Chapter 1
Chapter One
VIVIENNE HAWTHORNE
T he candlelight flickers as I whisper the incantation, my breath curling into the cool air of my cottage. The scent of burning sage lingers, mingling with the faint trace of lavender I keep tucked inside my drawers to lull me into sleep. But there will be no peace tonight.
The wards are weakening.
I press my palm against the carved sigils on the wooden beam above my hearth, trying to summon the last reserves of my strength to reinforce them. But I can feel the strain in my bones, the ache that comes from keeping something locked away too long. My magic, buried beneath layers of protection, is stirring like a caged beast.
I should have known this wouldn’t last forever.
The world doesn’t allow witches to live in peace. Not after what the warlocks did. Not after they learned that our power—the magic running through our veins—is something they can consume, something they can twist into strength for themselves.
I was barely eighteen when I learned that truth. When I learned that the Hunt isn’t just a whispered myth, but a ritual. A game for warlocks to track, capture, and claim witches. Some are drained, left as hollowed husks. Others become something else entirely—bonded, shackled, forever bound to the warlock who took them.
I refused that fate.
So I did what I had to do. I bound my magic. Made myself untraceable. Became something lesser to ensure my survival. And years later, when I felt the same raw, untamed power inside my niece, Selene, I did the same for her. She doesn’t know it, not yet. But one day, she will. One day, she will break free.
The house is silent except for the low crackle of the fire. The wards will hold another night. They have to.
Then the knock comes.
Soft. Slow. Deliberate.
My stomach tightens.
I move to the door, pressing my hand against it, reaching—not with magic, but with something older, something instinctual. The air shifts. There’s power on the other side.
And I know.
I don’t need to see his face to know who’s waiting for me in the dark.
My fingers tremble as I undo the latch. The door creaks open, and there he stands. Masked. Cloaked in shadows. But I don’t need to see his face to recognize the shape of him, the breadth of his shoulders, the way he fills the space with something so much heavier than just his presence.
Orion Voss.
The warlock I should have feared. The warlock I never forgot.
He’s broader than he was all those years ago, his body carved into something lethal, all muscle and precision. His cloak shifts as he moves, revealing thick forearms veined with power, the hint of dark tattoos that creep along his skin like ancient markings of possession. His hair, the color of ink, falls in loose waves around his face, brushing against the edge of his jaw. And his eyes?—
God, his eyes.
Glacial. Silver-blue. The kind of eyes that could cut through steel, through bone, through the last trembling defenses a woman has when she looks at a man like him and wants something she knows she should never have.
“Vivienne,” he murmurs.
My breath catches. It’s been so long since I heard my name on his lips. A lifetime. Another world.
“You shouldn’t be here,” I whisper, gripping the doorframe like it’s the only thing keeping me upright.
He doesn’t move. Doesn’t speak for a long moment. Then, he reaches up, pulling the mask from his face, and I swear my heart stops.
He’s still devastatingly beautiful. Still the same man who let me go when he shouldn’t have. But there’s something different now. A weight in his expression, a darkness in his gaze that wasn’t there before.
“They sent me for you.”
The words slam into me. Cold. Absolute.
I take a step back, but there’s nowhere to go. No amount of distance will change the truth settling between us like an iron blade.
“No,” I breathe. “You—Orion, you can’t.”
His jaw tightens. His throat bobs as he swallows, and for just a moment, I see the man I once knew, the boy who didn’t take what he could have, the warlock who let me live when every instinct should have told him not to.
“I don’t have a choice.” His voice is low, rough, like it hurts to say the words.
I shake my head, heat rising in my chest, turning into something furious and helpless all at once. “You always have a choice.”
Orion exhales sharply, then steps forward. Too close. Too much. The heat of him presses into me, his scent—something dark, something rich—wrapping around me like smoke.
“I’ll give you five minutes.”
I freeze.
His voice is quiet. Steady.
Then, softer, more like a plea than a warning: “Run.”