Auryn rose. She met him at the threshold and stepped into his shadow without a word, wrapping her arms around his waist and pressing her forehead to the steady rise and fall of his chest.
He stilled.
Then melted.
The tension in him released all at once, his arms locking her in as if he could keep the whole world out by sheer will. She heard the long breath leave him—a sound almost like relief.
But when he drew back to speak, she touched a finger to his lips. “No. Please. Let me speak first.”
A faint crease formed between his brows. He only nodded.
Auryn swallowed hard. “Kail…I haven’t been honest with you. Not in every way.” Her voice trembled. “And I—” she cut herself off, breath sharp, “I don’t deserve the love I know you’d offer right now, so don’t. Just…listen.”
She told him.
All of it.
The sessions with Shu’Khan. The rare tomes, the whispered guidance, the quiet manipulations disguised as gifts. How approval from him made her feel both powerful and impossibly small.
But not quite everything.
Not the voice.
Not Vargrún.
When she stopped, her pulse was a drumbeat in her ears. She braced herself—for fury, for argument, for his runes to blaze and his voice to cut the air like glass.
Instead, he breathed out slow. Stepped forward. Drew her into his arms again. His lips brushed her temple as he murmured.
“For a long time now, you’ve built a wall in the Bond.”
Her body went rigid.
“I didn’t understand why,” he continued. “I thought you were…tired of me. Of my fussing. My hand always on you. But now I know. You didn’t want me to hear your fear about Shu’Khan.”
“That’s not the reason,” she said quickly. Her grip tightened on him. “You can be overprotective, Kail, but I would never cleave you from my mind.Never.”
A beat passed—not awkward, but weighted.
“Auryn, he’s more than dangerous,” he said. “I won’t tell you not to see him—I trust your instincts. But remember what he did to you with his breath once. Please, don’t step into that lake deeper than you must.”
She stared at him, disbelieving.
His mouth curved, though there was no humor in it. “What is it? Did you expect my runes to light up and for me to storm the Vesper Seat?”
She hesitated. “…A little.”
His arms tightened, the air around him shivering with barely contained rage. Through the Bond, she felt truths he didn’t voice—jagged and hot—and let them pass.
“I’ll be careful,” she promised. “I’m always watching.”
He drew a breath as if to steady himself. “Then I have to be honest too. Vargrún has been speaking to me.”
The world tilted.
She staggered back, fists bunching in his tunic. “What?”
“Since you started Weaving my runes, I think.”
