Chapter 76 - What Was Given
Chapter 76 - What Was Given
Evren
He felt her the moment it happened.
Not the way humans sense a tremor. Not the way shifters track prey. This was deeper — older. His bones knew it first. Then his blood.
The first bite struck like a pulse beneath his ribs — not pain, but disruption. A shift in rhythm that wasn’t his but should have been. She’d been touched — not skin, not scent — soul. And it wasn’t him.
He hadn’t moved. Not yet.
The second wave hit deeper — slower, stronger — and something inside him cracked open.
He moved then. Not a sprint, not a lunge — just one step, then another, too fast to be human and too focused to be rage alone. He didn’t know where he was going until his body made the choice for him: the main hall.
She fed again. No hunger. No violence. Just need. He felt it bloom in her, felt the surrender — and worse, the permission.
Then came the shift.
The ache. The stretch. The slide of skin on skin where no one else should have ever been. Her breath caught, her pulse surged, her body opened — and somewhere else in the tower, Evren went still.
They had touched each other. Taken each other. Fully.
He saw nothing. But he knew.
The fury wasn’t loud. Not yet. It moved like smoke — thick, slow, clinging to the edges of his thoughts. His breath came short, shallow. Every muscle locked.
His female.
That ink-soaked parasite, that desecrator had touched her. Fed on her. Fucked her.
Evren pressed his palm to the nearest wall, bracing himself as if the building might tilt beneath the weight of what roared inside him. His jaw ached from clenching. His skin buzzed with heat he didn’t remember summoning.
She wasn’t his. Not yet.
But the bond was already threading through his spine like barbed wire coming to life.
He didn’t know what he’d do when he saw her — not exactly.
But he knew this: if that marrow-rat reached her first again, there wouldn’t be anything left standing between them.
He took the stairs two at a time, not out of urgency but because anything slower might snap the leash he was barely holding. The tower’s wards hummed against his skin as he passed them, recognizing him, but the energy twisted — flickering, agitated. As though even the building knew what had shifted.
He didn’t slow when he hit the main landing. The air here was different — thicker, as if it had already caught the echo of what they’d done. His boots struck stone and silence in equal measure.
He wasn’t alone. Not for long.
He felt her moving.
She was coming too.
He didn’t move any farther.
Not yet.
He stood at the edge of the hall, the heavy doors still parted, stone cold beneath his boots and silence hanging from the rafters like a held breath. The pulse of her nearness beat louder with every second, threading through his limbs like wire gone hot. She wasn’t here yet — not in sight — but he could feel her. Could smell her. Not just her skin or her blood. Her arousal. His stomach turned at the scent — not because it repelled him, but because it branded.
He had imagined this moment differently.
Not soft. Not simple. But hers. Her mouth on his, her blood shared freely — not in rage or accident, but with purpose. He had dreamed it more than once — never gently, but always with clarity. Her fingers tangled in his hair, her breath catching at his throat. The wildness between them bridled just long enough to let the hunger become communion.
Instead, he’d felt her give herself — not to him, but to that ink-soaked parasite. The bond blooming where his should have already taken root. He hadn’t claimed her — they’d only just met, and barely that. But still, he'd waited. Held back. Given her space to choose, even if everything in him screamed that she already belonged with him.
But this?
This felt like theft.
The tower’s light bent strangely at the corners of the hall, warped by old magic responding to his mood. The air shimmered faintly where his temper flared — barely visible, but sharp enough to sting the skin.
He didn’t care who saw it.
Let the marrow-rat feel it before he crossed the threshold.
Let her.
He stood still, hands loose at his sides, every muscle taut with restraint. The air around him thrummed with energy that had no shape yet, no target. It waited on his will — and that will was one glance away from breaking.
They were coming.
And this time, he would not look away.
He forced his breath steady, chest tight beneath the layers of tension that hadn’t yet found release. Every sound — the creak of ancient beams, the whisper of wind sliding past the high arched windows — twisted into something watchful. The tower felt different around him now, not just responding to his presence but bracing for it, like the walls themselves remembered his fury.
He flexed his fingers once, slowly, as if considering going for a weapon just for show, but even that felt wrong—unnecessary when what he truly wanted was claws, teeth, the raw violence of his own body. He didn’t need it. If it came to violence — if Ezekial stepped into that space with her still under the scent of what they’d done — Evren wouldn’t draw steel. He’d use his hands. His teeth. His rage.
He imagined her turning toward him now, meeting his eyes without fear, as if she'd always known what he was and wasn't afraid to see it.
He remembered the pull. The ache beneath it.
And now that same ache coiled tighter.
They were drawing closer. He could feel it — the rhythm of their steps matched, the unity in motion. That alone made his stomach twist. She walked beside Ezekial. Not behind. Not guarded.
With.
His jaw locked. His weight shifted. Every instinct screamed to intercept, to sever, to claim. But he held.
Because she was coming.
And he would not meet her splintered.
He would meet her whole — or not at all.