“How was your run?” she asks, her voice low and careful.
“Disorienting,” I admit, not wanting to worry her but unable to lie when she looks at me with those knowing eyes. “The forest changes when I’m not looking. It feels like the trees are moving. It’s fucking with me, and my wolf hates it.”
Her lips twitch in what might be the beginning of a smile, the first real expression of amusement I’ve seen from her in days. “Fae don’t play fair. At least that’s what I’ve read in my research. The forest is probably testing you, seeing if you’ll break or adapt.”
I huff a laugh, but even as I sit there beside her, feeling more grounded than I have all day, the old doubts creep in like fog rolling off the ocean.
I’m not her only bond. The thought arrives unbidden, unwelcome, but impossible to dismiss.
Micah, her Tether, is still out there. Still fighting and protecting the Mortal Realm. She’s still tied to Esme in a way I can’t fully understand, connected by magic and shared purpose before I ever stepped into the picture. No matter what we’ve shared, no matter how deep our mate bond runs, Esme will always be tethered to someone else. That’s just the truth of it, carved into the fabric of reality itself, and deep down, in the places I try not to examine too closely, I’m afraid.
Afraid that once she’s stronger, once she gets her magic back and grasps who she was before the trauma broke her down, she’ll want to go back. Back to Micah and her other Tethers. I mean, I don’t know them well enough but the whole lot of them are crazy for sure. Micah is a walking, talking target and the thought of Esme running headlong into danger, bristles my wolf. She’ll want to go back to HellNight Academy and the world that shaped her into the powerful witch she became.
I’m here now, I remind myself, forcing the doubts back into the dark corners where they belong. I stayed when staying meant giving up everything I’d ever known.
I gave up my pack, my home, my entire identity as an Alpha in the Mortal Realm—everything I knew and understood about my place in the world—to follow her to this strange, magic-soaked land that barely tolerates my existence. A place where wolves are myths and I’m an anomaly that the very ground seems to reject. I’d do it again without hesitation, would make the same choice a thousand times over if it means being here when she needs me.
I believe this time can be different. This time, when the dust settles and the immediate crisis passes, when she has the luxury of choice instead of just survival, maybe she’ll see that what we have is worth fighting for.
I believe this time, she will choose me, not just because of fate or magic or the desperate need for an anchor in the storm, but because she wants to. Because what we’ve built together, fragile as it is, means something to her beyond the bonds that tie us.
Maybe this time, we can grow together instead of just surviving together. Heal together instead of just enduring. Build something separate from all the chaos behind us, something that belongs to us alone.
Still, I know it won’t be easy. Nothing about our lives so far has ever been simple.
Hell, I felt it in the wind outside this cottage, in the foreign eyes watching from the woods. Something else is coming, I can taste it in the air like a storm on the horizon. Some new challenge, some fresh crisis that will test everything we think we’ve learned about ourselves.
I’m not ready. I’m not sure I’ll ever be ready for the kind of power that exists in this realm, for the politics and ancient grudges and casual cruelty that seem to be woven into the very fabric of fae society.
I don’t know what tomorrow looks like. I don’t know what my pack thinks of me now. If they believe I abandoned them for selfish reasons, or worse, that I lost myself chasing a mate in a world I don’t belong in. I can only hope Terrance, my Beta, steps up in my absence and that Miss Margaret was able to tell them I will return as soon as I can.
I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to protect her the way she deserves, or if I’m just setting us both up for another devastating failure. Everything’s uncertain. Everything except the woman lying in this bed, reaching for my hand like I’m her lifeline.
One thing is crystal clear, burning bright enough to chase away every doubt and fear that tries to take root. As long as Esme is beside me, breathing, healing, here in whateverform that takes. then that’s enough. More than enough. It’s everything.
At least for now.
CHAPTER THREE
LOCKE
The last fucking thing I want to do is leave the forest.
Yet, when General Erron calls, even the trees stop whispering. My father’s summons arrives at dawn, carried by a crow with a gold-tipped beak and a self-important strut that makes me want to wring its feathered neck. The parchment is sealed with his personal signet, not the Night Court’s formal seal, which tells me everything I need to know. It isn’t his idea. No, this reeks of court politics, meaning Queen Lucelle has been flapping her jeweled wings and stirring the king’s curiosity like the manipulative harpy she is. I know she has her own spies and she’s blind to a certain part of the forest.
Still, I drag my feet. Quite literally. The winding path from Kasamere to Castle Noire stretches on like it knows I’m reluctant and is trying to make it worse. Every root seems positioned to catch my boot, every low branch aimed at my skull. Moss clings to my boots with every step, as if the forest itself is trying to hold me back. The air is thicker the farther I get from the cottage, heavy with the weight of leaving something unfinished behind.
It’s been weeks since the wolf and his unconscious bundle arrived.
Weeks of watching from the shadows of the blackbark trees, my enhanced senses tracking every movement around Cashira’s cottage. Waiting. Listening to the poor bastard pace the woods like a caged animal, his boots wearing trenches in the soft earth as he mutters to himself like a lunatic. If it weren’t for his ramblings drifting through the mist on sleepless nights, I wouldn’t even know she’d woken up. He calls her Esme, the name falling from his lips like a prayer, though I haven’t laid eyes on her since the day she was draped in his arms like an offering to whatever gods still listen.
Observing him has been amusing though, in the way watching a man slowly lose his mind can be entertaining when you have nothing better to do. He’s loud, emotional, constantly muttering his insecurities. Poor bastard. No pack to ground him here in Vanir, no wolves at all to anchor his wilder instincts. The isolation is eating him alive from the inside out. No wonder he’s unraveling like cheap rope in a storm. I would almost pity him if I didn’t find his suffering so damn delightful.
I can’t explain why leaving feels wrong. I don’t even want to try. I just know that walking away now, before I’ve seen her again, before I’ve confirmed she’s real and not some fever dream conjured up by the forest’s boredom or my own restless mind, feels like a betrayal of something I can’t name.
Last thing I need is for my father to bring a contingent of lower-ranking assholes to rain on my parade and drag me back by force. So, here I am. Climbing the obsidian steps of Castle Noire, where shadows cling to every crevice like living things and the stone itself seems to breathe with ancient disdain. I want to stick my tongue out like a petulant child and tell the damn castle I’m not happy to see it either.
The Night Court’s stronghold rises from the cliffs like a beast half-awake, ancient and perpetually irritable. Its spires are jagged black teeth stabbing the sky with no care for grace orbeauty, only dominance. Vines crawl up its surface in twisted spirals, but they don’t soften anything. If anything, they make the structure look more predatory, like something that’s learned to hunt by lying still. Even the flora here knows better than to try for pretty. The windows are long and narrow, etched with protective glyphs that shimmer faintly when I pass, their magic tasting my bloodline and finding me acceptable. The great doors loom ahead, easily three times my height, flanked by gargoyle sentinels whose stone eyes follow me with the kind of judgment I’m used to. Their carved faces shift slightly as I approach, not enough for most to notice, but enough for me to know they’re deciding whether I’m friend or foe today.
