Page 30 of Orc’s Grimoire

“Or I burn you both.”

“Yes.”

The sigil on my collarbone explodes with heat.

I gasp, hand flying to my chest. The burning is intense—worse than the initial marking, worse than anything I’ve felt since the cascade a year ago. Red-gold light blazes through the bandages, bright enough to illuminate the entire corridor.

And then Korrath makes a sound.

Not a word—a growl of pain and shock that echoes off the stone walls. His hand tears at his shirt, ripping fabric to expose his chest.

The mating mark is burning.

I can see it now—the sigils over his heart, glowing with the same red-gold light that’s pouring from my claiming mark. But there’s more. New lines are forming beneath his skin, tracing patterns that mirror the ones on my collarbone. The same script. The same words.

MINE. KEEPER. CLAIMED.

“What—“ He’s breathing hard, one hand pressed to the fresh marks. “What is this?”

I stare at his chest, at the grimoire’s sigils burning themselves into his flesh. The same marks that branded me. The same claiming. The same possession.

The grimoire didn’t just mark me. It bound us to each other.

The realization hits like a physical blow. I stumble back, shoulders hitting the corridor wall. The sigil on my collarbone pulses in time with the one on his chest—two hearts beating in forced synchronization.

“It’s using me.” The words come out numb. Distant. “The blood I’ve given it. Six years of feeding it. The grimoire used that link to reach you through me.”

“Reach me how?” His voice is strained. The new marks are still forming, still burning, still carving the grimoire’s claim into his skin.

“The mating mark.” I push off from the wall, moving toward him despite every instinct screaming at me to run. “Your mating magic. The grimoire saw it forming and used my binding as a conduit. It piggybacked on your claim to create its own.”

“That’s not possible.”

“It shouldn’t be.” I reach for his chest—not thinking, just acting—and press my palm against the fresh sigils. The heat is overwhelming. The sense of him floods through me, intense and immediate, washing away any doubt about what I’m feeling. “But the grimoire doesn’t care about possible. It cares about survival.”

The burning fades slowly.

We stand in the corridor, breathing hard, my palm still pressed to his chest. Beneath my fingers, his heartbeat pounds—fast, unsteady, nothing like the controlled rhythm I’d expect from a man who’s spent twenty years walking into danger.

He’s afraid. The spell-burner is afraid.

The thought should bring satisfaction. He came here to kill me, to burn the grimoire, to end six years of sacrifice with fire and ash. Fear is what he deserves.

Instead, the craving intensifies. The urge to comfort him. To lean closer and press my body against his and tell him everything will be fine.

The grimoire’s doing. Has to be the grimoire’s doing.

But my hand doesn’t move. My body doesn’t step back. And when his fingers close over mine, pressing my palm more firmly against his chest, I don’t pull away.

“The binding.” His voice is low. Rough. “You said the grimoire can feel what you feel now. See what you see.”

“Yes.”

“Can it feel this?” His free hand rises to my collarbone, fingertips tracing the edge of the claiming sigil through the bandages. Lightning sparks beneath my skin at the touch. “Can it see what I’m doing?”

“I’m not sure.” The honest answer. The only answer. “The new binding is untested.”

“Then we need to find out.” He releases my hand, steps back. The loss of contact leaves me cold and aching. “You said three days. We have less than that now.”