Chapter 1

Blood always smells like rusted iron and regret. Right now, it was pooling in the creases of my palms, dripping onto the hardwood floor of my Brooklyn living room in heavy, rhythmic drops.

The intricate runes I’d carved into the oak boards flared an angry, ember-orange, casting long, frantic shadows against the drywall. Outside the window, a mundane city rain battered the glass, a stark contrast to the localized supernatural hurricane tearing through my apartment.

"It’s stabilizing," I lied through my teeth, gritting them as a fresh wave of agony shot up my forearms.

Kael stood at the edge of the rift. Even in a battered leather jacket, the exiled prince of the Aetherium looked like a god. Bathed in the golden, ethereal light spilling from his home world, his aura was a physical weight in the room—a radiant, profound warmth that had slowly thawed the cynical, frozen corners of my chest over the last three months. I loved him. It was a stupid, pathetic cliché for a hardened dimensional-weaver to fall for the exiled royal she was supposed to protect, but I had.

He turned away from the shimmering veil and stepped back toward me. His eyes were the color of a summer storm. "Nora."

He reached out, his calloused thumb gently swiping a streak of blood and sweat from my cheek. His hand was so incredibly warm. I allowed myself to lean into his palm for a fraction of a second before forcing my spine rigid. I had to be the kickass bounty hunter. I had to be the weapon he needed.

"Don't lose focus, Prince," I rasped, my arms trembling as I held the fabric of reality apart. "The Aetherium doesn't like to stay open for humans."

"I cannot leave without saying it properly," Kael murmured, his voice a low rumble that vibrated in my bruised ribs. "I owe you my life. My crown. Elara will sing songs of the fierce human who saved her betrothed. When I reclaim my throne, my people will never forget you."

* Elara.* The fated mate.

The name felt like a serrated blade sliding between my ribs. He didn't see me as a woman. He saw me as a savior. A useful, temporary fix.

I opened my mouth, the confession of my love burning on the back of my tongue, ready to spill out and ruin everything. But before I could form the words, the air pressure in the room violently dropped. The veil shrieked, the edges of the portal fraying like burnt silk. It was snapping shut prematurely. The Aetherium was rejecting the tether.

"Nora!" Kael shouted over the sudden, deafening roar of collapsing dimensions.

I had a fraction of a second to choose. I could let the portal die. Kael would be trapped here, in the human world, with me forever. He would hate me, but he would be mine.

But as I looked at the sheer panic in his bright, beautiful eyes, I knew I couldn't cage him. I was a weaver, not a warden.

"Go!" I screamed.

I dropped to my knees and slammed my bleeding hands flat against the floorboards. I didn't just channel ambient energy; I reached deep into the center of my chest, grabbing hold of my arcane core—the very source of my soul and power—and violently tore it wide open.

Devastating, raw power flooded the runes. The orange light flared into a blinding, agonizing white. The rift tore open with a sound like shattering glass, stabilizing purely on the fuel of my life force.

Kael hesitated on the threshold, fully illuminated by the blinding light of his home. "Thank you, Nora! You are my greatest friend!"

He stepped through the light.

The second his heel cleared the boundary, my control slipped. The portal violently imploded.

The magical kickback hit me like a runaway freight train. There was a sickening, definitive *crack* deep inside my chest, followed by an absolute, terrifying silence. My arcane core shattered into dust.

I was thrown backward, hitting the wall hard enough to fracture the plaster. I slumped to the floor, gasping for air that suddenly tasted completely... mundane.

The runes on the floor were black, scorched, and lifeless. The sharp, electric scent of ozone was gone, replaced only by the damp, chilling smell of the Brooklyn rain hitting the windowpane. Panic rising in my throat, I reached inward for my magic, for that familiar, fiery spark of power that had defined my entire life.

Nothing. Just an empty, hollow cold.

I pulled my knees to my chest in the dark, shivering on the hardwood floor, entirely cut off from the supernatural world, and completely alone.