And then he sweeps her into his arms again, and this time, Aislinn returns his embrace, a different type of tears falling as hope blooms. But then, she draws back from Jarod, her mouth trembling as the trauma wrests hold once more. She has to level with him. As awful as it will feel, she has to confide an edge of the terrible truth.

“Jarod...” She looks down and away from him, barely able to manage the jagged whisper. “He...he did terrible things.” She chokes on the nightmare memories. “I don’t know how long it will take... I... I can’t be with you...fully...right away... I don’t know when...”

“I’ll wait for you,” he insists, voice shot through with fierce, unconditional love. “I’d wait for you forever.”

Aislinn pulls in a long breath. Then she meets his amber eyes, disbelieving and believing at the same time, his undimmed love beginning to piece together a slim fragment of her shattered body and soul.

“I almost missed your arrival,” Jarod says, seeming dazed. “I was to leave tomorrow for the West. To find you—” his expression shifts, eyes glinting with ferocity “—and to kill Damion Bane.”

“No,” Aislinn says, firm now. “I’ll be the one to kill him.” She pauses, readying herself for the momentous request. The life-changing request. “I know it goes against your tradition, since tonight’s moon is not yet full...but I can’t be a Mage any longer.”

She raises her hand and sets it over Jarod’s strong, steady heartbeat. “Jarod, I want you to Change me.”

They go deep into the purple Noi forest that night.

He brings her to a small clearing, the sliver of moon bright above, the two of them about to break with tradition with the full blessing of the pack.

“Are you ready?” Jarod asks as he takes her hand into his.

Aislinn’s heart trills faster in her chest. Scared. Eager.

Certain.

“Yes,” she says.

Jarod reaches up to gently push aside her tunic’s collar, exposing the base of her slender throat. “I need to draw blood,” he says, serious and apologetic at the same time. They both understand the subtext—there’s violence in this, when she’s endured far too much violence.

But Aislinn also knows that this is a very different thing, the setting down of a blood bond rather than an intended cruelty, and just the opposite in its outcome.

“It will bind you to the blood of the pack,” he gently explains, “and to the Forest.”

Aislinn nods with resolve even as nerves tighten her throat and speed her heart. “I understand,” she says. “Do it.”