EVER BOUND

TEN

Thea woke to light slicing across the room in golden slants, far too bright for the hour she assumed it was. She squinted toward the window, then bolted upright

"s**t," she mumbled, scrambling out of the plush, oversized bed.

The antique clock on the mantle read 11:23.

Her feet padded softly across the polished floor, the chill of the wood a quiet contrast to the sunlight flooding the room. Mags was curled at the foot of the bed, blinking lazily, tail twitching once in half-hearted disapproval of the movement.

Thea crossed the room and slipped into the adjoining bathroom, only to pause mid-step.

It was beautiful.

Where the rest of the manor looked like something from a medieval daydream—carved stone, ancient wood, high-arched windows—this bathroom was a clean-lined, modern wonder. Matte black fixtures. A rainfall shower. White marble countertops veined with gray and bronze. Warm lighting softened the coldness of the tile.

It was the kind of bathroom you'd expect in a five-star penthouse suite. She walked toward the mirror and studied her reflection. Her curls were a mess and her eyes still heavy with sleep. But it was the feeling in her chest that truly unmoored her.

Silas.

The kiss came rushing back, vivid and unreal. The way his hands had curved around her waist like they'd been there a thousand times. The way her body responded to him like a violin finding its bow. She leaned forward and stared into her own eyes, searching for answers.

What was this? Lust? Some remnant of her dreams? Was he manipulating her?

She didn't know—but what she did know was that she couldn't live in limbo. She couldn't let herself be pulled deeper into this thing, whatever it was, unless she knew the truth.

Her resolve hardened. Today, she would confront him.

She stepped into the shower and turned the handle to full heat. The water thundered overhead, cascading over her body in a wave of warmth. Steam fogged the glass. She tilted her head back and let it soak her hair, her skin, her thoughts. The kiss had awakened something. That much was clear. But if Silas was going to keep hiding behind shadows and secrets, she'd rip the curtain down herself.

After a long, contemplative shower, she stepped out, dried off, and changed into a cozy sweater and fitted jeans. Comfortable, but not careless.

She slipped through the hallway, quiet and purposeful, the manor oddly still. As she passed the staircase, she heard soft footsteps behind her.

It was Alys, the young maid she'd briefly met before. She was carrying a tray of herbs and a small ceramic teapot, startled when she saw Thea approaching.

"Oh! You're awake," Alys said, her voice high and nervous. "Did you sleep well?"

"I slept too well," Thea muttered with a smile. "Have you seen Silas?"

Alys hesitated, eyes darting to the side. "He's... in his room."

Thea raised an eyebrow. "Is he alone?"

"I—I believe so, miss."

Thea nodded once, then turned toward the direction Alys had gestured. The hall narrowed, floorboards moaning faintly beneath her feet. Her heart beat faster with each step.

She stopped at the large door near the end of the east wing.

She raised her hand, rested her palm against the wood, and took a breath.

Then she turned the handle and stepped inside.

Thea stepped quietly into the room, the weight of the carved wooden door closing with a faint thud behind her.

His scent hit her first.

It wasn't cologne or soap. It was deeper—earth and fire, aged leather, something metallic threaded with something impossibly ancient. It made her feel like she had walked into another time.

The room itself was cavernous, and nothing like she expected.

Vaulted ceilings stretched high above with dark wooden beams overhead, casting long shadows where the morning sun hadn't reached. The walls were covered in deep charcoal paneling, rich and sleek, and yet warm instead of cold. At one end, heavy bookshelves reached from floor to ceiling, and a large armoire with bronze handles gleamed softly beside them. The opposite wall was dominated by narrow windows dressed in thick, storm-grey velvet drapes, slightly parted to let the light pour across the floor in long golden bands.

His bed—massive and imposing—sat on a raised platform, the frame dark as obsidian, with intricate carvings of wolves and wildflowers woven into the headboard. The sheets were black. Not charcoal. Not navy. True black. And nestled in them, half covered by the sheet, was Silas.

Asleep.

His raven hair spilled across the pillow in soft, ink-dark waves, tousled and damp around the edges. His expression was unguarded in sleep, the tension that usually lined his face gone. In that moment, he looked younger. Vulnerable. Almost mortal.

The sheet was low on his hips, revealing the full expanse of his bare chest and torso.

Thea's breath caught.

He was breathtaking.

His body was long and muscular, sculpted from war and survival. Not the aesthetic tone of a gym body, but a raw, functional strength—broad shoulders dusted with faint scars, arms thick with coiled power. A thin silver scar curved just beneath his collarbone like a crescent moon, and there were other smaller marks etched into his ribs and abdomen like a language only he could read.

Her gaze roamed, unbidden, over the line of his chest—down the ridged definition of his abdomen and the V-shaped dip that disappeared beneath the sheet.

A heat bloomed low in her belly, slow and curling.

She stepped forward.

Closer.

Closer still, until she stood at the edge of the bed, hand slowly reaching out, fingertips barely an inch from his shoulder.

She just wanted to touch him. To know if the warmth in her chest was imagined or real. She—

A hand shot up and snatched her wrist, iron-tight and unyielding.

Thea gasped, eyes flying to his.

Silas was awake.

And he was staring straight at her.

Silas's grip stayed tight for half a heartbeat longer—his chest rising and falling too fast, too sharp. But then his eyes adjusted.

Recognition bloomed like a slow thaw in his expression.

"...Thea," he murmured, voice rough from sleep.

His grip loosened instantly, fingers trailing down her wrist before dropping away altogether. He sat up in bed with a grunt, raking a hand through his tousled hair as if trying to shake off a nightmare.

Thea watched him in silence.

Finally, he leaned to the side and flicked on the small lamp by the bed. Warm golden light spilled across the room, softening the tension that still clung to the air like static.

He looked at her fully now—jaw tense, brows drawn—but the danger had left his eyes.

"You shouldn't sneak up on me while I sleep," he said, voice low, but edged with irritation. "You don't know what I'm capable of."

"I didn't know immortals slept," Thea said with a sweet, venom-laced smile. "How... human of you."

Silas didn't take the bait. He exhaled through his nose and swung his legs over the side of the bed, the sheets sliding down to pool around his waist. He didn't bother covering himself—just sat there, shirtless, unapologetic, watching her with unreadable eyes.

"Why are you here?" he asked, voice quieter this time.

Thea didn't answer right away.

She crossed her arms, shifting her weight onto one hip. "Because you fled yesterday."

Silas's gaze narrowed.

"You kissed me," she continued, her tone sharpening, "and then ran off like I'd lit you on fire."

Silas looked away.

Thea pressed forward.

"If I'm just some tool to be used for this curse or prophecy or whatever it is you still won't fully tell me—fine. Say that. But don't pretend there wasn't something between us yesterday. And don't act like I imagined what you wrote in those journals. You loved me once. You painted me. You... worshipped me."

Silas's shoulders tensed, his back visibly tight with restraint.

Thea's voice softened, but the hurt in it didn't vanish.

"So tell me... if I meant that much to you... why do you keep treating me like a stranger now?"

She waited.

Silas didn't answer her right away. He leaned forward, elbows on his knees, palms pressed together. His eyes stayed on the floor—on the soft grain of the wood, the shadows shifting with the light.

When he finally spoke, his voice was quieter than before.

"I didn't run because I was afraid of you," he said. "I ran because I was afraid of me."

Thea blinked, but said nothing.

He slowly turned to look at her.

"You want to know who we were," he continued. "You and I. In that life you only catch glimpses of in dreams. That wasn't the first time we'd found each other, Thea. Not by far."

He rose from the bed and crossed the room to a tall bookshelf beside a window, his body silhouetted against the curtain-filtered light. He reached for a leather-bound volume and held it in his hands, as if drawing strength from its weight.

"You've always come back to me. Reborn... unfamiliar... different. But always you."

Thea's throat tightened. She didn't interrupt.

"In one life, you were a seer. In another, a warrior. In that life—the one with the cottage and the painting—you were... the wildest version of yourself. You spoke to storms. You walked barefoot through snow. People feared you. Worshipped you. I was nothing but a soldier then. A man with blood on his hands and a soul long gone gray. You lit a fire in me that nothing else ever had."

His jaw flexed.

"I'd been tasked with killing you."

Thea gasped, but he raised a hand quickly.

"I didn't do it," he said. "Couldn't. You knew what I was before I ever told you. And still... you welcomed me into your home. Into your bed. Into your heart."

He closed his eyes, as if reliving something too sacred to say aloud.

"We lived in secret. Days hidden in the trees. Nights tangled in each other. That painting you found? You'd fallen asleep in the sun, draped in that linen blanket you always carried. I had no right to paint you that way. But I couldn't stop. You were the most beautiful thing I'd ever seen. You always have been."

Thea's breath shook.

"What happened?" she whispered.

Silas's eyes opened slowly.

"There was a war coming," he said. "One I couldn't stop. You... you wanted to fight. You said the earth had chosen you. That your power came from something older than either of us. You didn't fear death. But I did. Yours. So I begged you to run. To hide. You refused."

His voice broke, just slightly.

"The night they came, I wasn't fast enough. You died before I could reach you. And by the time I held you in my arms... you were already gone."

Silence bloomed like a storm between them.

He didn't tell her what he'd really done. That he'd made a deal to spare her life. That he'd bartered her safety in exchange for betraying the very people she swore to protect. That he'd damned himself to eternal life... and her to endless reincarnation.

He swallowed the rest down like poison.

"I've been trying to find you again ever since," he said.

Thea's voice was thick when she finally spoke. "How many times?"

Silas's eyes flickered toward hers, guilt flashing like lightning.

"Too many to count."

Thea didn't know what to say.

Her heart ached in a way that felt ancient. Like it had mourned him before.

She sank down slowly onto the edge of the bed, eyes never leaving his. He stood in the glow of the lamplight, looking both exhausted and... unguarded.

"You sound like a man who's been haunted," she said softly.

Silas exhaled, something almost like relief flickering across his face.

"I have been."

Her fingers twisted in the hem of her shirt, unsure of what to do with the tenderness creeping into her chest. She didn't want to feel it. Didn't want to start trusting him again. Not when so much still didn't make sense.

And yet...

"You let me believe I was crazy," she murmured. "All those dreams... all those flashes of someone I couldn't place. That cottage. I thought something was wrong with me."

"I couldn't rush you," he said, voice hoarse. "I've done that before. Every time I came back, I tried to make you remember. And it always ended the same."

"How?"

"You died," he said, so quietly it nearly broke her.

Thea's lips parted, but no words came.

"I thought... maybe if I just stayed close. Protected you. Let things happen on their own, this time would be different."

His eyes glimmered. "And then I saw you again. Standing in that storm. Calling out to something you couldn't name. And I knew—she's back. The real you."

Silence stretched between them.

And then she moved.

Slowly, cautiously, she reached for his hand.

It was cool beneath her fingertips, calloused, strong.

"I don't remember everything," she said. "But I remember you. Not all at once. But in pieces. A voice. A scent. A touch." She looked up at him. "And when I saw that painting, something in me knew... you've always seen me. Not just the outside of me. Me."

Silas's throat moved as he swallowed. He didn't pull away.

"I'm still angry," she whispered. "Still confused. But I don't feel afraid of you. Not anymore."

A pause. His voice barely audible.

"You should."

She shook her head.

"No. I should've been afraid from the start. But you've never hurt me." Her eyes dropped to his lips. "Not in any of the ways that mattered."

He stood still, as if afraid to breathe.

So Thea did what felt impossible two days ago.

She leaned in.

The kiss was soft at first. Chaste. Testing.

Silas didn't move—didn't respond—for the span of a heartbeat.

But then—

Then he kissed her back like a dam breaking

His hand slid up her spine, gathering her into him with startling force. Her hands framed his jaw, and his lips deepened against hers, hungry and reverent at once.

It was like being remembered. Like falling into a place she already belonged.

She whimpered softly into his mouth.

That sound—fragile, aching—was what shattered him. Silas broke the kiss.

Their breathing was uneven, synced only by tension and emotion that refused to settle. The warmth of their kiss still lingered between them—ghosting across her lips, tingling down her spine.

She took a hesitant step forward, about to speak—about to challenge his retreat—when a soft knock broke the moment.

They both froze.

A quiet voice came from the other side of the door. "My lord... forgive the intrusion, but... the men you summoned. They've arrived. They're at the gates now."