Chapter 13: The Fiancé’s Hunt
The first scent Gavin detected was blood.
Not the thick, coppery stench of slaughter, nor the faint whiff of an old wound. This was fresh, sweet, alive—drifting across the night air like perfume carried on the wind. His horse stamped nervously beneath him, sensing his rider’s shift in mood, but Gavin’s jaw tightened, his knuckles white against the reins. He knew that blood. He would know it anywhere.
“Seren.”
Her name was not spoken with longing, but with hunger—an obsessive claim that curled around his tongue like poison. She had run from him, daring to defy him after he had spent months breaking her in, molding her, making her his. And worse, she had fled before their vows were sealed. Gavin had tolerated her family’s excuses, her trembling protests, eve
