Page 43

ORION

The oath mark brands fire through my bones watching her command the room. Twenty students hang on her every word like wolves recognizing pack alpha. My flesh burns where ancient magic carved its claim.

Because she is.

“Intuition matters more than power,” she tells them, demonstrating a joint lock that could snap bone if applied with full force. Her movements flow like water over stone—fluid strength that shouldn’t exist in human form.

But she’s not human. Every instinct I possess screams the truth my rational mind already knows.

She’s royal Wild Court. The missing piece of everything I’ve been bred to protect and serve.

And she’s still fighting it like her life depends on denial.

Students circle her like satellites drawn to gravity. Their eyes track her movements with the hunger of predators learning from something apex. When she speaks, even the rebellious ones shut their mouths and listen.

“Master the basics first,” Ash says, gathering materials with military precision. “Complexity comes after you stop fucking up the fundamentals.”

Her voice stays level, professional. But I catch the tension in her shoulders, the way her pulse jumps when she thinks I’m not watching.

Every breath she takes, every shift of weight, every micro-expression—catalogued and memorized like scripture.

The last student finally leaves, and the arena’s energy shifts. Suddenly we’re alone, and the space feels charged with possibility. Wild magic hums beneath my skin, recognizing its match across twenty feet of crystal flooring.

“Good class.” I prowl forward, heat rolling off me in waves that make the air shimmer. “They listen like you’re pack alpha.”

“I’m their instructor.” Her knuckles whiten around the gear bag’s strap—soldier’s response to uncontrolled variables. When in doubt, strangle something. “It’s called doing my job.”

“That what we’re calling it?” Each step closer makes the oath mark burn brighter. She backs up before catching herself—prey instinct overriding military training for half a heartbeat. “Because that looked like authority calling to authority.”

“What do you want, Orion?”

I take a step forward. She doesn’t move.

Our fingers brush over the roster and the Cauldron detonates against my ribs. Ancient magic recognizing its mistress. My pupils dilate so fast the room blurs, heartbeat hammering against bone.

The Cauldron stirs.

“Time to get your hands dirty, Thorn.” I let my gaze drop to where patterns hide beneath her sleeves.

Her eyes flash—quick spark of green before gray reasserts control. “Thorn?”

“Fits better than Professor Morgan.” I close the remaining distance until her scent fills my senses—lightning and earth and something uniquely hers that makes my magic sing. “All those beautiful, dangerous patterns hiding under proper academic attire.”

“Don’t know what you’re talking about.” The lie makes her flinch, throat working like the words taste like poison.

Truth constraints kicking in. Another sign of awakening Fae nature she’s too stubborn to acknowledge.

“Sure you don’t.” I grin, letting her see the barely leashed wildness in my expression. “That’s why you’re coming with me.”

“Am I now?” Her eyebrow arches in challenge.

“Somewhere we can talk without Academy ears listening.” I extend my hand, palm up, giving her the choice. “Trust me.”

She stares at my offered hand like it might bite her. Smart woman—touching me will only make the connection stronger. But I’m betting curiosity wins over caution.

It always does with her.

“Boundary training got cancelled,” she says, deflecting. “Students mentioned security concerns.”

“Security concerns. Right.” I keep my hand extended, patient as stone. “Or maybe certain ice princes got territorial about their hunting grounds.”

Her pupils dilate slightly. Kieran. Whatever happened between them last night left marks deeper than skin—I can smell winter magic clinging to her like a claimed scent.

Embers flicker behind my sternum before I wrestle them down. She’s not claimed yet. Not by him, not by anyone.

Not until she accepts what she truly is.

“One hour,” I promise, voice dropping to an intimate rumble. “Give me one hour, and I’ll answer questions your other instructors won’t.”

“Such as?”

“Why Academy wards bend around you. Why students defer without thinking. Why your combat forms match bloodlines that went extinct centuries ago.”

The words hit her like a physical impact. She sways slightly, hand rising to touch the space where her pendant usually rests—empty now, I notice with satisfaction.

“Lead the way,” she says quietly, placing her hand in mine.

Contact sears through me like lightning striking dry timber. Her skin is warm, slightly callused from weapons training, but beneath the human exterior, Wild magic pulses in rhythm with my heartbeat.

Recognition. Ancient blood calling to ancient oath.

We walk through Academy corridors that reshape themselves around us, architecture flowing like water in response to our combined presence. Ash notices—of course she does—cataloguing every impossible angle.

“Building’s responding to you,” I say, squeezing her fingers gently. “Reality bends around royal presence.”

“Royal.” She tests the word like foreign ammunition. “You keep saying that.”

“Because it’s true. Whether you accept it or not.”

“And if I don’t?”

“Then we’re all fucked.” The blunt honesty makes her stumble slightly. “Courts have been fractured for centuries, Thorn. Balance requires a unifying force.”

“I’m a soldier, not a politician.”

“Same skill set. Different battlefield.”

We reach the gardens, but I don’t stop there. Instead, I lead her toward a section where reality grows thin—where Wild Court territory bleeds through dimensional barriers older than civilization.

“Orion.” Her voice carries warning as trees ahead of us grow impossibly tall, their branches reaching toward something beyond normal sky. “Where the hell are we going?”

“Somewhere you can see truth without Academy filters.” I pause at the threshold where manicured gardens transition to ancient forest. “Shoes off.”

“Excuse me?”

“Earth speaks to those willing to listen. But only through direct contact.”

“That’s not—” She cuts herself off, pressing lips together.

“Not what?”

“Scientific. Logical.” Her hands shake slightly as she reaches for her laces anyway. “Dirt doesn’t create magical communication networks.”

But she’s unlacing despite the denial, curiosity warring with trained skepticism.

“Tell me about the pendant. The one you’re not wearing today.”

Her hands still. “How did you?—”

“I can smell the difference. Yesterday you reeked of cold iron suppression. Today you smell like yourself.”

Her toes touch Wild Court soil, and the forest screams awake. The earth recognizes its daughter coming home. Flowers erupt like the soil is celebrating, vines reaching up like a mother’s arms welcoming back the child she grew from bone and blood.

The oath mark splits my skin like a knife wound. Green fire erupts from torn flesh—not quite leaf, not quite flame, but something alive that brands itself into my bones with the intensity of molten gold.

“What the fuck?” Ash spins, taking in the impossible display with a soldier’s assessment rather than wonder. Her hand moves to where her knife would be—empty space that makes her jaw clench. “Orion, what did you do?”

“Nothing. The earth is greeting its daughter.”

“You smell like home,” I say, and the honesty in my voice stops her breath.

“Like what home should smell like. Pine and rain and freedom.” My amber eyes hold hers. “Been guarding spaces for two centuries, waiting for someone who belongs in them.”

“How do you know I belong?”

“Because when you’re here, the forest finally feels complete.”

Movement rustles through undergrowth as Wild Court members emerge from hidden groves. A handful of them—dryads with bark-skin, a satyr whose hooves barely whisper against earth, tree-singers whose eyes reflect forest light.

Heads turn like flowers following sunlight. Ancient magic recognizing its source after centuries of starvation.

Ash immediately shifts into a defensive stance, back to the nearest tree, eyes cataloguing threats and escape routes. Even faced with magic beyond her understanding, she adapts. Assesses. Prepares.

“Easy,” I murmur, but fire licks through my chest with pride. “They’re not enemies.”

“Who are they?” Her voice stays level despite the chaos around us.

“Wild Court. Your people.”

“I don’t have people.” But her throat constricts on the words, truth constraints making denial painful.

“No?”

The voice cuts through gathering tension like a silver blade through silk. The Morrigan steps from shadows I hadn’t noticed, her ancient presence making even the trees straighten with respect.

Ash’s posture shifts subtly—not submission but recognition of a superior predator. “And you are?”

“The one who watched the earth give birth to you.” The Morrigan’s silver eyes hold ancient memory. “Your parents died protecting Wild Court territory, their blood soaking into sacred ground. “

“I was found abandoned when I was three.” But Ash’s voice wavers, certainty cracking. “Adoption paperwork says so.”

“Found where the soil sheltered what it created.” The Morrigan steps closer, and Ash doesn’t retreat.

“That’s impossible.”

“Is it?” The Morrigan gestures to the flowers blooming in Ash’s footprints, the vines reaching toward her like supplicants. “The soil remembers what it made. When you walk here, you’re visiting your own womb.”

Ash opens her mouth, then closes it. Her mind working through implications while her body vibrates with awakening power.

“I don’t know what I am anymore,” she finally admits, voice rough with honesty that costs her.

“But you feel it,” The Morrigan presses. “The pull toward wild places. The way earth responds to your presence. The dreams of thorns and crowns.”

Ash’s eyes flash brilliant green for a heartbeat before gray reasserts control. “How do you know about my dreams?”