Evryn lay on her bed, staring blankly at the ceiling as Auren’s face drifted into her thoughts.
Why did he act like that?
It wasn’t just his attitude; it was everything.
He had those rare, striking eyes…the exact same shade as the Vampire King himself, a trait you almost never saw in commoners.
And the way he walked, the way he spoke…
it was as if he had been raised in a palace, surrounded by courtly manners, rather than a muddy village.
She let out a sudden, quiet laugh at herself, shaking her head.
A king working as a servant?
Evryn, you’ve completely lost your mind.
But the curiosity bit at her until she couldn’t stay still.
She sat up and nudged her friend.
“Brinna, get up.
Come with me.”
“Where?” Brinna groaned, pulling the blanket higher.
“I’m tired…”
“I want to check something,” Evryn insisted, pulling her along.
They snuck out of the quarters, moving silently through the shadows until they reached the men’s barracks.
Evryn carefully peered through the window, keeping her head low.
Inside, the rough chatter of the servants carried through the glass; they were laughing loudly, talking about women and beds.
But far away from the noise, sitting completely isolated from the rest, was Auren.
He was leaning back, calmly reading a book, entirely detached from the vulgarity around him.
Brinna peeked over her shoulder, whispering, “What are you even looking for?”
“He’s always so far away from everyone,” Evryn murmured, her eyes locked on him.
“From the men, from the girls…
what is wrong with him?”
“Who?”
“Auren.
Brinna, I’m talking about Auren.
I can just feel something completely different in him.”
Brinna hummed thoughtfully.
“Maybe he has a problem, like me…
Em, it could be childhood Problems, for example.”
Evryn laughed quietly under her breath, turning her attention back to the other servants for a second.
“Damn men.
They have absolutely nothing to talk about except the bed.
And look at that idiot, Ray…he’s clearly enjoying the subject way too much.”
Suddenly, Brinna gasped and let out a sharp scream.
Evryn jumped, her heart leaping into her throat.
“What?!
What is it?”
“A snake!
I saw it, I swear!” Brinna cried out.
The commotion instantly alerted the men inside.
The door flew open, and they came pouring out into the night.
Ray came to a halt, frowning deeply when he saw the two girls.
“What are you two doing out here?”
“We were just walking,” Evryn lied quickly, trying to sound casual, “and we ran into a snake.”
The men immediately scattered, grumbling as they started searching the grass and bushes for the reptile.
From the open window of the barracks, Auren hadn’t moved.
He simply watched the chaotic scene unfold.
Evryn’s gaze shifted away from the shouting men, tracing back up to the window…and found Auren already looking right back at her.
His eyes caught hers, steady and unbothered by the panic around him.
A sharp, clever plot formed in Evryn’s mind.
She leaned in close to Brinna, her eyes never leaving Auren’s through the heavy glass.
“Tomorrow, I’m going to take him to the market with me,” Evryn whispered.
“While we’re gone, I want you to go through his place.
Search his bag for anything nobility.”
Brinna blinked, then nodded.
“Erm…
alright.”
Holding Auren’s gaze through the glass, Evryn let a slow, challenging smile spread across her lips.
But before she could savor the spark of rebellion.
Ray came straight toward Evryn and sighed, running a hand through his hair.
“We found nothing, sweetie.”
Evryn immediately softened her expression, masking her plotting.
“Brinna could be mistaken.
We are fine, no one is hurt.
I will go back to my room now.”
As she turned to leave, Ray’s hand shot out, catching her wrist and gently stopping her.
He pulled her a step closer, leaning down to brush his lips against her cheek, his head tilting as he began to lean in toward her mouth, his lips centimeters away from brushing hers.
CRASH.
The sudden, deafening explosion of shattering glass blasted through the corridor.
Evryn’s shoulders jumped violently, a sharp gasp tearing from her throat as shards of the heavy window rained down onto the stone floor like sparkling daggers.
Ray instantly dropped his hands, spinning around, his posture turning rigid and defensive.
“What the hell happened?!” he roared, his eyes darting to the ruined frame, and he bolted toward the doorway to investigate.
Evryn didn’t follow Ray’s movements.
Her heart was hammering against her ribs, choking her breath as she stared through the jagged, gaping hole where the window used to be.
Auren hadn’t moved a single inch from his place. You are reading on g.com, the official source.
He remained standing exactly where he had been, utterly unbothered by the sharp shards of glass that had rained down around him like deadly confetti.
His silver eyes were piercing, absolute, and never left her face.
A wave of dizzying confusion and panic rushed through her.
How could he just stay standing there when the glass shattered right in front of him?
What if he got hurt?
Why the hell is he looking at me like this?
There wasn’t a single scratch on his sharp, handsome face, he didn’t look like a man who had survived an accident; he looked like the storm that caused it.
The servants spent the rest of that tense night cleaning up the mess, sweeping away the millions of glittering shards that littered the stone floor.
Evryn’s hands working mechanically as her mind kept drifting back to the raw, suffocating pressure that had cracked the room open.
Suddenly, a large shadow fell over her.
Auren walked right up to Evryn; he reached down and firmly took the brush straight out of her hand.
“Go to sleep,” he commanded, his voice a low, gravelly rumble that left no room for argument.
Evryn blinked up at him, her stubbornness flaring despite the exhaustion weighing on her shoulders.
“I am fine.
I should help.”
“You should do nothing,” Auren countered coldly, his silver eyes flashing with that same lingering, dangerous dark light.
“I am here.
I will do your work and mine.
Go to your room, Evryn.”
She stared at him for a beat, her gaze flicking over his broad chest and arms, looking for any hidden cuts from the flying glass.
The silence between them stretched, thick and heavy with everything he had witnessed.
“Are you hurt?” she asked softly, the question slipping out before she could stop it.
“No,” he replied flatly, his jaw clenching.
Evryn exhaled a quiet breath, nodding slightly as she took a step back from his suffocating space.
“Then good night.”
She turned and walked away, leaving him standing alone his knuckles white around the handle of the brush as his eyes followed her all the way down the dark way.
Evryn walked into Auren in the garden, a playful smirk on her face as she dumped a large, woven wicker basket right into his hands.
“Let’s go,” she added.
“We need some ingredients for the kitchen, and it’s time to you learn how a marketplace actually runs.”
A short while later, they stepped into the heart of the market.
It was alive with noise and color.
Stalls lined both sides of the wide stone street.
Fabrics hung in bright layers, spices filled the air with strong scents, and vendors called out prices in loud voices.
People moved constantly, brushing shoulders, bargaining, laughing.
It was crowded but lively, a vibrant contrast to the suffocating silence of the palace.
Evryn walked ahead with a list in her hand, reading it carefully.
Auren followed one step behind her, carrying the basket she had given him.
Each time she stopped at a stall, she added something new to his arms.
Fruits.
Grain sacks.
Cloth bundles.
Small jars of oil.
She did not slow.
He did not complain.
Anyone who looked at them would see a lady walking confidently with her servant behind her.
Evryn had arranged it that way without speaking about it.
She carried nothing.
He carried everything.
The weight meant nothing to him.
His arms were full, but his posture did not change.
His breathing remained steady.
The strain that would bend another servant did not touch him.
Evryn noticed.
She glanced at his hands once, then again.
He held too much for comfort, yet he showed no sign of struggle.
“Take these to the carriage,” she said finally.
“Then return.”
“I can continue walking with you,” he replied.
The words were calm, but beneath them was something else.
He did not want to leave her.
Even standing a few steps behind her, he could feel the spell resting quietly in his chest.
The idea of distance unsettled him more than the weight in his arms.
“You will drop something,” she said firmly.
“Go.
I will wait here.”
She did not argue longer.
He studied her face briefly, then turned toward the deeper end of the market where the carriage waited.
With every step away from her, a faint pressure began tightening inside his chest.
It was not sharp yet, but it was there.
Evryn remained near the fabric stalls, her fingers lightly brushing over a scarf of soft blue.
As she moved around the display, her eyes caught a movement that made her blood run cold.
A young girl was pinned against a wooden post.
Behind her, a man twice her size leaned in, his hand hovering near her waist in a way that made the girl’s face go pale with terror.
Evryn didn’t think.
She moved.
She stepped between them abruptly, pretending to be an interested shopper.
“How much for this one?” she asked the seller, her voice loud and clear.
The girl seized the chance.
She slipped behind Evryn, her eyes wide with a silent thank you, and vanished into the thick of the market.
Evryn didn’t wait for him to speak.
She shoved his chest lightly.
“Find someone your own size,” she said, her voice like a whip.
Nearby, the bustling market began to slow as people watched the tension rise.
The man’s hand shot out, his fingers digging into Evryn’s wrist.
He jerked her close, his breath smelling of stale ale.
“You could be in her place,” he growled, his eyes dark with a nasty light.
Evryn didn’t hesitate.
Her free hand grabbed a glass bottle from a nearby table and smashed it across the side of his head.
Slap.
The sound was sharp and final.
The man staggered back, a thin line of blood blooming at his hairline.
For a heartbeat, Evryn was shocked by her own violence.
But she didn’t have time to process it.
With a roar of rage, the man lunged.
His palm struck her across the face with enough force to send her spinning to the ground.
The crowd didn’t help; they only stepped back to stay out of the splash zone.
Before she could crawl away, he was over her, striking again.
Evryn curled into a ball, her arms shielding her head, her breath coming in panicked gasps.
Through the noise and the distance, Auren felt it.
The pain exploded in his chest.
It wasn’t a warning this time; it was a violent, white-hot command.
Protect.
He saw her.
On the ground.
Bleeding.
Something inside the King of Vampires finally snapped.
He moved like a shadow caught in a storm…too fast for human eyes to track.
One step.
One strike.
His boot slammed into the man’s ribs with an ungodly, sickening crunch.
The sheer force didn’t just break the brute…his bones literally turned to dust beneath Auren’s crushing weight.
The man was sent flying backward like a ragdoll, slamming into the stone wall with a horrific impact.
He was dead instantly, crumbling into a lifeless heap on the floor before his body could even register the fall.
The market went deathly silent.
Auren didn’t care about the man.
He dropped to his knees beside Evryn, his hands trembling as he reached for her.
Her eyes were glazed with pain, a small cut on her brow dripping red onto the stones.
The pressure in his chest burned with a murderous heat.
He wanted to stand back up and tear the man apart; He wanted to paint the stones with him.
He gritted his teeth, forcing the agonizing pain in his chest down.
Then, a small, weak hand caught his arm.
“Let’s go back,” she whispered.
Her voice was barely a breath, but it was enough to stop him.
“I’m in deep pain, Auren…
let’s go back home.”
Her eyes welled over, and a few heavy tears finally fell down her pale cheeks.
“I’m here, Evryn,” he said, his voice tight but steady as he held her.
“We’re going back.”
Auren swallowed the cold rage.
He carefully slid one arm under her knees and the other behind her back, lifting her as if she were made of glass, her head resting against his shoulder.
He didn’t look at the crowd.
He didn’t look at the man.
He simply turned and walked toward the carriage.
Inside, he sat and placed her gently on his lap.
One arm supported her back while the other brushed hair away from her face.
When the carriage began to move, Auren held her more carefully.
Her breathing was steady, the market noise fading into the distance.
The pain inside his chest did not disappear.
It tightened, she had been hurt, and he had not reached her fast enough.
His jaw tightened as he brushed his thumb gently over the cut near her eyebrow.
He wiped the blood carefully, his movements controlled despite the storm of rage beneath the surface.
She shifted slightly, her fingers gripping weakly at his shirt.
He felt her warmth and the steady rhythm of her heart.
He lowered his hand and looked at the faint stain of her blood on his thumb.
Without thinking, he brought it to his lips.
The taste was warm, but it did not awaken hunger.
It awakened awareness as her scent filled his senses in the small carriage.
When they finally arrived at the Farm, Auren did not move at once.
He looked down at her pale face.
“Evryn…
wake up.
We’re here,” he whispered.
“Can you stand?”
She did not answer.
She had fallen deep into sleep from exhaustion, pain, and the strange safety of his hold.