Chapter Thirty
Connor
He and Adrian returned to the castle in the early hours of the morning. Xiathen was with them because he’d had “a feeling he was needed.”
Connor was fed up of hearing about everyone’s prophetic feelings, but the logical part of his brain said it was always better to be safe than sorry.
At dawn Adrian bolted upright with a strangled cry. Connor hadn’t left Adrian’s side. He’d dozed a little, but his eyes were gritty from lack of sleep.
Connor caught him immediately. “Adrian, it’s me. Look at me.”
Adrian gasped, his hands clawing at his chest. The mark rippled beneath his skin. The sigils twisted, moving like serpents under his flesh. Connor felt pure animal terror slam through him. Not his own. Adrian’s.
Adrian’s back arched violently as light burst from the sigils, illuminating the entire room in a cold, unnatural glow. Connor cursed and grabbed Adrian’s wrists as they flailed.
Xiathen, who’d been sleeping silently in a chair, shot upright. “Get him on his back. Now.”
Connor pinned Adrian gently but firmly to the mattress, his larger frame keeping him from twisting into another seizure. “Adrian, stay with me. Listen to my voice.”
Xiathen moved to the bedside, his eyes wide with horror. “The mark isn’t only reacting,” he said, “it’s feeding. The anchors are drawing on him, testing his strength. Testing the tether.”
Connor’s head snapped up. “Testing it for what?”
“To break it.”
Connor’s heart slammed against his ribs. “Over my dead body.”
Xiathen didn’t smile. “That is precisely what the Council intends.”
“Connor,” Adrian gasped, clutching Connor’s forearm with shocking strength.
Connor squeezed back hard. “You’re not going anywhere.”
The mark bucked again, and Adrian convulsed.
“Xiathen,” Connor snapped. “Stop it. You’re the lore-keeper, fix it.”
“I can’t.” Xiathen stepped back, pale. “The mark is active because the Veil is active. You can’t stop a storm by yelling at the wind.”
Connor snarled. “Then give me something that will help.”
Xiathen hesitated. “There is only one way to quiet a mark that is feeding.”
Connor’s grip tightened on Adrian. “Say it.”
“You must override it. Anchor him. Not physically. Metaphysically.”
Connor’s breath left him. “How?”
Xiathen’s voice dropped to a whisper. “Through the bond.”
Connor shook his head. “We already did the vow. It nearly killed him.”
“And he will die,” Xiathen whispered, “if the mark consumes him now.”
The ground trembled again. Something deep in the valley let out a low, echoing groan.
Connor bent over Adrian, pressing his forehead to Adrian’s. “Adrian. Stay with me. I’m going to stop it.”
Adrian’s breath hitched. “How?”
Connor closed his eyes. “By coming with you.”
Adrian’s eyes widened—silver-white with pain but trusting. “Connor, no. It’s not safe.”
“I don’t care.”
“I do. If anything happens to you, your clan, your people—”
“Don’t worry about my clan,” Connor growled. “They’d drag me into the Veil themselves if it meant keeping you alive.”
Adrian made a weak noise that was almost a laugh.
Xiathen placed trembling hands on both their shoulders. “Connor Brannigan, listen carefully. When the mark pulls him under, it will try to take him alone. But if you let the tether widen, let the bond open, you can follow. But you must choose the shape of the path.”
“What does that mean?” Connor snapped.
“It means,” Xiathen whispered, “that Adrian will not be the only one dreaming now. You must walk into your own mind.”
Connor felt fear gnaw at the edges of him. His wolf bristled, pacing under his skin.
Adrian’s face twisted in pain as he was pulled. “Connor, don’t fucking risk it.”
Connor cupped his face, his voice low and rough. “I’m not risking anything.” He pressed his forehead to Adrian’s again. “I’m choosing you.”
The mark flared violently, and the world shattered into light. Connor followed him into the void.
Connor expected darkness. Instead, he opened his eyes to snow.
Thick flakes drifted around him, glowing faintly in the moonlight. Pines towered all around him, their branches bowed heavy with frost. The wind howled across an endless expanse of white. Connor shivered. Not from cold, but from recognition.
“This is,” he whispered, his childhood. His first shift. His father’s voice. His clan’s sacred ground. The Wolf Realm inside him.
Footsteps crunched behind him. Connor turned. Adrian stood at the tree line, wearing no coat, no shoes, and no visible mark. His body was translucent around the edges like a being halfway between worlds.
Connor’s heart clenched. “Adrian.”
Adrian’s eyes were wide as he looked around. “This is your mind?”
Connor swallowed. “Aye.”
Adrian stepped closer, the snow not touching his feet. “It’s beautiful.”
The wind shifted and something else stepped into the clearing. Connor’s blood chilled. His wolf. Massive, its dark fur streaked with silver and its eyes like molten gold. It was a creature of strength, violence, loyalty, and destiny.
His wolf stared at Adrian.
Adrian’s voice softened. “He’s magnificent. Like you.”
The wolf circled them, then stepped close. So close its nose brushed Adrian’s chest. Adrian inhaled sharply. The wolf exhaled, its breath warm against Adrian’s shirt, and then it pressed its muzzle to the faint shimmer of the sigils.
The mark flared. Light erupted between them. Adrian staggered back, straight into Connor’s arms.
Connor tightened his hold around Adrian’s waist, grounding him. “What happened?”
“He saw it. He saw the mark.”
The wolf stared at Adrian, not with hunger, but with understanding. With ownership.
Connor whispered, “He recognises you.”
Adrian’s breath hitched. “Why?”
Connor swallowed hard. “Because you’re mine.”
***
Adrian
The words echoed through the snow and the trees. Through Adrian’s entire body. Warmth bloomed in his chest. A dangerous, impossible warmth. Adrian touched the wolf’s mind, and everything went silent.
He was inside Connor’s mind.
Connor as a child, shivering in his first-shift fever.
Connor as King at twenty-two, lifting his father’s fallen crown.
Connor running across the glen with snow in his fur.
Connor burying his face in Fraser’s shoulder after the death of a clanmate.
Connor laughing with Laird in the stables.
Connor gripping a glass of whisky too tightly after another lonely night.
Connor whispering to the moon that one day he’d find someone who saw him.
Connor roaring at the Council, vowing to protect Adrian. Connor pulling Adrian from the rend.
It hit Adrian hard. He gasped, his breath crushed from his lungs.
Connor pushed forward through the dream space and grabbed Adrian’s arm, shaking him. “Adrian. Don’t look at that.”
Adrian stared at him. “You’re hurting.”
Connor froze.
“You hide so much,” Adrian said. “You think you’re alone. You think if you love something it will be taken. You think if you crack even a little, people will stop believing you’re strong.”
Connor’s entire body went rigid. “Stop.”
“You think your wolf will hurt me,” Adrian whispered. “But it won’t.”
Connor closed his eyes.
Adrian cupped his face with cold hands. “I see you,” he whispered. “All of you.” He didn’t retreat.
Something inside him answered. The mark burned, then split. A second presence surged up from beneath Adrian’s skin: white-hot, terrified, and alive. He gasped as the air thickened around him, the world shivering at its seams. His vision fractured into instinct, memory, and urge.
And then his wolf stepped into being. His was not as large as Connor’s. He was leaner, his dark fur streaked through with silver. His eyes, sharp and luminous, snapped open where Adrian stood.
Connor’s wolf stiffened. Not in challenge, but in recognition.
The two wolves circled once, slow and deliberate, reading scent, presence, and something deeper than either. Adrian felt it slam into him through bone and blood as surely as it did through Connor.
This is you. This is him. This is us.
Connor dropped to one knee, his breath dragging. “Adrian.”
He stumbled back into the snow, a rush of breath and heat escaping him as he collapsed against Connor with a strangled sound.
Connor caught him, his arms wrapping tight.
The two wolves stepped closer, flank to flank, their shoulders brushing. Light surged. Not blinding, not violent, but inevitable. It threaded from chest to chest, from mark to mark, knotting between them. Adrian cried out, not in pain, but in surrender as the bond locked home.
The sensation wasn’t possession. It was a meeting.
Mine, said Connor’s wolf, and Adrian’s didn’t recoil.
Mine, Adrian breathed back, equal and certain.
His wolf lay down in the snow, its head bowed, with Connor’s wolf by its side. Submitting. Accepting. Claiming.
And something between them finally stopped running.
The wind shifted. Xiathen’s voice echoed faintly from beyond the dream-snow. “Valours return now.”
The dream began to fade. Connor held Adrian’s face. “You with me?”
Adrian nodded, his eyes still shining. “Always.”
The bond pulsed. The wolves nudged each other, nose to nose, then dissolved into silver ash.
Connor pulled Adrian close as the dream collapsed around them.
Together, they fell back into waking.