Chapter 29 · Silver Under His Skin

The bond snapped taut in my chest like a leash yanked hard.

I didn't think. I ran.

Kade's heartbeat hammered through the blood mark on my neck, wild and wrong, pulling me east through the warehouse district. My lungs burned. My phone buzzed in my pocket—Ryan, probably, or maybe someone from the pack Kade trusted before tonight. I didn't look. The bond was screaming louder than anything else.

He was still moving. Fast.

I cut through an alley, jumped a chain-link fence, and landed hard on the other side. My ankle rolled but I kept going. The bond tugged me forward, a fishhook buried deep. Every time I thought I was closing the gap, his pulse spiked and he bolted again.

Except it didn't feel like him anymore.

The rhythm was off. Too fast, too sharp, like his heart was trying to claw its way out of his chest. And underneath it—something cold. Metallic. Wrong.

Silver.

I could taste it through the bond now, bitter and sharp on the back of my tongue. My stomach twisted. Theron had done something to him. That silver creeping up his arm wasn't just poison. It was a leash.