Dion's POV
He felt it before he saw it.
The tug.
The fire.
The unbearable silence.
The bond between him and Therrin had grown stronger over time — something raw and ancient. But tonight… tonight it burned. Wild and wrong. Like a blade sliding between his ribs, twisted just enough to keep him standing.
Dion stormed into the clearing, eyes wild, scent trailing like smoke behind him, shadows whispering in retreat. The moment he crossed the old ward lines, he knew something was off.
The cabin he'd built her wasn't empty. But she wasn't there.
She was gone.
"Where are you?" Dion whispered, but it wasn't a question.
It was a plea.
He was pulled by instinct more than reason — following the trail only a bonded mate could trace. His boots crushed moss and ash, his heart pounding harder with every step.
Then, he froze.
A clearing shimmered ahead, protected by a ward unlike anything he'd seen. Older than Fey magic. Sharper than witchcraft.
He reached for it—
And was thrown back.
Hard.
The shadows pulsed. Mocking him. Taunting.
Then… vision bled into him like ink through water. Not his own. Not even a vision. A bonded transmission. Unwilling, forced. Made for him to see.
He wasn't just watching.
He was invited to suffer.
Inside the hidden space, Therrin lay on a bed of obsidian rock veiled in silken shadows. Her chest rose and fell softly, skin glowing with an unnatural sheen. She looked… radiant. Open.
And he was there.
Ciaran.
A man wrapped in midnight. Tall, lean muscle under darkened armor, silver strands in his long hair catching flickers of shadowlight. But it was his hands — gods — it was his hands that Dion hated most.
Because they touched her like they knew her.
Like they owned her.
"Still watching, little Fey?" Ciaran's voice rumbled low, directly into Dion's mind.
Dion tried to speak. Nothing. His throat constricted. His body wouldn't move. Magic froze him where he stood — not by force, but humiliation. He'd been bound to witness.
Ciaran turned back to Therrin, one palm sliding down her bare thigh, slow, possessive.
"I told you she'd surrender," he said aloud now, dragging his tongue against the shell of her ear.
Therrin moaned — soft, pliant, wanting.
Dion's knees buckled. He barely caught himself on a nearby tree.
"No," he whispered. "No, you don't want this. You don't know what you're doing."
But she did. Her hips lifted to meet Ciaran's shadow-kissed touch.
"You're lying to yourself," Ciaran murmured against her neck. "You don't crave gentleness. You crave to be unmade."
Shadows slithered up her arms, curling like serpents, binding her wrists above her head. Her breath hitched.
"Yes," she whispered.
Dion felt his own breath rip from his lungs.
Ciaran smiled.
"She can't touch me now," he said to Dion, "but she doesn't need to. I'll make her feel everything."
And he did.
The shadows teased her thighs apart as Ciaran slipped between them, bare chest to her breastbone, whispering dark promises in a language only she could understand. Therrin writhed beneath him, helpless and hungry.
Ciaran's fingers danced — shadow and skin — coaxing moans from her lips like worship. Then he leaned back, eyes glowing like coal.
"Open your mouth for me."
She did. Without hesitation.
A thread of shadow slithered across her cheek, dipped into her parted lips — soft at first, teasing. Then deeper. A dark kiss. A tongue made of night.
She gasped.
Ciaran groaned.
And Dion broke.
"STOP!" he finally screamed. His voice cracked through the silence, but no sound reached her.
He could do nothing. Not scream. Not move. Just watch. Her eyes rolled back, her breath catching with every shift of shadow between her legs. Her mouth stretched in moans for a man who wasn't him.
Ciaran kept his gaze locked on Dion's, every thrust deliberate, every touch choreographed cruelty.
"See how she begs now?" he taunted. "She loves this. Loves me."
Dion clawed at his chest, fingers digging into skin, desperate to tear the pain out.
"No. She's confused. She doesn't understand what you're doing—"
"She understands better than you ever did," Ciaran said. "She was never yours to begin with."
Therrin cried out beneath him — a cry of release, raw and real, as her body arched and shadows shuddered around her like a storm.
Dion fell to the forest floor.
He didn't even feel the earth beneath him. Just the splintering of his soul.
When the haze faded, Ciaran cradled her against his chest. Her hair spilled over his arm, one wrist still loosely bound in flickering thread. She looked peaceful.
Brokenly beautiful.
And then — softly, sweetly — she whispered the words that tore Dion's heart in two:
"I love you."
And she slept.
Ciaran turned his head.
Dion's breath caught.
"You've seen enough," the shadow lord said, and with a flick of his fingers—
Darkness swallowed him.
Dion woke on the stone steps of the cabin.
His cabin.
The one he'd built with his own hands, with every ounce of love in his marrow. Now it stood silent and mocking.
He rose. Staggered to the door. Opened it.
Inside, nothing had changed. The bed was still made. The necklace he'd given her still hung on a wooden peg. Her scent lingered in the sheets.
He screamed.
Then his fury roared to life.
Wind exploded outward as his magic surged, fire igniting in his palms. The table shattered. The bed splintered. Walls cracked. He didn't stop. Couldn't.
He tore it all down. With his fists. With his fire. With the agony of a mate whose heart had been handed to the dark.
And when it was over, he stood in the ruins of what was meant to be their forever — blood on his knuckles, tears on his cheeks, and only the echo of her last words repeating like a curse.
"I love you."
But she hadn't meant him.