Page 77 of Unveiled

“Of course I did.”

Adrian exhaled. “Xiathen says the mark is anchoring. That it’s…sinking in.”

“Sinking in?” Connor echoed. “Like poison?”

“Like a hook,” Adrian corrected softly. “The Council is pulling on it. Testing the tether.”

“Then we cut the fucking tether.”

Adrian let out a humourless laugh. “Connor, you can’t simply hack away ancient magic like it’s a fence post.”

“Watch me.”

Adrian stepped closer. “Please, listen to me. The Council doesn’t fear brute strength. Xiathen told me they built the Veiled Path out of the bones of fallen members of the Council of Veils to make the lure stronger. They—”

“I don’t care,” Connor snapped. “They touched you. They hurt you. That’s enough for me.”

Adrian stared at him, his mouth slightly parted, his breath unsteady. Connor felt something shifting between them—dangerous, hot, magnetic.

But before either of them could speak, a scream tore through the castle—high, distorted, layered with something inhuman.

Connor’s body moved before thought did. He ripped the door open, sprinting down the corridor. Adrian was a shadow at his heels.

Jasmine huddled in the main hall, her face blanched with terror, pointing a shaking hand upward. Connor followed her gaze. And froze.

On the ceiling, pressing against the stone like a stain of living smoke, a Nightwrought crouched upside down. Its eyes were blank white holes staring directly at Adrian.

The Nightwrought whispered—not aloud, but into the marrow of every bone in the room—Valour. Marked. The Council summons.

Before Connor could move, Adrian didn’t hesitate. He lunged, his silver dagger raised, ready to strike. “You’re in my territory now. I’m not letting you hurt my people,” he snarled.

Silver met darkness and the creature hissed, convulsing into a smear of shadow that streaked across the ceiling and vanished into the cracks between stones as if dissolving into the castle itself.

Connor drew in a sharp breath. “That was some move,” he muttered, pride thick in his voice.

Adrian’s fury was cold and sharp. “They will not come here and threaten us,” he said, his voice low, steady, lethal. “I will fight before they open that rend. Before they drag me away. Before they take one more soul.” His eyes darkened to something feral. “If they want anyone else…they’ll have to go through me first.”

Chapter Twenty-Two

Connor

Connor stood at the top of the stone staircase in his castle, staring down into the great hall where flames guttered low in the sconces. The air carried a tension so sharp it might have flayed the skin from bone. Clan members moved in hushed, frantic clusters, whispering too fast and too close, as though afraid the shadows might overhear.

Maybe they were right to fear it. The Nightwrought had been inside the fort. Inside Adrian’s walls. Inside his home.

His stomach twisted, fury flaring hot again, but beneath the rage, something colder writhed. And he hated that cold part, hated what it meant. The Council of Veils was trying to take Adrian away from him.

An urgent summons back to the castle had necessitated him leaving Adrian at his home. Graeme had fallen, injuring his leg, and Angie had needed to set the bone and prepare her poultices to stop infection. Connor needed to be there—one of his pack was hurt, and that was where his place was right now.

Fraser approached with a stack of weapons in his arms. “The lads have prepped the armoury,” he said. “Crossbows, steel, silver, anything we might need.”

Connor nodded absently. He was remembering how he’d left Adrian. The Frenchman was breathing shallowly, his shoulders tight beneath his coat. A sheen of sweat glimmered on his brow. He looked like a man trying very hard not to lash out.

Connor strode toward him. “I must leave; one of my pack is injured. No wandering off. No heroics. No sacrificing yourself because you think it’s noble.”

Adrian huffed a breath. “I’m not noble.”

“You’re reckless,” Connor corrected. “And infuriating. And if you disappear again into those damned woods, I will drag you back by the hair.”