Chapter 5 up

“Never dream of more than this.”

His words landed like a blade pressed flat against my throat—not cutting, but promising that it could. I didn’t answer. I wasn’t sure whether he meant it as a warning to me… or to himself.

The corridor stretched long and dim, torchlight flickering against stone walls etched with victories and laws written by dead kings. Our footsteps echoed together—his steady, measured; mine lighter, almost uncertain. Yet our hands remained linked, the heat between our palms refusing to fade.

“This will not become habit,” Aethern said after a moment.

“I didn’t ask for it to,” I replied.

Another silence. Thicker this time. He slowed, just slightly, as if registering that my answer had not been fear—or gratitude—but fact.

“They will not stop,” he continued. “The Council believes anything it cannot control must be caged, dissected, or destroyed.”

“And you?” I asked. “What do you believe?”

He stopped walking.

The sudden stillness rippled through the bond, sharp enough to make my breath catch. Slowly, he released my hand. The warmth lingered like a phantom ache.

“I believe,” he said carefully, “that belief is a liability.”

He turned to face me then. Fully. No shadows to hide behind. Up close, I could see the strain beneath his control—not weakness, but resistance, like a dam holding back a rising flood.

“You spoke out of turn,” he said. “That could have cost you your life.”

“I know.”

“And you would do it again.”

“Yes.”

A muscle in his jaw flexed. “You are either very brave… or very foolish.”

“Those are not always different,” I answered.

For a heartbeat, something almost like approval flickered in his eyes. Then it was gone.

“You will be watched,” he said. “Every movement. Every breath. The Council will look for cracks. For proof that this bond weakens me.”

“Does it?” I asked quietly.

His gaze sharpened. “Do not test that.”

I nodded once. “Then don’t test me either.”

Another pause. Not hostile. Calculating.

He turned away and resumed walking. “You will remain in the east wing. Fewer eyes. Fewer rituals carved into the walls.”

“Rituals?” I echoed.

“You don’t want to know,” he replied.

We reached a heavy door guarded by two sentinels. They straightened instantly at his approach, eyes flicking to me with barely concealed confusion.

“Leave us,” Aethern ordered.

They obeyed without question.

Inside, the chamber was smaller than his own—still stone and firelight, still luxury sharpened into restraint—but quieter. Safer, in a way that made my chest ache.

“This is not a prison,” he said, anticipating the thought. “It is a buffer.”

“Between me and them,” I said.

“And between you and what you might become,” he added.

I turned to him. “You don’t know that.”

“No,” he agreed. “Which is precisely the problem.”

The pulse stirred again, gentle but unmistakable, like a heartbeat that wasn’t entirely mine. His eyes dropped to my wrist, and for the briefest moment, I saw something close to unease.

“If the bond strengthens,” he said, “you will tell me immediately.”

“And if it frightens you?” I asked.

“Especially then.”

I hesitated. “And if it frightens me?”

He was silent for a long time.

“Then you come to me,” he said at last. “Before anyone else.”

That was not command.

That was contingency.

I nodded.

He moved toward the door, then stopped with his hand on the stone frame. “What you said in the Council,” he added. “About isolation being a trigger.”

“Yes?”

“You were correct.”

I let out a slow breath. “They won’t like that.”

“They rarely like truth,” he replied. “Which is why they try to bury it.”

The door closed behind him, leaving me alone with the fire and the quiet hum beneath my skin.

I sat on the edge of the bed, fingers brushing my wrist. No mark visible. No symbol carved into flesh. Yet I felt it—steady, patient, waiting.

They called me an anomaly.

A mistake.

A trigger.

But as I stared into the low flames, I understood something they did not.

This bond was not forming because I was weak.

It was forming because something in me answered something in him—and neither of us had been meant to exist unchanged.

Outside these walls, the Council would scheme. Laws would be invoked. Old magic would be dragged from hiding and sharpened into weapons.

And inside this palace, the Alpha King who had never shared power with anyone now stood between me and an entire kingdom.

He had told me not to dream of more.

But the bond did not care about permission.

It did not care about laws.

And it was already dreaming for us both.