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~ C leo ~

I should have slapped him.

I should have shoved him harder, cursed his name, turned and run straight into the trees, screaming at the top of my lungs that a Death Mage—a Death Mage —had just kissed me like he owned my soul. Worse? I kissed him back.

I didn’t run. I stood there. Heart racing. Lips tingling. Skin burning. And I watched him walk away.

The shadows melted around him like they knew him, like they followed because they didn’t dare do otherwise. He moved like a storm given flesh—silent and seething and strangely beautiful.

And gods help me, I wanted him to come back. Touch me. Kiss me again. Make me forget my name, my past. Everything. When he touched me, everything else disappeared.

I pressed my fingertips to my lips, still raw from the pressure of his mouth. I could still feel him— all of him. The heat, the need, the hunger. It hadn’t been gentle. It hadn’t been sweet. It had been a promise and a challenge and a brand all in one.

I wanted more.

What was wrong with me?

Death Mages were the scourge of Lunaterra. Everyone knew that. They were the villains in every bedtime story. The cursed knights who made pacts with the demons on the other side of the Veil. The darkest of monsters. The horrors that mothers used to threaten misbehaving children. They were cruel, cold, unnatural. Heartless. Walking darkness.

And yet… when I said I’d rather marry an Orc, I’d seen something flicker in his eyes. Not rage. Not offense. Hurt.

Was that why I let him kiss me? Or was it because, deep down, I wanted that kiss? Wanted more than a gods damned kiss. I’d had a few half-hearted romances with local boys. Nothing serious. Nothing that lasted more than a few weeks. None of their clumsy, fumbling attempts to touch me made me burn. Made me want. Every cell in my body felt like it was on fire. For him.

Was he coming back? Of course. He must. If what he said was true, he didn’t have a choice any more than it appeared I did. Assassins hunting me? Every Death Mage and Necromancer I ever encountered would try to claim me. Control me. Use me.

The idea fueled a boiling rage in my veins. Wild and hot.

Rage? Or need? Not for any random dark magician I might meet in an imaginary future. For him.

I shook myself and turned back to the camp. The fire had died to embers, but the pan still held warmth. I cleaned up in silence, folding the remains of our breakfast into a cloth bundle and tossing the scraps far enough into the forest to keep animals away from camp.

My fingers trembled. Not from fear. From something else.

Awakening.

There was heat in my chest now. A coil of fire beneath my ribs that pulsed in time with my heartbeat. It wasn’t painful— not exactly—but it made me restless. Uncomfortable in my own skin. Like something had shifted inside me, and now I didn’t quite fit inside my own body anymore.

Was I truly Starborn?

He’d called me that with such certainty. Like it was carved into my bones.

I’d scoffed at the idea. The Starborn were a myth, the stuff of legends told by candlelight. Children of starlight and fire, blessed by the goddess of light to protect Lunaterra from the creeping dark beyond the Veil.

They’d all died long ago. Become little more than a fairy tale in a world filled with wondrous and magical creatures. I was raised human. I had no power, no gifts. I’d been told the old stories many times about how humanity had stepped through the Void, chased from our home world, a place called Earth, by the very monsters The Spire was built to cage. We still needed the Death Mages and all the other dark magic users to seal the Rift, keep those monsters away from life in Lunaterra. Until today, there had been literally nothing different or special about me.

And yet… when Jarrik had hurt me, I’d burned his skin. Not with rage. Not with willpower. With magic. Something that should have been impossible. Devin claimed I healed myself. I’d assumed, when I woke, that he’d done it. But if Death Mages weren’t healers, then…what?

Who was I? Who were my parents? Why had they left me—alone and nameless—on the steps of an orphanage in the capital? Were they dead? Slaughtered by assassins? Or had they abandoned me, knowing what I was?

The questions were too big, too tangled. I had no answers. Just this strange fire inside me and a new obsession with a dark eyed Death Mage with hair the color of deep, blue midnight and eyes that burned into me like divine flame.

When Devin returned, he was damp and freshly dressed, his skin dewed with water and his dark cloak clinging to his shoulders. His blue hair was slicked back, the silver strands near his temples catching the light like threads of moonlight. How old did a Death Mage have to be before even a single strand of hair turned moon-kissed silver?

“How old are you?” I’d heard rumors, but I had no idea if they were true or myth.

His lips twisted in a grin. “You first.”

“I’ve seen twenty summers.”

His grin fled as his gaze locked onto my lips. I forgot to breathe. “One hundred and eighty-seven summers.”

Then the whispers were true. He was old. He was also— infuriatingly —gorgeous. And I wanted him. Worse, I believed him. About everything. Believed he would protect me or die trying. Believed him when he said we belonged together, that whatever power I had would help save the world. Believed that if I let him touch me, kiss me, fuck me, I’d know pleasure I couldn’t even imagine.

“Don’t look at me like that.”

“Like what?” Oh, I knew. I knew. Like I wanted him to strip me naked and make me his, burn me with magic and dark flames, kiss me everywhere…

“Not now, woman. We have to move. It’s not safe to stay here. Jarrick could return, with company.”

“I’ll just burn him again.” I meant it. I wasn’t sure how, exactly. Just knew I could.

He didn’t speak, just helped me onto the horse and mounted behind me, settling me between his legs. And that’s when the real torture began.

His body was all hard lines and restrained power. Every muscle pressed against my back. His arm wrapped around my waist, holding the reins, close enough that I could feel the steady rhythm of his breath. His scent wrapped around me—clean water, magic, and something darker. Shadow and heat. It did things to me I didn’t want to name.

“Where are we going?” I asked, my voice unsteady.

“To the port at Southreach,” he said against my ear. “We’ll take a ship to The Spire from there.”

“How long?”

“Another full day of riding.”

Gods. I would burst into flame by then.

I swallowed hard and tried to shift, but there was no escape from the firm wall of his body. I could feel every movement he made. Every twitch of muscle, every breath. My skin felt too tight. My blood too hot.

“What happens at The Spire?”

“I will present you to the Knight Eternal.”

Oh, holy hell of hells. That was their king. The oldest Death Mage. The most powerful. No one knew his real age, not outside of The Spire, anyway. Some whispered that he had absorbed so much darkness, so many demons, that he was immortal. “Why? I don’t want to meet him.”

“He will dissolve your betrothal to Jarrick and give you to me.”

“What if he doesn’t?” I was not marrying Jarrick. I didn’t care what I had to do. Run away again. Throw myself into the sea—I happened to be a very strong swimmer. Figure out how to use my magic and burn the entire Spire to the ground. I didn’t want a Death Mage to begin with. Devin? Something about him felt right. That did not mean I would accept any other Death Mage.

“He will.”

“So, we get married? Then what?” I wanted him to tell me all the wicked, naughty things he was going to do to me. His hard thighs pressed to the back of mine. His bulging cock pushed against my ass, rocking into me with every step the horse took. At this rate, I’d lose my sanity by midday. How was he able to speak as if completely unaffected? Was my ass not soft enough? My breasts not heavy enough where they rested over his forearm? Did my odor offend?

“I will take you to the heart of The Spire. Show you the Rift. It’s where the Veil is thinnest. Where the shadows press hardest. It’s also where the wards were first cast—when the last Starborn mated to a Death Mage and used sex magic to power the runes.”

I turned my head slightly, enough to catch his profile. “Sex magic?” Holy hells. My pussy clenched at what that implied. Would we actually burn with magic when he claimed me?

He looked at me, his silver eyes unreadable.

“Yes,” he said simply. “The bond between us—if it’s real—it’s more than magic. It’s soul deep. Powerful. The bond will change both of us.”

Change me? Change him? I didn’t like that. Not even a little.

I faced forward again; arms crossed tightly over my chest. “What if I don’t want it?”

“Then we break it. If we can.”

“You’re not sure.”

“No,” he admitted. “Starborn bonds aren’t like other magic. They’re rare. Sacred. You’re the first in over five hundred years.”

We rode in silence for a while, the rhythm of the horse beneath us lulling me into a strange, restless calm. The sun was warm on my skin. The trees rustled softly above us, whispering secrets I didn’t understand as my awareness of Devin shifted from the heat of his body to the shadows

“When are you going to tell me the truth?” I asked finally.

“About Jarrik?” His voice darkened.

“No. About you. ”

His grip on the reins tightened slightly. “What about me?”

“I can feel it,” I whispered. “The darkness in you.” I didn’t know how to describe what I sensed inside him. “You’re unraveling.”

He said nothing. Denied nothing. I wasn’t sure what the coiled shadows inside him meant, or where they would lead us. I didn’t know if they were new or something that always existed inside a Death Mage. I didn’t even know what to ask. The silence stretched long and thin between us. The tense muscles in his arm that he’d wrapped around my waist didn’t make the storm inside me any easier to weather. His body heat made me want to melt into him. Everything about him called to me on an elemental level I couldn’t resist or explain.

The truth was, every moment I spent with him, I was spiraling—falling into a fire I didn’t ask for. My identity, my newly awakened magic, my soul —all burning brighter and hotter because he was near. I’d vowed never to accept my betrothal to Jarrick because he was a Death Mage. So why was I suddenly unable to resist another of his kind? Nothing made sense.

I wasn’t sure if I wanted to escape… or let him consume me.

Hours passed. My hands, curled into tight fists in my lap for so long I could no longer feel my fingers, ached with the need to touch him. It was a compulsion. We’d stopped once to rest the horse, then pressed on. Since Devin didn’t want to talk about his dark magic or the shadows in his soul, we rode in silence. I wish he’d told me stories about life at The Spire, or his childhood. How to do magic. Anything.

Instead, my mind wandered to more painful topics, things I’d happily left buried years ago as I never expected to have answers.

I didn’t know my parents. Didn’t have a single memory of them, no letters, no heirlooms. Just a blanket with stitched stars, left with me on the orphanage steps like some tragic afterthought.

I’d always wondered who they were. Why they’d left. If they’d wanted me or if I’d been a cosmic accident, or worse. Had my mother been raped, with me the result? Did looking at me cause her pain? Maybe I’d been stolen from adoring parents and sold into servitude at the orphanage, my entire backstory a fiction told to keep me obedient. Every possible scenario raced through my thoughts over the years.

Now… I had new questions. Terrifying ones.

Were my parents dead because they’d been Starborn? Hunted, by assassins? Slaughtered because of the blood they carried? Was I meant to die, too? Had my parents given me away to protect me? Were they still out there somewhere, hiding?

“I don’t want to belong to anyone,” I whispered. “Not to you. Not to Jarrik. Not to anyone.”

“I don’t want to own you,” he said softly. “I want to survive. I want to protect the world I swore to guard. But more than that…” His voice dipped lower, rougher. “I want you. Not because of your power. Because something inside me—something I thought was long dead—knows you. Craves you. Would die for you. We were meant to be together. Bonded. I know you feel it, too.”

A shiver ran down my spine. I couldn’t answer. I didn’t trust my voice. I didn’t believe him. No one had ever wanted me, cared about me. This was about my magic, my heritage. Not me. Didn’t matter. My mind rejected the lie, but my body was already betraying me, my heart thudding too fast, my breath too shallow. And I didn’t move.

I didn’t want to admit how much I wanted to lean back. To rest my head against his shoulder. To feel that arm tighten around me and pretend—for just one day—that I wasn’t abandoned, broken, cursed or hunted.

Just wanted.