For a long moment after the fight ended, neither of them moved.
Evryn’s hands were still gripping his back.
Her face was pressed against his chest, and he could feel the rapid beat of her heart slowly trying to calm.
Auren held her firmly, one hand spread across her back, the other resting at the back of her head.
She shifted first.
Slowly, she pulled back just enough to look up at him.
Her eyes searched his face, not for danger now, but for damage.
“Are you hurt?” she asked quietly.
Before he could answer, her hands moved over his shoulders, his arms, pressing lightly as if expecting to find wounds.
Her fingers brushed along his side where claws had struck earlier, though no mark remained.
“I am not the one who was attacked,” he said calmly.
She ignored the tone and checked anyway, frowning when she found nothing.
“You fought all of them,” she insisted.
“And ended it,” he replied.
Her hands slowed.
Relief flickered in her eyes, but confusion followed quickly.
“Why would they want to kill me?” she asked.
“I am a maid.
I am far from politics, far from power.
I have nothing to do with wars or kings.”
Auren studied her carefully.
He already knew the answer was worse than ignorance.
If wolves had broken bond to attack her, then someone powerful had guided them.
There were only two possibilities.
Either the enemy was his…someone who understood the spell and wanted to kill him through her …or the enemy belonged to the one who had cast the spell in the first place.
Either way, it meant knowledge, and whoever knew would not stop.
“I will keep you safe,” Auren said.
His voice was strong.
It was a lie.
He knew the wolves were not a random accident.
They were hunting him, and she was caught in the middle.
But he didn’t want to scare her more.
Evryn looked at him.
She felt he was hiding something.
“You cannot stay forever,” she said softly.
“What if you leave this place?
What if you are sent away?”
Auren stepped closer.
He lifted her chin, so she had to look at him.
“I cannot leave you,” he said.
He didn’t explain the magic bond.
He just took her hand and led her back.
The next day, the house was busy as usual.
But Evryn was different.
She moved slowly, like she was walking through water.
She didn’t laugh with Brinna.
She didn’t tease Auren.
The happy girl in the yellow dress was gone.
She worked in the kitchen, but her mind was elsewhere.
She was thinking.
Auren did not act like a servant.
He did not fight like a man.
Everything in her life had changed since he arrived.
Her wedding was cancelled.
Wolves had attacked her.
Magic was everywhere.
She realized the truth: They tried to kill me because I am near him.
The life she wanted…a quiet home and a family…now felt impossible.
By noon, she couldn’t take it anymore.
She retreated to her room and closed the door, the heavy silence of the house pressing in on her.
She lay on her bed and cried quietly, her shoulders shaking with the weight of everything she couldn’t control.
She had never felt so small or so hunted, like a bird caught in a net that was slowly tightening.
Outside, Auren stood in the shadows of the hallway, his body rigid.
He could feel her pain through the bond, a sharp, cold ache that radiated from her heart and settled into his own chest.
Every instinct he possessed screamed at him to break down the door, to pull her into his arms and silence her fears with the sheer force of his presence.
But he couldn’t face her.
He remained frozen, his hand hovering inches from the wood of the door.
She would have questions…terrible, honest questions about the magic, the dangers, and why he was truly there…and he had no answers for her.
He didn’t want to lie to her anymore, but the truth was a weapon that would only shatter her further.
With a jaw tightened in silent frustration, he forced himself to step away.
He let her face the fear alone, hauntingly aware of the vast difference between them.
To him, she was a human…fragile, beautiful, and desperately mortal…a woman whose world was breaking while he could only watch from the dark.
Evryn didn’t sleep.
She stared at the ceiling and made a choice.
If Auren was the reason for the danger, she had to go.
To stay safe, she had to leave him behind.
She no longer needed the farm.
She no longer needed the income meant for marriage.
Ray was gone from her future.
The money from her dried flowers was enough to survive.
Her parents’ house in the capital still stood empty but untouched.
It had always been hers.
If she returned there, quietly, away from him, perhaps the danger would fade.
Perhaps she would breathe again.
Evryn closed her eyes tight.
She pictured her old home.
She thought of the wooden door and the smell of herbs.
She wanted to be there so badly it hurt.
Suddenly, the air in the room moved.
Evryn opened her eyes.
The wall seemed to melt.
Magic folded like paper, making a silent hole in the air.
Her heart beat fast.
She was terrified.
She waited for a monster or a killer to jump out.
But nothing came out.
Instead, she saw a vision through the hole.
It was her old house.
She saw her own table and the moonlight on her own floor.
It was a gate.
She didn’t stop to think.
She ran toward it.
As soon as she stepped through, the air swallowed her.
The hole snapped shut.
She was gone.
Back at the farm, Auren stopped dead.
A terrible pain hit his chest.
He stumbled back, gasping for air.
This wasn’t just her walking away…this was a break.
The bond felt like it was snapping.
“How?” he whispered.
He moved fast, searching the grounds, but she was nowhere.
He closed his eyes and focused on the magic in his blood.
He could still feel her, but she was very far away.
She was beyond the edge of the forest, beyond the hills.
The connection was stretched thin, like a string about to break.
The pain stayed in his ribs, sharp and cold.
And the spell was screaming at him to find her.
Auren knew Evryn was not hurt.
He could feel it…steady and undeniable…in the hollow of his chest, if she were truly in danger…if the enemy had caught her and done real harm….
he would have felt it.
The bond between them would have twisted into something unbearable.
And if she had died, he would have known.
He would have fallen with her.
That certainty should have calmed him.
Instead, it unsettled him more.
She was alive.
Which meant there was still time.
And time meant he could reach her…if he moved fast enough.
Anger flared, tangled with fear.
Not fear for himself.
For her.
He had doubted the bond before, blamed it on the spell.
But without it clouding his thoughts, he understood now.
The feeling was real.
Terrifyingly real.
He considered calling Abby.
he wouldn’t let her abandon her mission.
No…this was his responsibility.
He would find Evryn himself.
He moved before the thought fully formed, striding straight to Ray’s chamber.
The door slammed open against the wall.
Ray jolted awake with the other servants, he barely upright before Auren’s fist twisted into the front of his collar and hauled him from the bed.
“Tell me what you know about Evryn.”
Ray blinked once…then smiled, slow and provoking.
“Why would I tell you anything?”
Rage surged hot and immediate, but Auren forced it down.
He lifted Ray higher, fingers tightening at his throat until his body left the floor.
“If you value your life, you will answer now,” Auren said evenly.
“I do not repeat myself.”
The smile faltered.
“I don’t know much,” Ray croaked.
“I met her at the king’s palace.
She lives in the capital.
No family.
That’s all.”
Auren released him.
Ray collapsed back onto the floor, gasping.
Without another word, Auren turned and strode down the corridor to Brinna’s room.
He knocked once…sharp, urgent.
The door opened almost at once.
“What’s wrong?” she asked, already concerned.
“Do you know where Evryn’s house is in the capital?”
Brinna shook her head.
“No.
But Steven does.
He’s her childhood friend.
He works at the market in the capital…”
Auren didn’t wait for her to finish.
Steven.
The man Evryn had laughed with so freely.
So openly.
The name struck something raw inside him.
He was already moving, crossing the courtyard in long strides.
The golden gate opened as he stepping out toward the market beyond.