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This is too fast, too intimate. I barely know him beyond stolen glances and one combat demonstration that ended with me breathless.

But my treacherous body melts into his heat like I’ve been waiting my entire life for exactly this touch. Like every cell recognizes him as essential.

Every place he makes contact sends electricity through transformed flesh.

“Close your eyes,” he murmurs against my ear, breath tickling sensitive skin. “Don’t try to block the information. Learn to sort it instead.”

His thumbs find thorn patterns at my hipbones, tracing them through shredded fabric with reverent precision.

The touch sends lightning straight to my core.

I gasp.

Arch into him before I can stop myself.

Heat floods my veins while something wild and hungry unfurls in my chest.

“Focus on my heartbeat first,” he continues, voice gone rough. “Let it anchor you to something steady.”

I feel it—powerful and measured against my spine, steady as bedrock. The rhythm calms the wild thing clawing inside my chest, creates baseline for everything else.

Gradually, crushing input separates into distinct streams. Individual instruments emerging from cacophony to become symphony.

Morning dew on spider webs.

Individual bird songs weaving harmonies I never noticed.

Wind patterns through different types of leaves creating their own music.

The deep, patient breathing of ancient forest consciousness that tastes like starlight and smells like home.

“Better? Because I can think of other ways to help you... process all this new information.”

“Better.” My voice emerges breathier than intended. I lean back into solid warmth without conscious thought, letting his strength support me while awareness settles into manageable intensity.

“Good.” His arms tighten around my waist possessively. “Now the real lesson begins.”

One hand slides up to cup my face, thumb tracing jawline with maddening softness. The simple touch makes me shiver despite mounting heat that threatens to melt my bones.

“You’ve been living half-dead among iron and stone,” he continues, words vibrating through his chest into my back. “The forest has been calling you home your entire life. Can you hear it now?”

I can.

Between heartbeats, beneath conscious thought, something vast and green and ancient whispers my true name. Not Ash—the human designation given by people who found me. But something older, something that tastes like starlight and growing things and makes my blood sing with recognition.

“Orion.” His name falls like a confession. “This is either the best worst idea I’ve ever had, or you’re about to ruin me for every other man on the planet.”

“You feel it.” Statement, not question. He turns me in his arms until we’re face to face, hands rising to cradle my face between calloused palms that smell like earth and growing things. “The recognition. The pull between us.”

I do feel it.

Something deeper than attraction, more primal than desire.

Like every cell in my body recognizes him as essential, as the missing piece I never knew I’d lost. My nervous system hums with awareness of him—his scent, his warmth, the way his magic tastes like lightning and honey on the back of my tongue.

The Academy bells toll in the distance, breaking the spell. Reality crashes back—duties, appearances, the careful facade I need to maintain while my world tilts off its axis.

“Shit. Reality check time.” I pull back reluctantly. “Much as I’d love to continue this wilderness education, I have a cover to maintain and questions to avoid.”

“No classes today. There’s been a breach at the border. I was on my way there.” He doesn’t release me immediately.

His forehead drops to mine. His fingers tighten possessively in my hair.

“Remember this feeling, Ash.” His voice drops to a growl that makes my pulse spike. “You don’t belong to them anymore.”

His scent marks me like a claim.

“The earth has chosen. I’ve chosen. And everything in me that’s been waiting for you is done pretending this is coincidence.”

The words brand something primal inside me. Something that’s been waiting for exactly this.

He releases me slowly, hands trailing down my arms before letting go completely. The absence of his touch leaves me cold despite the growing warmth of day, like losing essential armor before battle.

“Later,” he says, stepping back into the shadows between trees. “After your human obligations end. Let me show you more of what you’re becoming.”

Before I can respond, he’s gone—melted back into the forest like he was never there. Only lingering scent of woodsmoke and warmth still spreading through my body prove the encounter wasn’t hallucination.

I stand there for a moment, touching my face where his hands had been. The overwhelming senses have settled into manageable awareness—still enhanced beyond human normal, but controllable as long as I don’t think too hard about what that means.

The earth has chosen. I’ve chosen.

His words echo as I force myself back onto the glowing path. Each step toward Academy feels like walking away from something essential, something I’ve been unconsciously searching for my entire life.

As I near the Academy gates, frost patterns spread across the ground before me—intricate whorls that form and dissolve with each step.

I look up to find Kieran watching from the eastern tower, his expression unreadable even to my enhanced senses.

But the ice beneath my feet pulses with something that feels disturbingly like possession.

From the western corridor, golden light spills onto the path—Finnian emerging from the library, ancient text in hand, eyes finding mine with unsettling accuracy across the distance.

Three distinct pulls on whatever I’m becoming. Three men who see what I’ve been hiding.

“Three heartbeats calling to mine from across campus. Three different ways to lose myself completely.” I touch dirt-bonded skin. “Mourning someone who never existed while becoming someone I don’t recognize. Just another Tuesday in paradise.”

The pendant sits heavy in my pocket, still removed from earlier. Without its suppression, I feel each of them like separate heartbeats alongside my own.

Seven days to choose. If choice is even possible anymore.

But as the Academy gates swing open to welcome me back, something ancient and certain whispers through my bones?—

You’ve always known. You just weren’t ready to remember.