Chapter 60 – Dain
DAIN
From the moment Kalias set foot in our wing, his wolf had fixed on Azaria.
Never more than a few paces behind her, never settling unless she was in sight.
At first, I thought it was caution, a new recruit keeping watch on the captain.
But weeks had passed, and still the wolf trailed her like a shadow with teeth.
The others noticed, though no one said it aloud.
I didn’t need words—the wolf’s pointed sniffing said plenty.
Just the other day, when Azaria returned from patrol, he’d pressed his nose against her side and inhaled, deliberate as a judge.
The flush that hit her cheeks after told me more than I wanted to know.
The wolf had scented Quin on her, brazen as you please, and she hadn’t shoved him away.
He’d stopped bothering with boundaries entirely, treating her like a pack. Like kin.
What unsettled me wasn’t the sniffing, or even Azaria’s rare blush. It was the persistence. This wasn’t protectiveness in the ordinary sense. He just wouldn’t leave her. Wouldn’t even try.
I’d caught myself watching him nearly as much as he watched her, trying to work out the pattern. My instincts were clear: this wasn’t going away. The wolf had chosen, whether Kalias the man understood it or not.
And that choice left me restless. Because if even a wolf could see something about Azaria that the rest of us couldn’t, then what in the hells was I missing?
I found Kalias alone, perched at the outer edge of the training grounds. Arms crossed, silver eyes fixed ahead, unmoving—except where the wind toyed with his silver hair. He didn’t turn as I approached, but I knew he had heard me. “Enjoying the quiet?” My tone was casual.
A beat. “It is peaceful,” he said, voice steady. “Your people move with discipline.”
“Hard-earned. Though I suspect you already knew that.”
“I have watched.”
Of course he had.
Silence stretched between us—comfortable, surprisingly. Kalias wasn’t the talkative sort, but I didn’t need him to be. Quiet people who watched usually knew the most. I broke it first. “You knew about her. Azaria. Your wolf knew.”
His jaw ticked. “He chose her before I understood why.”
I nodded slowly. “That’s a hell of a thing. Loyalty from the soul.”
“It was not reasoned. It was instinct.” His head tilted. “It did not take long to see it for what it was.”
I gave a low chuckle. “She has a way of pulling people in. Even the ones who don’t want to be pulled.”
A faint curve touched his mouth. “Like you?”
“Please,” I scoffed. “I was here before she was even Captain. I picked her. You lot are late to the party.”
Kalias gave the softest huff—his version of a laugh, I guessed.
“I’ve been watching you too,” I added deliberately. “You’re calm, quiet, unreadable. But your wolf? He’s not. He loves her.”
“I know.”
I studied him. “And Quin?”
“I know what they are,” Kalias said simply. “Their scents are tangled. Their energy folds into each other like branches in the wind.” He paused. “He was threatened at first. I could sense it.”
“You’re a threat to many people,” I said mildly.
“I did not want to be.”
“But you were. Still are, maybe. Especially to someone that in love.”
Kalias didn’t respond right away. Then: “Quinton’s blood magic is rare. Even among my kind, it would be revered. His power is darker than most, but it is tied to something deeper. That sort of power does not bond easily… but when it does, it is absolute.”
I let the weight of that settle before asking, “You said blood magic creates bonds?”
His gaze flicked to mine, then back ahead. “Blood magic did not begin with men. It first manifested in the bat clans and the scaled kin. It was born for the hunt, used to weaken or kill prey by draining them.”
“Predatory magic,” I said.
“Yes. But when wolves began to show it, their instinct bent it another way. Where the bats and reptiles took, wolves gave. They used it to knit wounds, tether life to life. It became protective, binding.”
“So wolf blood magic is the opposite of what it started as.”
“Precisely. That is why some wolves attune through blood magic. It is a relic of that heritage. For wolves, such bonds are rare, not chosen. But when they happen, they are soul-deep. A tether that does not break.”
My chest tightened. “And for humans?”
“It is different.” Kalias shifted slightly, arms still folded.
“Their blood lacks the instinct to shape the bond. When it manifests, it is unpredictable. It takes its form from the wielder. It can be physical, such as magic reacting to the attuned whenever they are near. Or emotional: sensing their state, their pain, their hunger. Feeding it back.” His eyes slid to mine.
“And for those with diluted shifter blood, like Quinton Thornvale, it may surface as attunement rather than a full bond. It is no less dangerous, but simply without clarity or control.”
The pieces clicked into place. Quin had always been too in step with Azaria.
Always hovering just close enough, always a half-second from knowing what she was about to do or feel.
He burned hot beneath that brooding exterior.
Anger, want, grief—he carried all of it like fire in his chest. Was that just his nature?
Or was his magic feeding him Azaria’s emotions too, stoking the flames higher than they should burn?
“So Quin has shifter blood in him,” I said.
“Yes,” Kalias said simply. “Diluted by generations, but yes. His siblings as well, though theirs is less traceable.”
One thing to suspect. Another to have it confirmed. “Is there a way to know?” I asked. “To see that link from the outside?”
Kalias looked at me properly then. “I am able to confirm such bonds. For another shifter, it is easier to see.”
That was all. But it was enough.
Quin’s blood magic was attuned to Azaria.
The thought landed like a blade and kept twisting. What did that mean for her? Had he been reading her every emotion, every flicker of anger, every rare spark of joy? When had it happened? Back in those first raw months, or later, when she’d finally let him close?
Did she even know?
If she didn’t, she was going to be furious. Azaria had lived her whole life with people prying into what was hers, tearing pieces away without permission. She hated being handled, hated being cornered. And this wasn’t just cornering her. It was living inside her skin without her consent.
“She deserves to know,” Kalias said quietly. His eyes stayed on the training grounds, silver hair shifting in the breeze. “I will not be the one to tell her, I assure you. But she needs to know.”
He was right. Gods above, he was right. But knowing it and being the one to force it into the light were different things.
“Yeah,” I muttered. “She does.” I turned to him, voice low. “Is there a way to shield from it? I taught Azaria tricks to block mind magic, to keep others out without permission. Does anything like that exist for this?”
“No,” Kalias said. “Bonds are not like mind magic. They are not forced entry. They are shared current. You cannot shut it out without shutting out the bond itself.” He paused. “For wolves, it is instinct. For humans, it follows blood. There is no wall against it.”
I clenched my jaw.
“You can dull the edge,” Kalias added. “Distance weakens it. Suppression tools—runes, artifacts—can blunt it further. But the link itself will always remain. A current once joined cannot be severed. Only muted.”
“Does he know?” I asked. “That he’s attuned to her?”
“I cannot say. Some feel it instinctively. Others live with it for years without understanding what it is.”
“And if she finds out before he tells her…”
“Then it will break something between them,” Kalias finished quietly. “Which is why he should tell her. Soon.”
I filed that away. One more truth to manage. One more secret that could detonate everything if handled wrong.
Kalias’s eyes lingered on me a beat longer than comfortable. Then: “And what about your bond?”
I frowned. “My magic is not attuned to her. If that’s what you mean.”
“No,” he let the word draw out. “But you and Azaria. What compels you to feel so strongly about her?”
Something in his tone stripped the deflection right out of me.
“She’s family,” I said at last. “More than family. She’s my anchor.
The one thing in all this madness that keeps me steady.
” I forced a breath. “I’d bleed for her, die for her, without a thought.
A thousand times, if I have to.” I kept my eyes on the training grounds, jaw tight.
“It’s not about magic. It’s not about choice.
It just is.” When I glanced at him, Kalias was watching me with quiet recognition.
He was quiet for a long while. Then: “Do you have any family? Siblings? Parents?”
I paused. That was an odd shift in topic. “No siblings. My parents had me late. They died of old age, years before all of this.”
Kalias hummed low in his throat. Considering. “Nothing else unusual about them?” he pressed. “Social ties, lineage, anything distinct?”
My brow arched. “No. Why?”
He didn’t answer, only watched me with those pale eyes, like he was fitting pieces together that I couldn’t see. Something in my gut tightened. He wasn’t making conversation.
“What’s this about?” I asked, sharper now.
“Yeah, what’s this about, Kalias?”
I stiffened. Azaria. Right behind us. I hadn’t sensed her, hadn’t heard a single footstep. That never happened. I was always aware of where she was, always tracking her presence at the edge of my senses. The fact that she’d walked up on me unnoticed told me exactly how deep in my own head I’d been.
She stood with her arms crossed, one brow raised. From the look on her face, she’d been there long enough to hear Kalias’s questions about my family.
Kalias turned toward her, expression unreadable. “When you are ill,” he said evenly, “or weak, or troubled, what does Dain usually do?”
Her brows drew together. “What kind of question is that?”
“Answer it,” Kalias said.
Azaria shifted, rubbing the side of her neck. “He feeds me, makes sure I don’t keel over, looks after me and…” Her voice dipped, awkward. “Well.”
“Keeps you in his bed?” Kalias asked.
The air went still.
She froze, then looked at me. I met her eyes, both of us caught in the same stunned silence. Finally, she gave a slow, reluctant nod. “Yeah…”
My jaw tightened. “Will you stop being cryptic and tell us what you’re getting at?”
Kalias didn’t flinch. He turned his attention back to Azaria, tone level as ever.
“These are fae patterns,” he said. “Old ones. When the weak or the sick faltered, the fae cared for them, fed them, and watched over them. They kept them close and warm. It is an instinct woven into their blood. It was not desire but protection.” His eyes flicked to me.
“You show the same patterns, Dain. So yes, you do have a bond with her. Not a mating bond, no. But something akin to it.”
My chest tightened, heat curling low, and before I realized it my hand pressed to the familiar spot just over my sternum—the one that always burned when Azaria was hurting.
Kalias’s gaze sharpened. “Do you feel pain when that bond stretches thin?”
The words caught in my throat, but I forced them out. “Yes. It hurt when Azaria was locked in the isolation cell. When she was injured in the field. When Eris died and she…” I swallowed. “Other times.”
Azaria’s eyes widened. She looked at me like she’d never seen me before. “Dain… you never mentioned anything.”
I kept my gaze steady, even as the admission scraped raw. “I didn’t know what it was. I thought it was just my emotions getting overloaded.”
Azaria’s hand dropped from her neck, eyes still locked on mine. Her voice came low, almost breathless. “Gods… it makes so much sense.”
Kalias inclined his head. “You have fae blood in you, Dain. Trust me, I can tell.”
The words landed heavily, even though part of me had already known. Not in words, but in the ache that never left my chest when she suffered. In the instinct that dragged me to her side before I thought better of it.
Fae blood. A bond.
Azaria was still staring at me, wide-eyed. I forced myself to hold her gaze. Then she let out a small, incredulous chuckle. “Fae blood. Of course.”
I braced for the worst—shock, questions, maybe anger. Instead, she shook her head with that crooked little smile, like this was just another piece of madness added to the pile of her life. The knot in my chest loosened. Stars above, she was laughing.
“Well, Kalias Fenwynd,” Azaria drawled, stepping forward to clap him on the shoulder. “I knew I was right to ask you to join us. You definitely make this place much more entertaining.”
She grinned, bright and unbothered, and the weight eased from the air.
Leave it to her to laugh off something that had just upended my understanding of myself. But that was Azaria. She carried truths that would break other people and found a way to grin at them anyway.
Kalias’s gaze lingered on me a moment longer. “There is another thing,” he said. “You will age slower than the others. How old are you, exactly?”
“Thirty,” I answered.
Azaria’s head whipped toward me, eyes bright with mischief. “You know… Kalias might be right. You look as handsome as ever.” Then she winked.
Heat crawled up the back of my neck.
“Guess the rest of us will wrinkle and gray while you just sit there looking broody and pretty.”
I scowled, but it had no teeth. “Az.”
She laughed, and I felt myself losing ground fast. I’d stared down men with blades at my throat and hadn’t flinched, but one grin from her and I was undone.
“Don’t worry, Dain,” she added between chuckles. “I’ll still take care of you when you’re ancient.”
Before I could muster a retort, Kalias spoke. “I think he will take care of you.”
Her grin softened, and for a moment she just looked at me. Then she muttered, almost under her breath, “If I get to live that long.”
The words punched through me harder than any blade. She said it so casually, as if she believed it, like she’d already written her own end.
Kalias’s expression shifted. Something dark flickered behind those silver eyes before he schooled his face back to neutral. He knew something. Something he wasn’t saying.
My jaw clenched, the instinct to argue rising sharp in my chest, but I bit it back. Azaria never responded well to being caged by my fear. So I just stood there, holding her gaze until she looked away. But inside, my chest burned hotter than ever.
If she got to live that long?
She damn well would. Even if it killed me.