EVER BOUND

THIRTEEN

Silas stormed out of the great hall, his cape snapping behind him with every step, the air still thick with the echo of obedience he had forced on the mercenaries. The heavy oak doors slammed shut, muffling the sounds of their whispers.

But he wasn't alone.

Thea's footsteps followed close, fast and unrelenting.

"Don't you dare walk away from me," she hissed, shoving the door open behind him. "Not after that."

Silas didn't slow. His stride was long, angry, carrying him down the dim corridor lit by narrow windows.

"What were you thinking?" she demanded, her voice sharp with incredulity. "Compelling them like that—like puppets. You didn't even give them a choice."

He stopped suddenly, spinning toward her. His eyes gleamed faintly in the torchlight, still rimmed with the lingering fire of his power.

"They were already bought men," he said, voice low but cutting. "Mercenaries. They came for coin, not loyalty. I gave them direction. Without it, they'd tear this place apart—and you along with it."

Thea crossed her arms, chin lifted. "So that's your excuse? Control them because you can? Just like you locked me in that dungeon because you can?"

His jaw tightened, a muscle ticking in his cheek. "That's different."

"No," she shot back. "It's the same. You don't trust me. You don't let me choose. You think you can just bend everyone around you until they fit your plan."

Silas stepped closer, looming over her, his expression hard—but beneath it, something else flickered. Not anger. Unease.

"How did you get out?" he asked abruptly.

Thea blinked, thrown by the sudden question. "What?"

"The dungeon," he said. "I locked it myself. That room hides your scent, your pulse—nothing gets out. No one should have been able to open it unless I allowed it."

Thea hesitated, then lifted her chin, defiant even as her pulse raced. "I told Alys to let me out."

His eyes narrowed. "And she obeyed."

Thea shrugged, though her voice wavered slightly. "The same way you made those men kneel."

For the first time in centuries, Silas's composure cracked.

He stared at her as if she had just spoken the words of a forgotten prophecy. His gaze softened, then sharpened again, as if trying to reconcile two impossible truths. He took a slow step back, hands curling into fists at his sides.

"That's not possible," he murmured, almost to himself.

Thea frowned. "Why not? You said it yourself—I'm different. Maybe I'm finally starting to see what that means."

Silas's throat worked as he swallowed, eyes darting away from hers. Memories—old, bitter, sweet, and haunting—rushed through him.

It was her. The gift had been hers, once. A secret passed from Thea's lips to his blood in their earliest years together. The power to compel, to bend will, had not been his to begin with. It had been hers, a fragment of her magic that had fused to him the night she cursed him. He had carried it ever since, a reminder of what he had lost.

And now—now it was awakening in her again.

Silas looked back at her, the weight of centuries pressing down in the space between them. For the first time, he seemed... unsettled. Not by the men he had commanded, not by the wars he had survived, but by her.

"You don't understand what you're playing with," he said finally, voice hushed, almost reverent. "That power—your power—it isn't meant to obey you. It consumes. It always has."

Thea met his gaze, unflinching, though her heart hammered like a drum. "Then maybe you shouldn't have lied to me. Maybe you should've let me choose what to do with it."

Her words cut him deeper than any blade could.

Silas turned sharply, striding away again—not out of anger this time, but out of fear. For her. For himself. For the curse they were both still shackled to.

Silas's stride was relentless, his boots pounding against the stone floor as he stormed down the corridor, the torches trembling in his wake.

But Thea didn't stop.

Her breath came fast as she chased him, anger and confusion knotting in her chest. "What are you so scared of, Silas?!" Her voice cracked against the walls. "You look at me like I'm some kind of monster, like I'm a danger to you—and you still won't say why!"

He didn't answer. His shoulders were rigid, his jaw tight.

"Tell me!" she demanded, catching up enough to shove at his arm. He spun at the touch, eyes blazing with a fury so ancient it nearly froze her in place.

"You want the truth?" he growled, his voice raw, stripped of every careful layer of restraint. "Then hear it."

Thea blinked at him, heart slamming against her ribs.

"You are not just a girl with strange dreams," Silas said, stepping closer, towering over her. His voice vibrated with something primal, half-rage, half-grief. "You are the same soul I've found every three centuries. The same face. The same eyes. And every time, you come to end me."

Her breath hitched.

"You burn my kind to ash. You tear apart everything I've built. Every man I've sired, every empire I've carved—gone, because of you." His voice cracked like a whip, but there was a tremor beneath it, a wound bleeding open. "And still, I loved you. Gods help me, I loved you."

Thea shook her head, backing a step away. "No... no, that's not—"

"You think those dreams are fantasies?" Silas cut her off, bitter laughter spilling from his lips. "They're not dreams. They're memories. Yours. Mine. Ours. You've cursed me with them. Every life, every incarnation, you find me, and you ruin me."

Her pulse thundered in her ears. The walls tilted, the air heavy with truths she didn't know how to carry.

Silas's face hardened, though his eyes betrayed him—haunted, aching. "And yet this time, you don't remember. You're different. But it won't matter. It never does. Sooner or later, you'll awaken, and when you do, you'll kill us all."

The silence that followed was deafening.

Thea's hands shook. Her throat was dry. Her mind reeled with images of her dreams—the bird, the cottage, the kiss, the betrayal—and for the first time, she couldn't tell if they were hers or echoes of another woman she'd once been.

Her lips parted, but no words came.

Silas's jaw clenched. He tore his gaze away from her, as if her silence was confirmation enough, and turned back down the hall.

"I should've never come here," he muttered, voice low, broken. "Stay away from me, Thea. For both our sakes."

And then he was gone, swallowed by the shadows of the manor, leaving her standing in the corridor—reeling, trembling, the truth heavy in her chest like chains.

For the first time since meeting him, she wasn't sure if she wanted to remember.

The First Life

She was barefoot, running down the mossy path, sunlight breaking through the treetops in pale, golden streaks. Laughter spilled from her lips, breathless and bright, as she glanced behind her to see him chasing—faster, stronger, a hunter only pretending to be slow.

Silas grinned at her, wild and free, hair tousled from the wind. This version of him had no fangs. No title. Just hands that held her like a promise, and eyes that made her forget the world had ever tried to keep them apart.

They were deep in the glen, beyond the view of the village. Past the judgmental eyes and whispered curses. Here, he was not the Laird's son. And she—she was not the outcast.

Here, they were only Thea and Silas.

He caught her easily, arms looping around her waist as she squealed. He spun her once, then set her down, both of them breathless.

"You're cheating," she accused, poking his chest.

He caught her hand. "You're slower than you think."

"I think you're full of shit."

Silas laughed, deep and genuine, and leaned down until their foreheads touched. "Then teach me humility, mo gràdh."

The words slipped from his tongue like a song. My love.

Thea closed her eyes. Her world had always been one of herbs and whispers, of spells murmured over water and protections carved into stone. But he had always been her weakness. A man of flesh and fire who loved her without fear. They had hidden their romance for months—long, stolen nights and early dawns spent tangled in each other's arms in their secret cottage. The world did not want them to exist. But in their haven, they did.

He pulled her hand to his lips and kissed it.

"I've thought of painting you here," he murmured.

"You say that every time."

"But today I mean it. I want to capture the way the light touches your skin." His voice softened, a reverent hush. "I want to remember this. All of it. Before the world takes it from us."

~*~

Their home was humble. Wood and stone, vines curling around the edges of the windows. Inside was a single bed, a hearth, shelves of dried herbs and spell books, jars filled with ingredients not found in any church-sanctioned text. Her spellwork. His art. Together, it was sacred.

That evening, he made good on his promise.

She sat on the edge of the bed, a blanket wrapped around her waist, her upper body bare beneath the flickering candlelight. He painted in silence, gaze intense, brush gliding across the canvas like he was afraid to miss a single detail.

"You're staring too much," she whispered, heart pounding.

"You're beautiful," he said. "I'll never stop looking."

Her blush deepened. "Even like this?"

"Especially like this."

She smiled—but the joy was tinged with dread. Because she knew something was coming. She'd felt it in the wind, in the way the animals grew restless. Her grandmother had warned her: love would always come with a price.

The Curse

The memories bled forward like a tide.

Silas was no longer in their cottage. He stood in a marble hall, dressed in noble silks, face tight with restraint as he bowed before a man in a red cloak.

"I'll do what must be done," Silas said, voice void of warmth.

The cloaked man grinned. "You're making the right choice. The girl is dangerous. Her blood threatens everything we've built."

Silas said nothing.

Behind him stood the noblewoman. Pale, pristine, and trembling. The betrothed he had never wanted—but now agreed to marry.

Thea's world shattered when she saw the procession.

She stood at the edge of the village, cloaked in ash and sorrow, watching the man she loved kiss another woman's hand in front of the entire town. The whispers grew around her. "Witch." "Whore." "Curse."

And the worst—"He was never yours."

She fled.

For days, no one saw her.

But the storm that followed could not be ignored.

She stood in the ruins of their cottage. Everything destroyed—his painting slashed, her books burned, the bedframe broken. Her skin glowed faintly under the stormlight, her hair wild, her tears hot.

She screamed his name.

Silas appeared, breathless, soaked in rain.

"You chose them," she whispered, not turning around. "You let them do this."

"I did it to protect you," he said, voice desperate. "They were going to burn you alive. I—"

"You let them erase me."

"I married her to save your life."

"You ended mine."

Lightning cracked above them.

She turned to face him, the wind circling her like a tempest.

"I loved you," she said. "And you loved me. But you chose power. You chose them. So now, I choose truth."

The spell left her lips like a knife through the air.

"I curse you to remember. I curse you to never die, to feel every breath that I can't take, to live with the ghost of what you destroyed. You will search for me in every lifetime, and you will always fail. Because when you find me, I will never be yours again."

His body seized. His scream was not human.

And the rain swallowed the world.

~*~

Thea woke gasping, her skin soaked with sweat, her mouth dry, her heart thundering.

She sat up in the bed, eyes wide.

"I remember."

The word left her in a whisper.

Her hands trembled as she clutched the blanket, staring out at the manor's window. Every touch, every kiss, every betrayal—it was all real. And so was the fire in her blood. The power humming just beneath the surface.

She had cursed him.

And now... she wasn't sure she could undo what she'd done.

But for the first time, she understood him.

And that was the most dangerous thing of all.