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As wicked as many mortals would perceive me to be, I lay beside her a sentry. Watching each rise and fall of her chest. Mesmerized by something so mundane. Each rise was a wave that threatened to push me deeper into whatever this was, each fall a mere whisper of salvation that would never come because the rise returned all too quickly.
I was losing my senses.
My hand moved toward her face, the need to touch her almost unbearable.
Eden.
This was the woman I was bound to. My wife.
Asleep, she was breathtaking. The crease between her brows still lived there. Deep even when she was so far away in slumber. Her wide lips twitched as she rolled slightly, curling into me.
Mortals were so fragile.
My hand fisted above her face, hovering in the air. Uncertainty moved through me. It was foreign. Touch was something I thrived in, yet the thought of touching her made me pause.
Being bound to this woman was peculiar. I couldn’t make sense of it. I longed for her, though my mind screamed for an escape. An ache bloomed inside me at her every discomfort when before her only the most cardinal emotions could affect me. Ones linked to sin. Every moment with her was a torment hell could never conceive.
Agony.
And yet — I felt roots planting in this house. In these woods. With her.
Eden was right. There had to be something else at play here. Some magic I couldn’t identify that bound us together in a way more intense than marriage alone.
My hand opened slowly, and I risked a single touch to her cheek. Her flesh was smooth, but colder than I would have imagined. Her lips parted and a cloud of air visibly left her.
I frowned.
Was this normal?
A drag of my knuckles along her jaw provided me no answers but soothed me, as did the gentle flow of her breath. Breathing was the most important thing to these beings, so surely she was fine.
Half-moon cuts appeared on her flesh. They leaked black and reeked of rot and witchcraft.
My heart hammered as I wrapped my hand around her jaw and leaned over her. “Eden… wake up.”
Desperation was a potent emotion. I felt intoxicated by it as I leaned in and swallowed the tension in my throat.
“Eden.” My touch was both gentle and firm as I shook her face.
When she didn’t rise, I pulled her into my lap. She was freezing. Too cold. It wasn’t right. Something was very, very wrong.
A scream ripped through the air that wrapped my heart in a hold strong enough to burst it if it lived in my chest, but still she slept. I wrapped my arms tighter around her, embracing her in both my hold and my magic. Whatever ailed her, I would fix it.
I would always fix it.
My brow leaned against hers and frost moved between us. I felt the vile magic of a witch before her bedroom darkened. The warm light from her bedstand disappeared and the corners filled with darkness.
I sat on the bed alone.
Eden was gone but the chill from her flesh was rampant in the air. My feet were quick as I moved from the room. The stench here was the same as the one the witch’s fury left behind, and I wasn’t going to leave Eden to them for long.
Rage fuelled me as I stalked into the hall and saw them.
The witch held Eden in her grasp suspended in the air. Black smoke swirled around her as Eden’s scream echoed down the hall, sending visible waves toward me.
The mortal flesh I knew she was accustomed to burned away and transformed until my horns scraped against the ceiling. Two steps brought me down the hall, my hooves driving into the hardwood. One arm wrapped around Eden’s waist, clutching her to the expanse of my chest as the other wrapped around the witch’s wrist.
My rage burned through me until the fires seeped through my fingers.
