Updated Nov 20, 2025 • ~10 min read
They didn’t talk about the festival incident.
For three days, Orion was perfectly professional. Trained her in combat magic. Checked perimeter wards. Scanned for threats. Slept in wolf form outside her door.
And absolutely, completely avoided any conversation that might venture into personal territory.
Hazel let him have his space. But the question kept burning in her mind.
*What rules?*
On the fourth night, she found him on her back porch at two in the morning. Sitting on the steps, looking up at the stars. Out of wolf form, which was unusual. He usually shifted at night for better senses.
She opened the door quietly. “Can’t sleep?”
He glanced back. “Did I wake you?”
“No. I felt you through the bond.” She sat beside him on the steps. “You’re restless.”
“Old habit. Familiars don’t need much sleep.”
“But you’re tired. I can feel it.”
He smiled faintly. “Can’t hide anything from you anymore, can I?”
“Not really.” She pulled her cardigan tighter against the autumn chill. “What are you thinking about?”
“The past.”
“Anything specific?”
“All of it. Three hundred years is a lot of past.” He gestured at the stars. “Orion—the constellation, not me—was visible the night I died. Or almost died. The night I became this.”
Hazel stayed quiet, sensing he needed to talk.
“I was thirty-two,” Orion continued. “Human. Living in London. I worked as a—well, the modern equivalent would be a private investigator. I found things for people. Solved problems. Got into trouble regularly.” His mouth quirked. “I was good at fighting. Good at reading people. Good at protecting those who couldn’t protect themselves.”
“Sounds familiar,” Hazel murmured.
“I suppose I haven’t changed much.” He looked down at his hands. “There was a woman—a witch, though I didn’t know it then. She was being hunted by a dark coven. Hired me to protect her. I did. For months. Fought off attack after attack. Until one night, they sent something I couldn’t fight.”
“What?”
“A demon. Actual demon, summoned and bound. It killed her before I could stop it. Then it killed me. Or tried to.” He was quiet for a moment. “I was dying. Bleeding out in an alley. Knowing I’d failed. And then—they appeared. Three witches from an ancient coven. Offered me a choice.”
“Become a familiar or die,” Hazel said softly, remembering what he’d told her before.
“Yes. They said I had the right qualities—protective instincts, combat skills, strong will. Said I could save other witches if I accepted their binding. Live forever in service.” He laughed without humor. “When you’re dying at thirty-two, immortality sounds like a gift. I didn’t understand the cost.”
“What cost?”
“Everything that makes you human. Family—they all died while I stayed young. Friends—couldn’t keep them without revealing what I was. Home—I moved every few decades to avoid suspicion. Love—” He stopped. “That was forbidden from the start.”
There it was again. That word. Forbidden.
“The first witch I protected was kind,” Orion continued. “Powerful earth witch, about your age. I thought—briefly—that maybe we could be friends. Partners. But she made it clear I was a servant. A tool. When she died of old age, I moved to the next witch in her bloodline. Then the next. Then the next.”
“Twelve witches,” Hazel said.
“Twelve. Over three hundred years. Some were cruel. Some were indifferent. A few were kind, but still distant. Always the bloodline, never the familiar. Always the witch, never the man.” He looked at her. “You’re the first one who’s ever asked me questions. Who wanted to know about my past, my thoughts, my feelings. Who healed me like—like I mattered.”
Hazel’s throat tightened. “You do matter.”
“To you. But Hazel, I’m not supposed to matter. I’m supposed to be invisible. Professional. Detached.” He shook his head. “Three hundred years I’ve managed it. Never got close. Never cared too much. Never let myself feel—” He stopped again.
“Feel what?”
“This.” He gestured between them. “Whatever this is. This bond is different from anything I’ve experienced. Stronger. Deeper. It’s like you’re in my head, in my heart, in my—” He stopped himself. “It’s terrifying.”
“Why?”
“Because when this is over, when Mara is defeated and you’re safe and trained, I’ll have to leave.” His voice went rough. “That’s how it works. The familiar stays until the threat is neutralized and the witch can protect herself. Then I move on. Wait for the next crisis, the next summons, the next witch who needs protection.”
Hazel’s heart stopped. “What?”
“I don’t get to stay, Hazel. This isn’t—I’m not yours permanently. I’m just borrowed. Temporary.”
“No.” The word came out fierce. “No, that’s not—we’re bonded. You said the bond was deep, unprecedented—”
“The bond will fade when I leave. It always does.”
“I don’t believe you.”
“It’s not about belief. It’s about the magic that binds familiars. We serve. We protect. We move on.” He stood abruptly, pacing the porch. “I should have left already. You’re powerful enough now to defend yourself against most threats. I’m staying longer than protocol suggests.”
“Protocol?” Hazel stood too, anger replacing shock. “You’re talking about us like this is some kind of mission. Like I’m just another assignment.”
“You’re not—” He turned to her, eyes blazing. “God, Hazel, you’re not just anything. That’s the problem. Every other witch I could leave without a second thought. But you—”
“What? I what?”
“You make me want to stay!” The confession tore out of him. “You make me want things I haven’t wanted in three hundred years. A home. A partner. A life that’s mine, not borrowed. You make me feel human again, and I’m not human anymore. I’m a familiar. I have a duty, a purpose, rules I can’t break—”
“What are the rules?” Hazel demanded. “You keep mentioning rules, but you won’t tell me what they are!”
“Because if I tell you, it’ll make everything worse!”
“Worse than you planning to leave? Worse than you pushing me away every time we get close? Worse than lying awake at night feeling you want me through the bond while you pretend you don’t?”
He stared at her. “You feel that?”
“Of course I feel it. The bond goes both ways, remember? I feel your want, your fear, your loneliness. Three hundred years of loneliness, Orion. And you’re so used to it you think it’s normal.”
“It is normal. For me.”
“It doesn’t have to be.”
“Yes,” he said quietly, “it does.”
They stood there in the darkness, close enough to touch but worlds apart.
“I don’t understand,” Hazel whispered. “If you feel this too, if the bond is real, why are you so determined to leave?”
“Because staying would destroy everything. My immortality, my power, my ability to protect you—”
“Why? Why would staying destroy that?”
He looked at her for a long moment. Then, slowly, he reached out and cupped her face in his hand. His thumb brushed across her cheekbone.
“Because familiars who fall in love with their witches lose everything,” he said softly. “And Hazel, I fell for you weeks ago.”
Her breath stopped.
“That’s the rule,” he continued, his voice barely a whisper. “The one rule that can never be broken. Familiars who develop romantic feelings for their charge lose their immortality. Their powers. Everything that makes them useful. It’s the binding’s failsafe—keeping familiars from getting compromised by attachment.”
“So you’re saying—”
“I’m saying I’m already compromised. Already breaking the rule just by feeling this. And if I stay, if I give in to what we both want—” His hand dropped. “I become human. Mortal. Powerless. And then I can’t protect you. Can’t fight Mara when she comes back. Can’t keep you safe.”
Hazel’s world tilted.
All this time, she’d thought he was pushing her away because he didn’t feel the same. Because she wasn’t enough.
But the truth was so much worse.
He was pushing her away because loving her would cost him everything he was.
And he thought protecting her was more important than being with her.
“Orion,” she breathed. “That’s the most—”
“Don’t,” he said. “Please. I know what you’re going to say. That you don’t care if I’m mortal. That we’ll figure it out. That love is more important than power.” He smiled sadly. “And you’d be right. But Hazel—how can I choose to be with you if it means I can’t protect you? How can I be selfish enough to take what I want when it puts you in danger?”
“You’re not selfish—”
“I am. Because even knowing all this, even knowing I should leave right now before it gets worse—I can’t. I keep staying. Keep finding excuses. Keep hoping there’s some way to—” He shook his head. “There isn’t. There’s never been a familiar who broke this rule and kept their power. It’s absolute.”
Hazel’s mind was racing. “What if we defeat Mara first? What if I’m trained enough, safe enough, that it doesn’t matter if you lose your familiar powers?”
“The dark covens won’t stop with Mara. You’re too powerful. They’ll keep coming.”
“Then we’ll fight them together—”
“Hazel.” He caught her hands. “I’ve seen what dark magic can do. Seen witches I protected killed despite my best efforts. I can’t—I won’t—risk you like that. I’d rather leave now, keep you safe from a distance, than stay and watch you die because I was too weak to protect you.”
“So what?” Her voice broke. “We just—ignore this? Pretend we don’t feel anything? You leave when Mara’s defeated and I never see you again?”
“Yes.”
“That’s not fair.”
“No,” he agreed. “It’s not. But it’s the only choice that keeps you alive.”
She wanted to argue. To fight. To tell him he was wrong, that they could find another way, that love was worth the risk.
But looking into his eyes—seeing three hundred years of duty and sacrifice and learned loneliness—she knew he believed every word.
He’d been taught his entire existence as a familiar that his feelings didn’t matter. That his purpose was service. That loving his witch was the ultimate betrayal of duty.
And he’d loved her anyway.
The most selfless man she’d ever met thought loving her was selfish.
“Go to bed, Hazel,” Orion said gently. “Please. This conversation—it can’t happen again.”
“Orion—”
“Please.”
She went. Not because she agreed. But because she could feel his pain through the bond, and adding to it felt cruel.
But as she lay in bed, staring at the ceiling, one thought crystallized:
She wasn’t giving up.
The rules said familiars who fell in love lost their power.
But the rules had never met a witch like Hazel.
And she was going to find a way to break them.
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