Chapter 5
Abram
Iwoke up earlier than usual, but I didn’t get out of bed. My gaze moved to the door of my bedroom. Elowyn was on the other side, and something about that felt right.
Wait, no. I need to keep my distance.
Elowyn wasn’t my mate.
She’s my wife.
Fuck, I needed to get out of this house before she woke up. I could keep my emotional distance from her if I didn’t stay close to her. My feet slid onto the warm wooden floor. My body was tense; it had been two days since I accidentally married the woman I had been trying not to give in to.
Maybe this was fate being cruel to me.
Was I being punished for something I did?
My mind raced with all the things I might have done to offend the heavens, but I couldn’t come up with anything.
I closed my eyes and savored the image of how pretty Elowyn looked in her wedding dress—how her cheeks flushed when I told her I’d pretend to be married to her.
Or the way she was embarrassed mentioning that her coven thought we’d be producing an heir.
I swallowed hard. I shouldn’t be thinking of these things. I shouldn’t have wondered if she had been with a man before. It wasn’t my business, but my marriage bond sizzled on my skin, calling out my lies. Stars above, I cared too much. My hands dragged down my face.
I got dressed and walked out of my bedroom, thinking she’d be asleep. But there she was, holding a steaming cup of what I assumed was tea. She was staring at my carvings on the wall. Her back was toward me, and I allowed my gaze to drop to her exposed legs.
I watched her like a sinner studying his salvation.
Every inch of her was temptation, built to test my restraint.
My gaze lingered on her back, tracing the slow sway of her hips down to the fullness of her thighs.
Thick. Perfect. Fuck, I wanted to know what they’d feel like wrapped around me, how her body would fit against mine.
My pulse quickened as I took in the way her hips curved even beneath the loose shirt she wore.
She wasn’t small or fragile—she was soft, lush, made to be touched.
Her curves would fit perfectly against me.
Elowyn was made to be worshipped, and I wanted to be the god who fell to his knees just to show her her worth.
She said men didn’t notice her, but she was either lying to herself or blind to the devastation she caused just by existing.
What would it be like to be married to her for real? Is this how I’d wake up every morning—her in nothing but one of my shirts, walking around, admiring my artwork? Gods, I liked the thought of that. Her, here, with me, laughing.
Fuck, I pulled at the collar of my tunic. It felt too warm in the house. She turned and looked over her shoulder at me and smiled softly.
I was fucked.
“Good morning,” she said softly.
Her eyes dragged over my robes before a small tilt of her lips took over. She looked up at me, seeming not to know what to do or say. Oh, wait… she had said something to me. I cleared my throat.
“Good morning.” I gave her a tight-lipped smile. “I didn’t think you’d be up this early.”
Her brows pulled together as she looked at her cup of tea.
“The storm woke me, so I thought I’d get up and admire it, but I got distracted by your art.”
She picked up a picture, clearly drawn by a child. My gaze lingered on the small stick figures, the two of us standing side by side, smiling.
“Is this your drawing?” she teased.
I smiled softly, forcing down the ache that surfaced at the sight of it.
“No,” I said quietly. “A child made it for me a long time ago. It’s my favorite piece of art on the wall.”
Her expression softened at my answer. She returned the picture to its place with deliberate care, as if it were something fragile and sacred.
I stepped forward even though I knew I should leave.
But I was a glutton for punishment. My hands tingled like they wanted to reach out and touch her.
Shit. I clenched them and stuffed them into my pockets quickly.
Then I turned my focus to the wooden carvings so she wouldn't see how desperate I was to touch her.
“Do you have a favorite?” I asked.
I saw her nod out of the corner of my eye.
“They are all so wonderful, but this…” My chest pounded when I saw her reaching for the lily I carved, “...is absolutely beautiful and my favorite flower.”
I know.
“You can have it.” I gave her a nonchalant shrug of my shoulder.
“Really?” she asked.
“Yes, consider it a wedding gift.”
I watched her fingers gently trace over its edges, and I immediately wished I were that damn wooden flower in her hand.
“Should I get you a gift?” she asked.
I felt my eyes flare red and turned from her so she wouldn’t see. This was too much. Her presence alone was undoing me.
“No.” I dismissed her more coldly than I meant to.
But all I could think about was her being in my home, fitting in as if she had always been here. Fuck, my throat was tight with worry. I needed to get the hell away from her before I lost my composure.
“Are you upset?” Her voice was timid, but I couldn’t look at her.
“No, don’t be ridiculous.” I turned away from her. “I’ve got to go.”
I didn’t wait for her to respond. My star mist circled around me, and when it disappeared, I was in the realm of Gilyx.
I needed to check on Bexla, the woman prophesied to break the magic barriers deep in the sea of void. The barriers were keeping the realms of Elloryon, Gilyx, and Valynth apart, but by doing so, it was suffocating the world.
Gilyx was to blame for it, so I needed to be careful as I checked on her. I was not welcomed here—the gods of Gilyx hated all other gods but especially the old gods. My gaze shifted around the woods outside Bexla’s home.
Screaming tore through the night from her house—raw, panicked, wrong. The front door burst open, slamming against the frame as her brother, Landry, stumbled out onto the porch.
“Bexla, run!” he shouted, his voice cracking with terror.
“Bexla!” her father screamed. “The man in the dark is waiting for you. He wants you—he’ll stop at nothing until he claims you!”
The cold in Gilyx was brutal, the kind that burned your lungs with every breath. Snow had swallowed the woods whole, blanketing the ground and weighing down the branches until the forest looked frozen in time. My breath billowed in front of me in thick, ghostly plumes as I moved.
Bexla ran.
I followed, keeping to the shadows as she tore through the trees, her boots crunching against the snow. She was running straight toward him—toward what fate had chosen for her. Or what fate used to choose.
The barriers had been failing lately. Magic was unraveling, tangling destinies that were never meant to cross.
Gilyx itself was draining the realm dry, siphoning power from the land—and with it, certainty.
Elloryon’s mating bonds had become erratic, unreliable.
Fates collided where they shouldn’t. Severed where they should have held.
That was why I was here.
Bexla didn’t know I was following her. Even when her honey-colored eyes flicked anxiously through the trees, she never looked quite far enough. She could probably sense something; most of them did, but my magic wrapped around me, smothering my presence into nothing.
Shouts echoed behind us, her father’s voice, sharp with rage or fear, I couldn’t tell—but she didn’t slow. She didn’t look back.
She was dazed, half-blind with panic as her feet carried her forward, deeper into the woods, until the looming shape of Wolfe Manor emerged through the snow-laced trees.
She faltered.
The realization hit her all at once. Her steps stuttered, her breath hitching as her gaze snapped to the towering estate. Her frantic movements betrayed her fear—fate clicking into place whether she wanted it to or not.
Good.
She needed to be caught here.
My eyes lifted to the second-story window just as a silhouette shifted behind the glass, a man standing perfectly still, watching her approach.
Waiting.
I turned my focus back to her when she ducked into the shed.
Slowly, I walked toward the shed when I heard someone coming from the house.
He walked toward the shed, and I listened carefully as he headed inside, and a fight between him and Bexla erupted.
She escaped the shed and started running, but he was quick on her heels.
He tackled her, flipping her over and pinning her to the ground by her wrists.
“You are lucky I don’t snap your fucking neck.” He ground out. “I have been waiting for this day, Bex.”
Gods, he might actually strangle her to death. I watched as she fought him, and right as I was about to interfere, he let go.
“Did you really think I would let you die so easily?” He sneered.
“I want to make sure you are terrified before I kill you. I want you to be looking over your shoulder in the dark. I want you to check corners and shadows for me lurking. I want you to beg me to kill you for relief from the torment I inflict, Bexla. You should be as terrified as my mother was when your mother murdered her.”
I saw someone else watching them from the window of the house.
Oh, good, she’s on the right track. The man in the window was too hidden in the shadows to see his face.
Alaric stood. He had her by the hair, twisting his fist into the dark strands as he dragged her through the snow and into the house.
I moved to the window to watch. She fought him—scratching, striking, drawing blood, but he didn’t slow.
He hauled her into the living room and released her with a shove.
She staggered back until the wall stopped her.
Alaric stood between her and the exit, his presence filling the space, dark eyes fixed on her with an intensity that made the air feel tight. He spoke, smiling as he did, but whatever he said made her freeze.
Another man entered then. Damien.