The storage room was narrow and thick with the scent of grain, Crates were stacked dangerously high, their iron bands glinting in the dim light.
“These need to be moved,” Evryn said, gesturing to the far wall.
Auren began the task in silence.
He moved with a terrifying efficiency, lifting crates as if they were filled with feathers.
His breathing never altered; his muscles didn’t even twitch under the strain.
Evryn watched him, her mind trying to reconcile this “servant’s” strength with his arrogant composure.
Looking for a moment to reassert control, Evryn climbed the old wooden ladder to inspect a crate wedged near the ceiling beams.
“I don’t need help,” she snapped as Auren instantly appeared at the base, his hand steadying the frame.
“You need stability,” he replied.
As she reached the top, the ladder gave a faint creak.
She ignored it, but as she began her descent, her foot slipped.
It was a minor stumble, barely a flinch in time, but the spell inside Auren reacted like a coiled spring.
He didn’t wait for her to fall.
In a blur of movement, he was there.
His hands clamped firmly onto her waist, pulling her back against the solid heat of his chest to steady her.
The air in the small room vanished.
Before she could regain her footing, he lifted her cleanly off the rungs.
He brought her down to the floor in one smooth, powerful motion, his grip possessive and unyielding.
Even when her feet hit the stones, he did not let go.
Her breath hitched, her back pressed against him.
She spun around, her eyes flashing with a mix of shock and fury.
“Respect your distance,” she warned, her voice trembling with irritation.
“Do not touch me again.”
The spell burned hot beneath Auren’s ribs, refusing to retreat now that she was safe.
He looked down at her, and a slow, mocking smile spread across his lips.
It wasn’t an apology; it was a challenge.
He found her anger…and her proximity…deeply amusing.
“For your safety,” he replied, his voice cold yet taunting, “I will touch you whenever it is necessary.”
Evryn’s blood boiled at the sharp, mocking look in his eyes.
Realizing that further argument would only feed his amusement, she stepped back, forcing his hands to drop.
“Don’t do it again,” she snapped, turning on her heel and marching out.
Auren watched her go, his expression settling into a dark, quiet intensity.
The spell pulsed one last time beneath his ribs, a silent promise.
He would catch her again.
Every single time.
The kitchen was a storm of activity, but a heavy silence followed Evryn and Auren from the storage room.
She resumed her work with a focused, cold precision, while Auren stood beside her, his presence like a dark shadow.
The rhythm was broken when a broad-shouldered servant approached, wiping flour from his hands and looking at Auren with a mix of envy and greed.
“Auren,” the man barked, not even looking him in the eye.
“I heard you moved all those ironwood crates alone.
I need that strength in my section tomorrow afternoon.
We’ve got heavy barrels to shift.
I’m taking him.”
The request felt like a slap.
Auren’s fingers tightened around a wooden basket until the grain of the wood groaned.
A dark, dangerous surge of anger flared in his chest.
He felt like a prize horse being bartered over…an object to be “taken” or “borrowed.” If Evryn agreed, if she simply handed him over like a tool to be used by another, he knew his patience would finally snap.
He would end this humiliation, spell or no spell.
Evryn didn’t even lift her gaze from the herbs she was cutting.
“If he is strong,” she said, her voice cutting through the man’s demand, “that strength belongs to him.
Not to you.”
“He’s just a new hand, Evryn.
Don’t be difficult.
I need him to carry this load.”
“Go build your own muscle,” she replied, her voice sharpening into a blade.
She finally looked up, her eyes hard.
“He is not assigned to your section.”
Auren watched her, his heart hammering.
He hadn’t expected this.
She disliked him, she mocked him, and she tried to break his pride…yet here she was, standing as a shield for his dignity.
When the man grew aggressive and stepped toward her, Auren moved.
He stepped between them, his tall frame blocking the servant’s path.
He didn’t speak, but his silver eyes were lethal, a wall of ice protecting the woman who had just defended him.
Ray, witnessing the tension, stepped in.
But instead of siding with Evryn, he grabbed her wrist firmly.
“Enough, Evryn.
We help each other here.
We need to talk.
Now.”
Before Ray could pull her away, Auren’s hand clamped onto Ray’s wrist.
He removed Ray’s grip with slow, irresistible strength.
“Not even as her fiancé,” Auren said, his voice silenced the entire kitchen, “does it give you the right to grab her like that.”
The silence that followed was absolute.
Evryn, desperate to stop a fight, led Ray into the corridor.
The tension in the corridor was thick enough to choke on.
Ray’s chest was still heaving, his wolfish instincts on high alert, while Evryn stood her ground, her face pale but determined.
“Why are you defending him?” Ray demanded, his voice a low growl that echoed off the narrow stone walls.
Evryn shook her head, her gaze steady.
“Ray, did you not hear how that man spoke to him?
Like he was nothing but a tool!
Like he didn’t have a soul or a name.”
“And what’s your business with him?” Ray countered, stepping closer.
“Let him suffer.
Let him be a tool!
If he’s tired of this, if he’s worked to the bone, that’s what will finally make him get out of your path.
He’ll leave, Evryn.”
“Ray, you know me very well,” she said, her voice dropping to a low, firm tone.
“I don’t play those games.
I refused him from the first, but you were the one who pushed me to accept him.
So now, let me do my work honestly.
I won’t be a part of someone’s cruelty.
If he wants to go, he can go…but I will not be the reason for it.”
Ray stared at her, his jaw tightening as he fought back another retort.
But then, seeing the exhaustion and the raw honesty in her eyes, his shoulders slumped.
The aggression left his body all at once.
He reached out, his hands trembling slightly as he pulled her into a tight, desperate hug.
He buried his face in the crook of her neck
Auren watched them through the doorway.
He saw the argument, and then he saw Ray pull her into a tight embrace.
Auren’s hand flexed at his side, a sharp, personal sting of possessiveness burning in his chest.
It wasn’t the spell this time; it was him.
When Evryn returned, her voice was a low whisper.
“You crossed a line.
He is my fiancé.” The source of this chapter is g.com.
“And that gives him ownership?” Auren countered, his gaze intense.
“It’s given him concern.” she said without lifting her head from the table.
“He wasn’t concerned.” Auren said
Evryn stopped, looking into his eyes with a searching focus.
“And you were concerned?”
“Yes.”
The word was simple, but it changed everything.
As Ray passed Auren later, he hissed, “You forget where you stand.”
Auren didn’t blink.
“I stand exactly where I choose.”
The kitchen shifted from a frantic hub of activity to a cavern of long shadows as the evening bells finally signaled the end of the day’s labor.
The other servants began to file out, their weary footsteps echoing against the stone.
Ray was among the last to leave.
He paused near the table where Evryn stood, his eyes softening as he reached out to tuck a loose strand of hair behind her ear.
He leaned in and pressed a lingering kiss to her cheek.
“Goodnight, beautiful,” Ray said, his voice warm and steady.
“Don’t stay up too late.
You need your rest.”
Evryn nodded, a soft, genuine smile touching her lips…the kind of smile she never reserved for Auren.
“I won’t be long, Ray.
Goodnight.”
As Ray turned to leave, his eyes collided with Auren’s.
He didn’t speak, but his gaze was a warning, a territorial claim that needed no words.
Auren did not flinch; he met the look with a cold, unreadable stare.
Ray finally broke the contact, his boots clicking against the floor as the heavy wood door thudded shut.
Auren watched Evryn move through the dimming light.
She looked exhausted, the weight of the work visible in the slight slump of her shoulders, yet she refused to yield.
She gestured toward the cutting board, her voice quiet but firm as she walked him through the preparation of the morning’s base.
The “teaching” was brief.
Auren was a fast learner…his mind was a sponge for precision.
Within minutes, the rhythmic tap-tap-tap of the blade against wood was steady and perfect.
Seeing he had mastered the task; Evryn sank into her wooden chair to supervise.
But the silence and the warmth of the dying hearth were seductive.
As Auren worked, the sounds of her corrections tapered off into silence.
He turned to ask a question, only to find that sleep had finally claimed her.
He set the knife down with practiced silence.
He didn’t return to his own quarters.
Instead, drawn by a pull he couldn’t name, he pulled a chair closer to hers.
In the flickering amber light, Auren simply watched her.
He had seen her as a sharp-tongued commander, a loyal fiancé, and a stubborn worker, but here, she was just…
Evryn.
The moonlight through the high window caught the curve of her cheek, softening the lines of worry she wore like armor during the day.
He leaned in, his senses overwhelmed by the scent of her…lavender, and the honest heat of the day.
He admired the way a single strand of hair danced with her breath.
She looked so fragile, so remarkably human, that it made the spell beneath his ribs thrum with a protective, aching heat.
“So much fire when you are awake,” he breathed, his voice a ghost of a whisper near her ear, a small, dark smile touching his lips.
“But here you are…
resting like a little bird.
If only you knew how small you look when you aren’t trying to break me.”
He didn’t touch her…the risk of waking her, of returning to their war, was too great.
He simply sat in the quiet, a King serving as a silent guardian to a maid, admiring the peace he was never supposed to find in a place like this.