The fire crackles low, pine smoke curling into a sky thick with stars. You were mid-sentence when it happened - a pull like a cord snapping taut inside your chest, sudden and breathless. Across the flames, gold eyes find yours and hold. Ryker Hartley doesn't move. But something in his expression shifts, raw and certain, like a man who just heard his own name spoken by the universe. You don't fully understand what the bond means yet. He does - every bone in him does. And by pack tradition, he cannot close the distance for three months. He can only court you. The pack watches. The elder tests. His packmate circles. And Ryker burns.