Third POV
His world tilted the second it hit him.
Not a thought, a psychic jolt. Sharp, like an electric shock that carved through the calm of his home office and buried itself behind his eyes.
Intense pain. Fear. Her.
Adrian froze for half a second, he couldn't tell if the voice that screamed was real or only echoing through that strange tether he'd been pretending didn't exist.
Then it came again, a breath, a gasp, a shock of terror that wasn't his.
"Elena—"
The name ripped out of him before he knew he'd spoken.
His guard looked up, startled. The monitors flickered. The glass along the far wall splintered, fine fractures crawling outward like frost under pressure.
Thorne started toward him. "Sir? What's happening—"
Adrian shoved the chair back so hard it toppled. He pressed a hand against his temple. "Trace her. Now."
"What?"
"Her phone, her apartment, the emergency line, trace everything. Do it!"
He didn't need confirmation. He already knew. The bond between them had turned into a live wire, and on the other end of it, Elena was in pain.
He could feel it. The weight of a blow, the bruising ache in her ribs, the dizzy spin of adrenaline.
It wasn't his imagination, their connection. Raw, invasive, undeniable.
Something inside him broke open, and for once, he didn't care if the others saw.
****
Outside, the sky bled orange against the city's edges. By the time the car peeled out from the estate gates, Adrian's pulse had synced with the rhythm of her heartbeat or maybe with the terror that ran through her.
He rode in silence, jaw tight, the convoy of black vehicles behind him keeping formation. The city roared past: traffic lights, neon signs, blurred faces that didn't matter.
Every few seconds, another flash hit him.
A hand grabs her wrist.
The cold scrape of concrete.
Her breath caught on a cry.
He slammed a fist into the car door, metal ringing. "Faster."
"Sir, if we—" the driver started.
"Faster."
He didn't need coordinates. The tether was enough. It pulled him like a current through the dark grid of the city, whispering pain through every breath he took.
****
Elena stumbled into view just as he reached the alley.
Two men had her pinned, her bag torn open on the ground. Her hair clung to her cheek, streaked with blood. One of them hissed something, Adrian didn't hear it. All the sound in the world condensed into the hammering in his skull.
The first man didn't even have time to look up before Adrian moved.
A single thought forced a push, the air warped.
The attacker flew backward, hitting the brick wall with a sound that made the other man freeze.
Adrian stepped into the alley, calm but radiating something darker, heavier. His men spread out behind him, weapons drawn, but he didn't need them.
The second man reached for something—a knife, gun, it didn't matter. Adrian's will snapped outward.
The weapon clattered from his grip. The man screamed, clutching his head as if his own skull were being crushed.
He wanted to kill him.
He almost did.
But, he turned.
The whisper wasn't spoken. It was felt. A tremor in the air, a thread tugging his anger back.
Elena was on the ground, trying to push herself upright. Blood streaked the side of her face. Her eyes were unfocused but locked on him pleading.
"Adrian… stop."
That single word cut through the haze.
He exhaled shakily, fists unclenching. The psychic tension in the air snapped, leaving only the echo of his fury behind.
He dropped to his knees beside her, one hand hovering before it dared to touch her face.
"Hey." His voice was rough, unfamiliar. "You're okay. I've got you."
She flinched but didn't pull away. Her breathing was shallow, her gaze darting between him and the unconscious men. "How—how did you—"
"I was in the vicinity," he lied automatically. It was easier than explaining what really pulled him here.
Her lips trembled, not a smile, not disbelief either. Just shock.
"You shouldn't be here."
"Neither should they."
He brushed blood from her temple with his thumb. The moment lingered longer than it should have, long enough for him to realize that her pain still buzzed faintly through his own body, like shared static.
Behind him, Thorne's voice cracked through the radio. "We have two hostile groups, one down, one missing, possible secondary threat."
Adrian's eyes flicked to the shadows at the far end of the alley. Movement.
"Stay with her," he ordered his men, rising fluidly to his feet. The night had gone unnaturally still.
"Adrian," Elena whispered.
He paused.
Her voice trembled, not from fear, but from something stranger. "I heard you. Before you came."
He turned back to her, heart catching. "What did you hear?"
She swallowed. "You. Calling my name."
Her words hit harder than any blow.
You. Calling my name.
Adrian's pulse stuttered. He wanted to ask how much she'd felt—how much she knew—but the faint scrape of a shoe on asphalt killed the question.
"Stay down," he murmured, eyes sweeping the dark.
The alley stretched ahead, narrow and pulsing with the red blink of a distant sign. One of his men edged forward, weapon raised. The air thickened, the unmistakable pressure before a storm.
A figure broke from the shadows.
Adrian moved first. Power slammed outward, hurling the assailant against the wall. But this one didn't fall; he rolled, sprang up, knife glinting. Adrian caught the man's wrist, twisted, and drove him back into the bricks.
"Who sent you?"
The man spat blood. "You can't stop it."
Adrian shoved harder. "Who?"
The man smiled, a cracked, ugly thing and something flickered beneath his skin. A thin web of crimson light crawled up his throat.
"Sir—" Thorne shouted. "He's rigged!"
Adrian threw himself backward, dragging Elena with him as the glow flared and the body convulsed. A burst of energy cracked the air, more psychic than physical, a self-termination surge that left only a scorch and the smell of ozone.
Elena gasped, clinging to him. "What was that?"
He pulled her close, heart still hammering. "A failsafe. Someone didn't want him talking."
But even as he said it, a cold realization struck: the missing second attacker wasn't gone. He felt him, a flicker of hostile intent slithering at the edge of his awareness.
"Thorne!"
"North side, moving fast, he's cloaked!"
Adrian stood, helping Elena to her feet. "Stay behind me."
They barely cleared the alley mouth when the world seemed to explode into motion. The second man barreled from the side street, shoving a passerby into traffic to block pursuit. Adrian lunged after him, but pain lanced through his temple, a psychic interference burst.
"Adrian!" Elena's voice sounded far away, drowning the ringing in his head.
He fought through it, reached for the tether that linked them, and used it to orient himself. Her fear anchored him; her heartbeat steadied his focus.
He surged forward, but it was too late. The attacker raised a device, not a weapon, but something worse. The surge that erupted was silent, invisible, a shockwave that tore through both of them like a scream.
Elena cried out and dropped.
Adrian barely caught her before she hit the pavement. He felt the bond flare white-hot, flooding him with her pain. For one blinding second, he saw through her eyes, his own face above her, the city lights spinning—and then all hell broke loose.
He roared, the sound raw, primal. The air rippled outward; car alarms screamed; glass shattered in a radius of twenty feet.
His men stumbled back, shielding their faces.
Thorne's voice cut through the chaos: "We have to move, now!"
Adrian gathered Elena in his arms. Her skin was cold, her breath ragged. "Hold on," he whispered. "Don't you dare fade on me."
The attacker was gone, vanished, melted into the noise of the city. But his words lingered, whispered from the dying man moments before: You can't stop it.
Adrian looked down at Elena, at the faint shimmer of psychic energy still flickering along her pulse. The tether between them burned brighter than ever, unstable but there.
"Sir," Thorne urged, "we need to get her to a more secure place."
He didn't move right away. Adrian was livid, his fury pounding inside of his skull. He wanted to hunt, to destroy whoever had dared touch her.
But when Elena stirred weakly in his arms, whispering his name, the anger cracked, replaced by something heavier, scarier.
"Get the car," he said finally, voice low and lethal. "Lock down the city grid. No one in or out without my clearance."
As they sped away, sirens rising behind them, Adrian glanced out at the skyline, the lights of Mondrovia flickering like dying stars.
He could still taste the echo of her fear in his mouth.
And beneath it, a single thought not his own, whispering through the bond:
It's already begun.