m not sure he heard me until he calls back:

“It’ll be real enough.”

Real enough? For him? Is that what he’s saying? Does he think a bond where only one of us is fully committed will be fulfilling? To either one of us? Or is he holding out for that connection to form and tie us together?

I’ve already lost so much this day. Will. Mom. I glance down. Tamra waits there, far below, as betrayed as I am by the pride.

I raise my gaze back to Cassian. It won’t be real. This won’t be real.

I swim through air toward him. It’s the only answer he needs.

For now, this is what I must do. What the moment demands.

His eyes soften as we embrace, do what draki have done down through the millennia. His hands rest gently where they touch me. One at my back between my wings, the other on my hip. For all that, his stare is no less intense, drilling into me as if he were memorizing everything about my face, everything about this moment.

I close my eyes and try to forget. Think only of Will. That I’ll see him again.

Cassian’s body is rock solid against mine, and I remember that he’s bred to be a warrior. Tough and unyielding, but I feel safe in his arms, not the least threatened by his power, his strength.

Plastered against each other, we begin our descent. My stomach falls, pitches to my feet. It’s like the dream, the nightmare. I’m falling, unable to lift up. To catch myself.

I’m falling and there is no help for it.

Where we ascended as two, we descend as one. That’s the bonding act. That is what we must do. What this is all about.

I’d always thought the bonding rite romantic, something special I would share with someone one day. Even so, it loomed far away. A distant prospect. But now it’s real. It’s happening to me right now.

Cassian’s arms hold me as we plummet. Air roars past as we twist in a speeding circle, dropping, hurtling to earth. My hair flies up from my scalp. Even Cassian’s hair tears from his face and flutters like dark ribbons from his head.

We stare at each other, nose to nose, the howl of the wind loud as a freight train in our ears as we twist and spiral toward the pride waiting below.

It’s not just him holding me. I clutch him closely. Our legs tangle and slip between each other’s.