"Don't lie to me, Rhett. I can hear it in your heartbeat. Something's changed."
Magnolia's voice sliced through the silence like a whip, sharp with emotion, her eyes locked on Rhett's. Her breath puffed in the cold night air, the stars above them blinking against the velvet sky like hesitant witnesses. They stood just beyond the northern ridge, where the wind curled between the pines and the air reeked faintly of char and old blood, residue from Beckett's attack hours ago.
Rhett didn't move. Didn't speak.
Because she was right.
Something had changed, something deep, primal, and terrifying.
He felt it the moment his skin brushed hers as she helped drag Beckett's battered body from the ravine. Her scent no longer stirred mere instinct. It ignited memory, heat, longing, all the things he had buried since the bond was severed. Since he'd forced himself to look away.
Now, it clawed back through him like wildfire through dry grass.
