POV: Draco
I don't hate Kai. That's the problem.
The bond shift hits me like a physical blow. Not painful like rejection—I know what that feels like from the weeks Aphrodite kept us at distance. This is different. Like the bond isn't shrinking to accommodate someone new. It's expanding. Growing to make room. The sensation in my chest is strange, unsettling, like my ribcage is being stretched to accommodate something foreign but not unwelcome.
I don't know if that's better or worse.
Lucen feels it too. I catch his eyes across camp and see my own confusion reflected back. His jaw is tight, shoulders tense in a way that mirrors my own posture. We've spent our whole lives learning to read each other, to move as one unit. Right now we're both asking the same silent question.
What the hell do we do with this?
