Chapter 23
The first thing I registered when I opened my eyes was the absence of sky.
No wind. No leaves. No open air. Stone pressed in on all sides, the scent of smoke and warmth replacing the metallic tang that still clung to the back of my throat.
For a moment, I couldn’t move. My body lay where it had been placed.
Unresponsive, like it still belonged to the forest.
A flicker of memory surfaced—hands on my wrists. Fabric tearing. Metal at my back.
I sucked in a breath. My vision blurred. I was inside. Still alive.
I lay stretched across a soft but unadorned bed, a silken blanket the only thing covering me.
When I glanced up, my pulse stilled at the sight of Thanor seated beside me on a chair, eyes closed.
Even at rest, there was nothing slack about him.
His jaw was still sharp, now shadowed with a day’s stubble.
For a moment, I watched him even though I shouldn’t have.
I didn’t hate him. Not anymore. Even after seeing what he did. The memory pressed unbidden. Blood in the dirt, the screams, the wet sound of tearing flesh. I closed my eyes.
Still, the revulsion I expected… didn’t come. It tangled instead with something harder to name.
The pounding in my wrist was relentless. When I looked down, it had been bound tight, the fabric clean and precise. I lifted my uninjured hand to my head. Another bandage. A frown formed. Had Thanor done this? With the same hands that had—
No. I wouldn’t think of it.
I shifted, and pain rippled through me, dragging a grunt from my lips. His eyes opened, instantly alert as they snapped to me.
“Where are we?” I whispered.
He rolled his shoulders, stretching his neck. “We’re at the Ludaryn, you’re in my chambers,” he replied, his voice rough with the remnants of sleep.
I pushed myself upright too quickly and looked around.
The room was almost bare. A clay pitcher and shallow basin rested on a rough wooden stand beside a narrow chest. The hearth had only just been lit, its weak fire casting an uneven glow across the stone, leaving most of the chamber swallowed in shadow. I frowned faintly.
This was the chamber of Caelora’s champion?
He was past thirty, feared and revered across Valystria, and yet there was nothing here that truly belonged to him.
Nothing personal. Nothing that suggested a life beyond survival.
It felt less like a home and more like a place someone merely occupied between battles.
The realization sat strangely heavy in my chest. Then it hit me. I was in his bed, barely covered.
The blanket slipped slightly and cold air brushed over my skin. I pulled it higher.
“Did you bandage me?” I asked as I reached instinctively toward my piercing.
He leaned forward, his elbows resting on his knees, watching me.
“Yes. I made certain your injuries wouldn’t worsen.”
“Why?” I held his gaze despite the unease rising in my chest. “Why bring me here and not the medicus? Did anyone see me?”
“No. It’s still night. I carried you back. Imagine my surprise when you began rambling in your sleep. And the moment you woke, you reached for your piercing.” His expression didn’t shift. “It made me wonder whether your words held more truth than you intended.”
For a second, I said nothing. In twenty-one years, I had never slipped. And now…
“A head wound will do that.” I dropped my hand. “Where are my clothes? Or am I meant to remain like this in your bed?”
“Do not change the subject. You lie easily. I’ve seen you reach for your ear more than once. Your rambling only confirmed it.”
He stretched his legs out before him, tilting his head. “You feel it too.”
I stilled.
“What do you mean?” The words came steady, even as my thoughts raced.
“Don’t act the fool. At the Aedile’s gathering, when the Praetor touched you, I saw it. When you evaded the dagger meant for your head—again, you reached for it. You’re not as subtle as you believe. Don’t tell me you think you hide these things well?”
My mouth went dry.
“I—did you tell anyone? Do you know what it means?”
“I didn’t. And you are the first I’ve seen with the same abnormality. I’ve been trying to determine what it means.” He spoke with a faint frown, then leaned back and stretched his arms above his head. Firelight flickered across the bare line of his chest. I dragged my gaze away.
“During the rite last night,” he continued, “mine responded to yours. My magic was drawn toward you—and yours answered in kind. Something strained to break free of us.”
I swallowed. “I felt it.”
The admission sat between us, heavier than anything else.
“Jorius knows,” I said after a moment. “And my uncle. But they warned me not to speak of it.”
Silence stretched. The forest pressed back in. My pulse kicked again and I drew in slow breaths.
“Last night… do you know who they were?” I whispered.
“They were sent to kill you. To undermine me.” His tone shifted. “Now more than ever, it would be wise for you to accept my offer to bond. If you don’t, nothing will stand between you and death. I suggest you think carefully.”
Anger flared, eclipsing everything else. “My life is only in danger because of you. The other Bondwards were officially yours but still they died. If anything I’d be safer if you’d asked Marcus to release me.”
“Kharos has chosen you,” he stated.
“That doesn’t give you the right—”
“And soon,” he cut in, “I will not release you from our bond. Prepare yourself. I will choose you. You can’t escape Kharos… or me.”
The certainty in his voice felt like a door closing, sealing me inside.
“You can’t take my freedom,” I spat.
He rose from his chair. “You’ve asked for distance many times.
And in the next breath, you’re digging into my past. Asking for more…
I don’t tolerate games. Heed your uncle’s and that fool’s advice.
My trust isn’t given lightly.” His voice dropped.
“If you betray me, little Bondward… I’ll ruin you slowly enough for you to remember every second of it. ”
Heat flared across my face. “What?” I stammered, the word barely forming as the air shifted.
He closed the distance between us. I retreated until the backs of my shoulders met the mattress, my fingers twisting into the sheet, clutching it to my skin as if they could shield me from the force of him.
He stopped near enough that I could feel the warmth radiating from his body.
“Make up your mind. Don’t think I forgot what you showed me at Carnis Noctyra,” he murmured. “Or what you did in the forest.” His gaze dragged slowly over me, unashamed. “I told you there would come a time when you wouldn’t be able to turn away from me.”
He leaned down. “Now I know your secret. Your weakness. And I know you can’t deny what pulls you toward me.”
He wasn’t wrong. I had given in to him once—no, twice—and the pull between us was growing stronger no matter how fiercely I resisted it. He was right to call me out on that much. Still, how dare he crowd me like this after everything that happened to me.
“These are the words you choose now?” I snapped. “After what I went through? I was almost murdered… violated. This is the protection you offer? This is what it means to be yours?”
“If you had listened to me and stayed close, no one would have dared touch you. I protect what is mine. And I kill what harms it,” he said, unmoved by my fury.
“And I have told you,” I shot back, pushing myself up despite the way he loomed over me, “I’m not a possession. I slipped once—or yes, twice—but that doesn’t mean anything. It doesn’t make me yours. I will be free of this place. Free of you.”
“You will never be free of me. Kharos and I can track your scent throughout the entire Lornwild if needed. The whole of Valystria will bleed before I allow anything to stand between me and what is mine.”
His stare held mine without wavering, and for a moment, I believed him.
“By the goddess, please leave me alone!” I snapped, my breath unsteady with anger, and something far more dangerous beneath it. “Leave… please.”
He didn’t move.
Tears welled in my eyes. His declaration had loosened something in me, some deep, dark desire I’d been holding back. I shut them quickly, refusing to let him see, but one slipped free anyway.
His hand reached out, warm as his thumb brushed beneath my eye, calloused skin catching softly as he wiped the tear away. My eyes opened in shock at the gentleness of it, at the intensity in his features as he brought his thumb to his mouth and tasted it before straightening to his full height.
“Beautiful,” he murmured, his eyes dropping to my mouth before returning to mine, something possessive lingering in the look. Then he leaned down, hesitating for the briefest second, and brushed the barest kiss against my lips. My breath caught as tears kept falling.
He wiped them away before crossing the chamber, the broad line of his shoulders and the slow shift of muscle beneath his skin drawing my gaze after him against my will.
“What about our piercings? What will you do?” The questions left me hastily, slipping out before he could step through the door.
He stilled. “Your piercing isn’t what puts you in danger, Valentina. It’s the fact that no one’s claimed you yet.” Then he opened the door and disappeared beyond it. The click behind him shattered the last of my composure, and the tears I’d been fighting slipped free again.
Dawn had already broken by the time I dressed. My skin still held the heat of the bath I’d taken, but it hadn’t soothed me.
I moved through the halls on instinct alone.
Every step felt watched. My hand brushed my wrist before I caught myself.
The bandage pulled tight beneath my fingers.
I pressed them to my lips, still feeling the faint trace of Thanor’s kiss—gentler than I’d expected.
I had always wanted someone to understand what my piercing felt like. I hadn’t expected it to be him.