The Kiss doesn’t always work. Stefan told me that it was almost impossible to take a werewolf the way they could take humans because of the pack bonds. That Bonarata had succeeded in doing so had added to his legend. There were people who were difficult to break. But given time, a strong vampire could control most any human he wanted to.

Stefan told me he didn’t know if that was true between us—but that he would not test it. I trusted Stefan.

Even so, Stefan owned me. He had saved my life by claiming me, and I’d agreed to it. But I’d thought it was broken, gone. Thought my ties to Adam and the pack had erased it, because Stefan had wanted me to believe it.

Apparently, because I’d taken the bond willingly, it wasn’t something Stefan could break even if he wanted to. Knowing Stefan as I did, I was willing to believe that.

The Lord of Night had tried to break it and failed. Or so he said.

My heartbeat picked up, and my mouth dried as I opened it and panted in fear. Of course he would lie. He lied a lot. I couldn’t remember now if I’d been watching for lies while he spoke of the bond I shared with a vampire. I’d been paying attention to the jealousy he’d displayed. Had he lied? Was he, even now, in my head, waiting to give me orders?

To take me from Marsilia would have been a better lesson than to have his wolf kill me trying to escape. I had only his word that he hadn’t done it.

Hadn’t I done what he wanted when I escaped? I’d known he wanted me to try it. What if he hadn’t wanted me to die at the fangs of his pet werewolf as I’d first thought? What—what if this was his plan? That I’d escape, think I was free, get back to the pack—and destroy them because I belonged to Bonarata. That story, unfortunately, made better sense than some sort of unrequited jealousy as a motivation.

Had Bonarata broken the tie between Stefan and me? Had he been able to do something that Stefan couldn’t? Was I a slave of the Lord of Night?

Since learning it still existed, I had never tested the bond between Stefan and me. Just the thought of that tie made me wake up in a cold-blooded sweat, understanding exactly how a trapped wolf could chew off a paw to escape.

The bus continued to rumble at a consistent speed, unimpressed by my panic. I needed to find the bond between Stefan and me and make sure Bonarata hadn’t done something to it—something that would turn me into his creature.

I didn’t even really know how to look. But even as I thought that—I knew I had a stepping-off place. After Adam brought me into the pack bonds, I’d had a bad incident because a couple of the members of the pack were able to manipulate me through them. After that, Adam taught me how to deal with pack magic and the bonds. Part of that process was learning to “see” the bonds in my head.