Updated Nov 20, 2025 • ~8 min read
The adrenaline wore off around midnight.
Hazel had just finished brushing her teeth when she felt it through the bond—a sharp spike of pain from Orion’s room down the hall. The healing she’d done during the cleanup had helped, but it hadn’t been thorough. She’d been distracted, focused on the community, on keeping up appearances.
Now, in the quiet privacy of her cottage, his body was making him pay for it.
She didn’t knock. Just opened his door and found him sitting on the edge of the bed, shirtless, one hand pressed against his ribs. His skin was mottled with bruises—deep purple and black spreading across his torso like spilled ink.
“You should be asleep,” he said without looking up.
“So should you.” She crossed the room, flipping on the bedside lamp. “Why didn’t you say something? I could feel you were hurting.”
“You were busy. The town needed you.”
“Orion.” She knelt in front of him, placing her hands on his knees. “Look at me.”
He did. His grey eyes were tired, shadowed with pain he was trying to hide.
“I’m going to heal you properly,” she said. “No arguments.”
“Hazel, you’ve used so much magic today. You need to rest—”
“And you need to not have broken ribs.” She stood, moving behind him on the bed. “Lie down. On your stomach.”
“This isn’t necessary.”
“Lie. Down.”
He obeyed with a sigh, stretching out on the bed. Hazel positioned herself beside him, studying the damage. The bruising was worse than she’d realized. The primordial darkness had done serious internal damage.
“This is going to take a while,” she murmured, placing both hands on his back.
She felt him tense beneath her touch. “Hazel—”
“Shh. Relax. Let me work.”
She called her magic slowly, carefully. Green healing light spread from her palms, sinking into his skin. She could feel the injuries beneath—cracked ribs, torn muscle, bruised organs. The kind of damage that would take a normal person months to heal from.
But Orion wasn’t normal. And neither was she.
She poured magic into him, following the pathways of his bones, knitting fractures together fiber by fiber. It required intense concentration. She had to feel every injury, understand its shape and depth, then coax his body to remember wholeness.
Orion’s breathing changed as she worked. Deepened. The tension in his shoulders melted away.
“That feels…” He trailed off with a low sound that made her stomach flip.
“Good?” she asked, trying to keep her voice steady.
“Beyond good. I can feel your magic inside me. It’s—” Another sharp breath as she sealed a particularly bad rib fracture. “Intimate.”
It was intimate. Her magic was literally inside his body, touching places no one else could reach. And through the bond, she could feel his response—not just physical relief from pain, but something deeper. Something that made heat pool low in her belly.
She moved her hands lower, following the bruising down his spine. His skin was warm beneath her palms. Smooth except for old scars—faint lines she’d never noticed before.
“How did you get these?” she asked, tracing a thin scar across his shoulder blade.
“Bayonet. 1780s, I think. I was protecting a witch in Philadelphia during the Revolutionary War.”
“And this one?” Her fingers found another mark on his lower back.
“Werewolf claws. Scotland, 1820s.”
She continued healing, continued discovering his history written in scars. Each one had a story. Each one was a moment he’d nearly died protecting someone else.
Three hundred years of service. Three hundred years of putting his body between witches and danger.
“You’ve been hurt so many times,” she whispered.
“Goes with the job.”
“Do you ever heal completely? Or do the scars stay?”
“They stay. Familiars heal fast, but we still scar.” He shifted slightly beneath her hands. “Why?”
“Because every mark on your body is from protecting someone. From sacrificing yourself. And I—” She had to stop, emotion tightening her throat. “I hate that you’ve been in pain for so long.”
“Hazel.” His voice was rough. “It’s what I was made for.”
“No.” She moved her hands to his shoulders, channeling more magic into the damaged tissue there. “You weren’t *made* for anything. You were a person who chose service. That’s different.”
He was quiet for a long moment. Then: “You’re the first witch who’s ever said that.”
“Said what?”
“That I chose. Everyone else treats familiars like we’re objects. Tools. Bound to serve because that’s our nature.” He turned his head, meeting her eyes over his shoulder. “But you’ve never treated me that way.”
“Because you’re not a tool. You’re—” She swallowed. “You’re Orion. You’re stubborn and protective and you quote old poetry when you think I’m not listening. You’re a person.”
The look in his eyes made her breath catch. Intense. Vulnerable. Like she’d just cracked open something he’d kept locked away for centuries.
“Roll over,” she said softly. “I need to work on your chest.”
He hesitated. Then complied, turning onto his back beneath her hands.
This was worse. Or better. Or both.
Face to face. His grey eyes locked on hers. Hazel’s hands on his bare chest, feeling his heartbeat beneath her palms. The bruising here was darker, spreading across his ribs and sternum like shadows.
She tried to focus on healing. On the work.
But her magic was responding to more than just his injuries. The bond was amplifying everything—his awareness of her touch, her awareness of his body, the magnetic pull between them that had been building for weeks.
“Breathe,” she instructed, pressing gently on his ribs to assess the damage.
He inhaled shakily. “Trying.”
“Does this hurt?” She channeled magic directly into a cracked rib.
“No. The opposite.”
She could feel what he meant through the bond. Her healing magic felt good. Really good. Like warmth and electricity and relief all mixed together. And the more she touched him, the more the sensation built.
Dangerous territory.
She moved her hands lower, following the worst of the bruising. Her fingertips brushed over ridges of muscle, the hard planes of his stomach. He was perfectly still beneath her, but she could feel his pulse racing through the bond.
“Almost done,” she murmured.
“Take your time.”
She smiled despite herself. “I thought you wanted me to rest.”
“Changed my mind. This is—” He stopped as her magic sank deeper, repairing internal bleeding near his kidney. “God, Hazel.”
His hand came up, catching hers against his chest. For a moment they just stayed like that. Connected. Her magic flowing between them. His heart thundering beneath her palm.
“You’re remarkable,” he said quietly. “Your healing magic is stronger than any witch I’ve known. You could feel every injury without me telling you. Fixed things I didn’t even know were broken.”
“The bond helps. I can sense everything through it.”
“I know. I feel you too.” His thumb stroked across her knuckles. “Your exhaustion. Your worry. The way you push yourself too hard because you think you need to prove something.”
“I don’t—”
“You do. You think because your powers awakened late, you’re behind. Not good enough. But Hazel, you’re—” His voice roughened. “You’re the most powerful witch I’ve ever protected. And the kindest. You use all that power to heal. To nurture. Even in battle, your instinct was to protect, not destroy.”
She didn’t know what to say. No one had ever seen her like this. Understood her like this.
“The bruising is gone,” she finally managed. “How do you feel?”
He sat up slowly, testing his movement. Perfect range of motion. No pain. He met her eyes. “Like new.”
They were too close. Sitting on his bed together, faces inches apart, the bond singing between them with awareness and want and things neither of them could say.
“I should go,” Hazel whispered. “Let you rest.”
“Hazel—”
“Goodnight, Orion.”
She fled before he could finish. Before she did something stupid like kiss him. Like ask him to make her stay.
Back in her room, she pressed her back against the door, heart racing.
Through the bond, she felt his response. His want. His restraint. His loneliness.
And beneath it all, one truth she couldn’t unhear:
He’d called her remarkable.
He’d looked at her like she was everything.
And she’d never wanted someone more in her entire life.
This was going to be a problem.
Reader Reactions