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This makes no sense. The courts never coordinate. Yet these move with shared purpose, closing on her like the points of a trap.

Someone with authority in both courts orchestrated this. The timing screams setup—immediately after her cross-boundary communication. Someone monitored her transmission, deployed response teams with impossible speed.

I withdraw from shadow observation, reforming where darkness pools deepest. Reconstituting feels like being turned inside out—scattered consciousness slamming back together, senses realigning with brutal efficiency.

Every instinct I possess screams that I should leave her to whatever’s coming. She’s a subject. A potential threat. Tactical wisdom demands observation without intervention.

My feet are already moving, frost blooming with each stride.

“What the hell is wrong with me?” I snarl at the darkness. She makes me act like an untrained fucking novice.

I arrive as the trap springs—coordinated attack from creatures that should be mortal enemies. Her military stance suggests competence, but physical weapons against elemental hunters? She learns quickly how useless that is.

For too long I’ve watched infiltrators meet similar fates. Observed with detached interest as boundary protections eliminated threats.

So why does seeing her backed against that oak, position compromised, send jagged ice tearing through my chest—like someone thrust shattered glass between my ribs and twisted?

The patterns beneath her clothes flare with blinding intensity. Actual vines spiral across skin, pulling nutrients from air itself. Wild Court royal markings—the real fucking thing. Not imitation, but authentic bloodline manifestation. Patterns that were supposed to be extinct.

My throat goes tight. My carefully constructed reality crumbles like old parchment.

The hunters recoil, recognition and terror warring in their elemental forms. But whoever’s controlling them pushes pastthat recognition. They adjust tactics—light creating blinding radiance while shadow swallows illumination.

For a moment, the vines respond without conscious direction, drawing power from sources older than court magic. Magic that doesn’t choose between light and shadow but predates such simple concepts.

Then the hunters press their advantage. Darkness and light intensify beyond mortal tolerance. She collapses, consciousness failing as her systems overload.

Tactical wisdom demands observation. Let the hunters complete their task.

Instead, something primitive and urgent beats against my ribs. The moment I see her fall, something breaks inside me—ice cracking under pressure, revealing depth I’d forgotten existed.

My shadow magic responds to my emotional state, turning sharper and colder than usual. Temperature plummets as I draw power directly from the void.

“Enough.” The word cuts through chaos like winter wind through flame. Ice spreads from my feet, canceling both courts’ magic with casual authority. “The changeling is under my protection.” My eyes find hers even as consciousness fades. “Touch her again, and I will remind you why the Unseelie do not forgive trespasses.”

The declaration emerges without thought—possessive, territorial, revealing more than I intended. Three hundred years of careful control obliterated by six fucking words.

Shadow coalesces around my hands, condensing into living void that devours rather than conceals. Contact with the nearest light-fox is momentary but sufficient. Its luminous form collapses inward like an imploding star.

The remaining hunters retreat, leaving silence broken only by my ragged breathing.

I turn to where she lies unconscious, living vines still visible but retreating beneath her skin. Without the pendant’s suppression, the royal markings spread fully across exposed flesh—intricate patterns I’ve seen only in my father’s most restricted archives. Green vines twisting with thorns trying to break through and flowers budding just beneath the skin.

A bloodline believed extinguished. Not confirmed dead. Just... believed.

Even unconscious, she carries herself like a soldier—muscles tense with ingrained vigilance. I recognize the stance.

It’s exactly how I sleep.

Father made me into his perfect son. Graves made her into his perfect soldier. The difference is—she’s still fighting back.

I kneel beside her, my breath catching as her scent reaches me. Earth and lightning and something essentially herself. My carefully controlled heartbeat stutters, then hammers against my ribs with betraying intensity.

Here mere existence undoes all my discipline.

Her scent reaches me clearly now—warm where I’m cold. Alive where I’ve learned to be empty.

Two options. Leave her here, report to father, allow events to progress without my interference. Or complicate an already impossible situation by taking personal risk for uncertain gain.