Page 83 of Knotting on Heaven's Door

I forced my hand to lower the knife. “I don’t know.” My voice sounded rough, hoarse, like I’d swallowed smoke. “I think—”

The words wouldn’t come. How did you explain to someone that your soul just screamed?

Liam was a bonded wolf. He’d know. “Do you ever… feel it? When something’s wrong with your mate?”

He set down the tray he was loading, brows knitting together. “Yeah. Not always clearly, but... yeah. When it’s strong, it’s like a punch to the gut. Why?”

I didn’t answer. I didn’t need to.

He straightened. “Is it Ada?”

I pulled my phone from my back pocket with trembling fingers and dialed her. Straight to voicemail. Again.

Fuck.

She was up at Heaven’s Door, organizing everything with Mia. This could be anything—maybe she had a fight with a vendor, maybe she forgot her pills, maybe she twisted an ankle. Or maybe—I clenched the edge of the counter until my knuckles went white.

Liam hovered beside me, his concern now tinged with alertness. “What do you feel?”

“Like someone poured fire in my chest,” I muttered. “Like I need to fuckingrun.”

He nodded, slowly. “It’s not nothing then. Try her again.”

I did. Still nothing. The third time, I didn’t even wait for voicemail. I shoved the phone in my pocket and ripped off my apron.

“Where are you going?” Liam asked, following me as I pushed through the back door into the cold afternoon air.

“To get my mate,” I snapped. “Up there. Anywhere. I'll take one of the delivery vans. I just—”

But I didn’t get to finish.

Because suddenly the world around me dimmed.

The sky, the cold, the kitchen, Liam’s voice—it all vanished in a blink, replaced by stone, by moss-covered carvings and soft floral perfume. And then… her.

I saw through Ada’s eyes.

I felt the exact angle of her neck as she tilted her head in polite confusion. Heard the shift of her weight as she took a cautious step back.

And standing in front of her, elegant as a dagger and twice as cold—my father.

Étienne Laurente.

My blood iced. I couldn’t hear the words he said, couldn’t reach through the bond with anything coherent—but I didn’t need to.

I knew him. I knew that face, that expression. The disappointment barely veiled behind aristocratic composure.

“Sebastian?”

Liam’s voice was distant, muffled.

My vision shifted again.

“What do you want?”Ada asked.

My father tilted his head slightly, like her voice was a sound he hadn’t expected to hear from so close. His expression was calm—too calm. The kind of stillness that came from decades of boardrooms, private clubs, and controlling empires with a penstroke.

“I was curious,”he said, tone mild. “Curious what sort of woman would look at my son and see potential instead of a cautionary tale.”

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