THIRTY-EIGHT
Zarek stood outside Angela’s door. He’d left her sleeping at dawn, all warm and soft, tangled in the sheets. Every instinct demanded he stay, to wrap himself around her and keep her close.
But he had work to do.
The library had to be dealt with. The scorched walls, his armor and remnants of their clothes were scattered across the floor as evidence of a crime.
He’d sent a message thread to Gellar before the house staff could gossip, claiming a magick malfunction during training.
But the real reason Zarek had left her bed wasn’t damage control. It was her medallion. Found half-buried in ash on the library floor, its delicate silver chain had melted, but the pendant gleamed in the dim light.
That’s when the heaviness pressed like a boulder across his shoulders. Not only had they broken the Accords, but he’d broken her chain as well. It wasn’t a good omen, considering what was happening today.
The silver amulet was tiny in his palm. The countless times he’d seen Angela fidget and clutch the medallion when she was anxious or trying to grapple with an impossible situation—and she’d had a few, making it clear that it mattered to her.
So, he’d banged on the silversmith’s door until someone answered, found a suitable chain, and taken it straight to the forge where the witches worked their craft.
Since a small boy, they’d helped him learn the art of wards and staves that were etched into his armor, designed to contain his own power from burning everything he touched.
He’d asked them to do the same for the chain because he wasn’t going to be the reason it broke again.
Now he just had to give it to her. The first gift he’d given anyone without making a fool of himself.
He knocked.
“Come in, Zarek.” Of course, she’d known it was him.
He opened the door to find her standing by the window, dressed in that deep-plum gown that truly suited her, with its silver threads along the cuffs catching the morning light.
He couldn’t stop admiring how the gown curved over her figure, making his palm itch to touch her again.
Then her mismatched eyes found his, and for a moment, neither of them spoke.
“You left early.”
“I had to retrieve something.” He closed the door. “This is yours.” The medallion gleamed in his palm. “It was on the library floor. The chain didn’t survive the fire.”
“Oh.” Her fingers reached for it, then hesitated. “I didn’t even realize—”
“I noticed you reach for it when you’re thinking or anxious.
” He raked his fingers through his hair—the only tell he’d allow himself that giving gifts to females wasn’t his normal sort of thing.
“Figured you’d need it today. And I’ve had the new chain warded against every magic in Paradox.
” Hoping it would protect her while she wore it.
Her lips curved. “So you won’t burn it again.”
“No.” Yes. Well… he couldn’t make any promises.
But in this moment, their souls somehow understood their shared silence, even if his world did not.
Yes, he’d risked his life just to live one night in her arms. If given a choice, he’d do it again without a second thought.
The Claiming knew first, then his heart, and right now, looking at her, so did his mind. The depth of their connection went past their flaws and scars to reach something bigger than the laws he was bound by. He just didn’t know how to tell her that after one night together…
“You didn’t have to do that.”
“I know.” He needed to give her something that wouldn’t break under his touch, even though his world was about to break.
But he also gave her that chain to prove he could be careful with the things that mattered to her.
Of course, he didn’t say any of that.
But her soft smile brought out an even more subtle shine in her eyes that told him he’d done the right thing. Along with the strong desire to wrap his arms around her and share that peace again.
“Turn around,” he said instead.
She turned, lifting her hair, and he fastened the chain around her neck. His fingers brushed her skin, and the dragon nestled in his chest.
But was it the Claiming? Or his feelings for her?
He truly struggled to know the difference anymore.
“May I ask about the…” He gently picked up the medallion. Her scent of faintly honeyed pears and apples greeted him. Its subtlety was both comforting and seductive.
“It’s Michael, the Archangel. My mother used to tell me stories about him.” Her hand closed around the pendant. “She’d say he was always watching over me, and that I was never alone.” Her voice softened. “She died when I was young. My Aunt Claudine raised me after that.”
Zarek’s chest tightened. He’d known from Professor Pete Macrombie’s research of her mortal life before bringing her to Paradox, but hearing the grief in her voice was different.
She’d been alone, too.
Just like him.
“Your mother sounds like she loved you very much,” he said.
“She did.” She patted the medallion back where it belonged on the chain around her neck. “Thank you for doing this. I mean that. Your gift is…” She smiled, and the knot in his chest loosened. “… Perfect.”
Finally, after all the other things he’d done to her, this was right.
“Ready?” He offered her his arm. “The Sleep Wizard is prepared.”
The smile fell, and she hesitated.
“You don’t have to do this.”
“Yeah, I do. My nightmares are affecting you too, and that’s not fair.” Her courage was gorgeous, filling him with pride as she slipped her arm around his elbow.
They headed for the other side of the Keep, down the towering stone corridors that were quiet this time of the morning. Only a few soldiers passed, and every one of them lowered their eyes.
Zarek felt the tension in Angela’s grip.
“They still can’t look at me,” she murmured.
“For their safety,” he said. “It’s not you; it’s me.”
The Claiming.
He felt it now. The dragon inside him was a thousand times calmer than yesterday. But it was still there, keeping a steady hum beneath his skin, content but territorially possessive.
But today his staves, those cursed telltale etchings on his leathers, were silenced as if the fire had burrowed deep like a dormant volcano.
“The staves,” Angela said, following his gaze to his armor as if she were reading his mind. “They’re not glowing like they were yesterday.”
“No.” He hated how they reacted to others, like a stupid blush he couldn’t control.
“Because we…” She hesitated, her tongue darting across her lips, stirring a part of him that wanted to kiss her again. “Because of last night.”
“Yes.” He kept his voice level.
She nodded, her vulnerability alive in her mismatched eyes—until her logical mind kicked in, like it always did. “Was it the Claiming?” She stopped by the corridor windows that gave a view of the fields and nearby forest, where trees shifted under a sky brightening from the morning sun.
“That…” He didn’t want to say it, but maybe he should—considering the implications of his actions that had yet to play out.
“Are you regretting it?” Angela asked quietly.
“No.” That was certain. “Are you?”
“I…” She reached for her medallion, letting it slide along the new chain. “I don’t know what parts were me choosing and what part was the Claiming pushing.”
He exhaled heavily, clasping his hands behind his back as if preparing to distance himself. The truth had a way of really ruining a day. “Neither do I.”
“That’s what scares me,” she continued, with an ache to her voice. “Not that it happened, but that I can’t trust if I wanted it or if some ancient magic decided for me.”
“I’ve been asking myself the same question. But I don’t regret it.”
Angela gave him a small smile to show she didn’t either, but what came after killed it. “What was that question?”
“If I would want you without the Claiming.” His jaw tightened hard. If the Claiming was real, it would have punched him in the mouth for saying such a thing.
Yet, without the Claiming, he’d never have given her a second thought when she’d left the alley the night they’d met.
He wouldn’t be digging for medallions in piles of ash, or getting chains prepared at dawn while worrying endlessly over her like he did.
“I wonder if what I feel is mine or just my magick manipulating me into feeling things I’ve never felt before. ”
“And?”
He finally met her eyes. “It feels like the biggest battle I’ve ever fought, that I don’t know. When I wish I could answer that for you. But can’t. What I am certain of is that I will never regret what we did, Angela.”
They stood there, watching the rising sun rid the world of shadows, when after last night he would have gladly stayed in bed with her, and not contemplate the reality of this day ahead.
“What if we never know?” Angela whispered.
“Then we’ll never know. But I won’t let the Claiming decide for us. I won’t let it take away your choice or mine. Consent matters to me. Yours especially.”
“Even if that means—”
“Even if it means nothing happens between us again until we’re certain.” He stepped back, and the loss of her warmth felt like winter had arrived. “You deserve to know if what you feel is real. So do I.”
But how could he be sure? When the Claiming let them feel each other’s emotions—but were those emotions truly theirs? Or something manufactured by this ancient power?
He had nothing to compare it to, no courting rituals or past lovers that he could use as a reference for what this should feel like. After all, he’d simply existed without touch or emotion for centuries just to survive.
Maybe he should, for her sake, push her away before his fire turned what she was awakening in him to ash.
Footsteps echoed down the hall. It was Gellar and Bellus.