Page 75 of Unveiled

That rare, honest, and unguarded softness seemed to break Adrian. His shoulders sagged for a microsecond then he smiled wryly. “Then I suppose I have to live with it. Please don’t treat me like I’m porcelain. I’m quite able to take care of myself.”

Connor leaned in, his voice dropping to something close to a vow. “I’m not doing it because I need to.”

Adrian frowned. “Then why?”

Connor held his gaze, steady, unflinching, impossible to look away from. “Because you matter.”

The mark pulsed. Adrian inhaled sharply.

Connor’s eyes flicked to the glow under Adrian’s shirt. “There. Even that damned thing agrees.”

Adrian sniffed. “You’re impossible.”

Connor’s thumb brushed Adrian’s sleeve gently. “And you’re pale as death. Come inside before you keel over again.”

“Fine.”

Their footsteps echoed unnervingly on the cobblestones as they reached the outskirts of the village. People peered from windows, hushed and hollow-eyed, clutching candles that guttered in the still air. The strange hum beneath the earth vibrated faintly through Connor’s boots.

He accompanied Adrian back to his fort, maintaining a subtle presence, always watching, ready to catch him.

For once, Adrian didn’t fight him, didn’t pretend the world wasn’t tilting.

Connor Brannigan would burn the valley to the ground before letting anything touch him.

Chapter Twenty-One

Connor

As a boy, Connor had roamed the valley forests, barefoot and wild, racing the deerhounds through underbrush and moonlit glades. He’d hunted here as a teenager with his father, learned the wind’s language, learned how to stand still enough that even the birds forgot he existed. But the forest that surrounded Glengáill on the way to Adrian’s home was no forest he knew. Quiet and watchful, its secrets no longer out in the open but hidden beneath moss and gorse.

The cold clung to him like a second skin as he led Adrian back toward the fort path. Connor barely noted anything beyond Adrian’s breathing and the memory of the mark burning under his skin.

The echo of Adrian’s words haunted him.

It’s me they want.

Connor’s jaw tightened, his teeth grinding together. He didn’t even realise his hand was still wrapped around Adrian’s wrist until the other man spoke softly beside him.

“You can let go.” Adrian cast him an amused look. “Unless you intend to drag me the entire way back.”

Connor released him abruptly, his pulse hammering with something he refused to examine too deeply. Adrian rubbed the spot absently, the gesture making Connor want to grab him again, shield him again, hide him behind stone walls and iron doors where no Nightwrought could ever reach him.

But that wasn’t possible. Not with the mark burning brighter by the hour. Not with the Council’s whispers lingering in the air like a scent wolves couldn’t shake.

Connor inhaled, slow and deep, grounding himself. “Are you stable?”

Adrian rolled his eyes slowly. “I’m not going to faint dramatically into your arms if that’s what you mean.”

“That’s not what I mean.”

Adrian paused long enough to look at him properly. “Then yes. I’m stable.”

Something was changing him. The Council’s mark wasn’t only a signal. It was a hand closing slowly around Adrian’s soul. Connor’s wolf snarled at the thought.

He crossed the rest of the distance in silence with Adrian beside him, their steps falling into an unconscious synchronicity.

Back at Fort Ardlebury, the clan had gathered in the entrance hall before they even stepped inside. The air was thick with panic, voices rising in frantic gasps.