**Lysander**

I can't stop thinking about her.

About Gaia, unconscious and burning with fever.

About how she looked when she fell.

About how I caused it.

'I need to help her,' I think. 'Need to do something. Anything.'

But what can I do?

I rejected her. Publicly. Irreversibly.

The mate bond is severed.

I have no right to go to her. No right to check on her. No right to ...