Chapter 40
Vaelor
The moment Vaelor opened his eyes, he knew something was wrong.
The tent was too quiet.
Too still.
Too empty.
The bedding beside him was cold.
A sharp, primal jolt shot through his chest, sudden and violent it stole his breath. Mara should have been back by now. She had said she would only be gone for a moment. He had closed his eyes for what felt like a heartbeat.
But she was gone.
His pulse spiked. His senses sharpened painfully, every instinct roaring awake. He sat up so fast the tent rustled around him. The fire outside had burned low, casting long shadows across the clearing.
“Mara?” he called softly.
No answer.
The silence hit him like a blow.
He stepped out of the tent, scanning the clearing. Her footprints were faint in the snow, leading toward the ice forest. But there were no returning tracks.
His stomach dropped.
Something had taken her.
Someone had taken her.
A cold, lethal fury surged through him, but beneath it—beneath the rage—was something far more dangerous.
Fear. Real fear.
The kind he had not felt since he was a child, since the day he watched his father fall in battle. The kind that ripped through him now, raw and unrestrained, because Mara was not just his partner in the Games.
She was his heart.
Vaelor’s breath came faster. His hands shook. He hated the loss of control—but he couldn’t stop it. He was a clan leader, trained from birth to remain steady in chaos, to protect those under his care, to never let fear cloud his judgment.
But this wasn’t a clan member.
This wasn’t a warrior.
This wasn’t a duty.
This was Mara.
And the thought of her alone, hurt, afraid—It shattered him.
He forced himself to breathe, to focus, to listen. The ice forest was vast, full of shifting echoes and deceptive sounds. But he strained anyway, desperate for anything—her voice, her heartbeat, her scent.
Nothing.
His chest tightened painfully.
He had failed her.
He had let her walk out alone.
He had let himself rest when he should have been protecting her.
He would never forgive himself if something happened to her.
He moved into the forest, following her tracks, each step fueled by a rising panic he could barely contain. The trees loomed around him, crystalline and sharp, their branches whispering in the wind like mocking voices.
“Mara!” he called again, louder this time.
Still nothing.
His heart hammered against his ribs. His vision blurred at the edges. He felt unsteady, weakened from the previous challenge, but he pushed through it. He would crawl across the ice if he had to. He would tear the forest apart with his bare hands.
He would find her.
He had to find her.
Because the truth he had been avoiding—hiding even from himself—was now undeniable.
He loved her.
He loved her with a depth that terrified him.
He loved her with a fierceness that made the world sharper, brighter, more dangerous.
He loved her in a way that made losing her unthinkable.
And the thought that Blaine—
that anyone—
had touched her, taken her, hurt her—
A growl tore from his throat, low and feral.
He would kill him.
He would kill anyone who threatened her.
He stumbled once, his weakened body protesting, but he forced himself upright. Pain didn’t matter. Exhaustion didn’t matter. Nothing mattered except finding her.
Then—
“Mara!”
A faint sound.
A cry.
A voice.
His heart lurched.
He ran toward it, crashing through the ice trees, slipping on frost, ignoring the burning in his lungs. The world narrowed to a single point—her.
And then he saw her.
She stumbled into him, hitting his chest with enough force to knock the breath from him. Her hands were bound, her face pale, her eyes wide with fear and relief.
Relief.
For him.
He caught her, arms wrapping around her instinctively, protectively, possessively. The moment she touched him, the terror that had been clawing at his insides broke apart, replaced by a wave of overwhelming relief so strong it nearly brought him to his knees.
She was alive.
She was here.
She was in his arms.
Mine.
He removed the tape from her mouth gently, afraid of hurting her further.
“It was Blaine,” she gasped. “He snuck up on me—dragged me away from our campsite.”
His vision went red for a moment. He snapped the rope binding her wrists with a single twist, fury and relief warring inside him.
“Did he hurt you?” His voice was low, dangerous.
“Other than hitting me, tying me up, and taping my mouth shut… I’m fine.”
He pulled her against him, holding her so tightly she could feel his heart pounding. He buried his face in her hair, inhaling her scent, grounding himself in the reality that she was safe.
“I am going to hunt him down,” he growled.
She clutched him, fingers digging into his back. “Don’t go. I think he wanted to lure you into a trap.”
He froze.
She had risked herself to warn him.
She had fought back.
She had escaped.
She had run to him.
His chest tightened with something fierce and tender.
“How did you get away?” he asked softly.
“He didn’t tie my feet. I knocked him down and ran.”
A slow, reverent awe filled him.
She was brilliant.
She was brave.
She was his equal in every way.
“You’re safe now,” he murmured, cupping her face. “I’ve got you.”
She looked up at him, eyes shining. “I know I’m safe. I’m with you.”
And in that moment, Vaelor knew with absolute certainty:
He loved her.
Completely.
Irrevocably.
And he would never let anything take her from him again.