Moments later,

Author

The first thing Aria registered was not the light, nor the scent of pine and ozone that clung to the bedsheets, but the bond.

It was there when she opened her eyes - warm, thrumming, alive. Not the sharp, demanding tug of a command chain, not the cold weight of a shackle she had spent her whole life trying to slip. It was a thread, golden and crimson, woven through every beat of her heart, every breath she took. It hummed when she breathed, softened when she shifted, *knew* her before she even turned her head.

*You are thinking too loudly,* a voice rumbled in her mind,...