Chapter Thirty - Four
Chapter
Thirty-Four
ELIAS
She clenches around me with a cry, her body shuddering, trembling, completely lost in the throes of her release—and I can feel it.
Not just physically.
Magically.
Her power coils around mine in a sudden rush, wild and untamed, like a storm breaking free of its sky. I barely manage to keep control as she pulls me into that storm, her magic spinning with mine until I can’t tell where hers ends and mine begins.
The moment fractures.
Pleasure hits me with devastating force, and I let go.
Magic erupts from me as my body follows hers, my head tipping back, a growl tearing from my throat as I spill into her, deeper than I ever thought I could go. For a moment—just one—everything stops. Suspended in the space between climax and collapse, power and surrender.
And then… It settles.
Our magic, still swirling, begins to quiet. To soften. And then it roots.
I feel it first in the center of my chest, like something ancient snapping into place.
And then I see it.
She’s slumped forward against me, her body spent, her forehead resting against my collarbone as her breath comes in soft, unsteady waves. I shift slightly, brushing her hair away from her face, only to catch sight of her wrist—her second wrist.
Another mark.
Smaller, but unmistakably there. Nested beside the first binding sigil that already circled her skin like an intricate bracelet.
This one is different. Sharper. A mirrored reflection of the mark I now feel burned into my own wrist.
I lift my hand.
It’s there.
Branded into my skin—twisting runes and delicate lines that pulse faintly, as if still cooling from the heat of the ritual neither of us intended to perform.
I swallow hard, staring down at the mark, the implications of it spinning through my mind like unraveling thread.
A second bond.
She’s already bound to Malachi. That much was clear from the beginning.
But this—this shouldn’t be possible. Not according to anything I’ve read. Not according to anything anyone knows.
Yet… there it is.
She carries us both. Two bindings. Two sigils. And her magic didn’t resist. It accepted me.
I should be panicking. I should be thinking about the Council. The Order. About what Malachi will say when he realizes what’s happened.
But all I can think about right now… is her.
She shifts against me, letting out a soft sigh, still too far gone to realize the change.
She needs rest.
I slide my arms beneath her and lift her easily. She melts against me, pliant, trusting—too trusting for someone who’s been hunted, manipulated, used.
The thought makes my chest ache.
I carry her from the alcove, leaving behind nothing but scattered clothes and the faintest shimmer of magic in the air.
I don’t take her to her room. Not yet.
Instead, I bring her to the quietest place in the estate—my quarters. A private room tucked beyond the west wing, sealed against interference. It’s filled with books and soft light and silence. She’ll be safe here. Unbothered.
I lay her down gently and draw a blanket over her shoulders.
She stirs once, lashes fluttering, her voice barely a whisper. “Elias…?”
“I’m here,” I murmur, brushing a kiss to her temple. “Rest.”
She sighs and drifts off again, her breathing steady.
But I can’t sleep.
I stare down at the matching mark on my wrist, feeling it pulse faintly in time with the rise and fall of her breath.
This changes everything.
She bound to me.
Which means what I’ve suspected for weeks may be true.
Sage isn’t just the witch born to remember.
She’s something new.
Something more.
And the Council… the Order… they will come for her.
Unless we find out what this truly means— And how to stop them first.