Updated Nov 20, 2025 • ~10 min read
Orion Grey had been alive for three hundred and seventeen years, and in all that time, he’d never felt anything quite like this.
The pull.
It had started two days ago—a sudden, violent tug in his chest that had yanked him from his current assignment in Portland and dragged him east toward the mountains. Toward a small town he’d never heard of. Toward a witch whose power was waking up whether she knew it or not.
The bond had activated. Which meant Hazel Cooper was his responsibility now.
His to protect. His to train. His to guard with his life until her powers stabilized and the threat passed.
Nothing more.
He stood in the shadow of the elementary school’s brick exterior, watching Hazel through her classroom window. She was reading to her students—something about a caterpillar—and the children sat in rapt attention, their small faces tilted up toward her like flowers seeking sun.
Appropriate metaphor. Plants did seem to seek her out.
The dead tulip on her windowsill had come back to life overnight, and this morning he’d spotted new growth in the planters by the school entrance. February in the mountains, and things were blooming wherever she walked.
Subtle. Very subtle.
Orion’s mouth twitched in something that wasn’t quite a smile. Awakening witches were rarely subtle, but Hazel seemed particularly oblivious to the magical chaos she was causing. Which meant her powers had been suppressed—deeply and skillfully—until recently.
Someone had hidden her well.
Not well enough, apparently. Orion had felt the dark magic probing the edges of Moonridge last night. Searching. Testing the town’s defenses. It was only a matter of time before they found her.
Before *she* found her.
Mara Nightwind. The name left a bitter taste even in his thoughts. The dark witch had been hunting awakening bloodline witches for decades, stealing their power before they could learn to defend themselves. She’d killed four on Orion’s watch over the centuries.
He wouldn’t let her take a fifth.
Movement in the classroom caught his attention. Hazel had stood, and one of the children—small boy, dark curly hair—was tugging on her sleeve and pointing at the window. Pointing at the tulip.
The boy’s lips moved. Orion couldn’t hear through the glass, but he’d lived long enough to read lips.
“Miss Cooper, the flower grew more. See? Magic.”
Hazel’s face went pale. She said something quick, distracted the child with a book, but her hands were shaking.
She knew something was wrong. Good. That would make his job slightly easier.
Orion pulled back from the window before she could spot him. He needed to establish his cover, gain her trust, stay close without alarming her. Principal Morgan had been remarkably easy to manipulate—a few phone calls to the district office from “concerned parents” about school security, and suddenly Moonridge Elementary needed a consultant.
Humans were predictable that way.
The dismissal bell rang, and Orion made his way around to the main entrance. He’d time this perfectly—intercept Hazel in the parking lot, establish himself as helpful and professional, start building the rapport he’d need when everything inevitably went to hell.
He’d done this twelve times before. He knew the steps.
But when Hazel emerged from the building twenty minutes later, juggling a bag full of papers and a wilting coat, and their eyes met across the parking lot, something in Orion’s chest twisted in a way that felt nothing like the previous twelve times.
Her eyes widened. For a moment, she looked ready to bolt.
Then she straightened her shoulders, lifted her chin, and walked directly toward him.
Brave. Foolish, but brave.
“Are you following me, Mr. Grey?” Her voice was steady despite the fear he could smell rolling off her in waves.
“Orion,” he corrected. “And no. I’m surveying the campus perimeter. Standard security protocol.”
“In the parking lot?”
“Security concerns don’t end at the building’s edge, Miss Cooper.”
“Hazel.” She shifted her bag to her other shoulder. “If you’re going to lurk around my workplace, you might as well use my first name.”
Was that humor? Orion studied her more carefully. She was frightened—he could see it in the rapid pulse at her throat, the white-knuckled grip on her bag strap. But she was facing him anyway, chin raised, green eyes bright with challenge.
Different. The other witches had been meek, or arrogant, or desperate. None had looked at him like he was a puzzle to solve rather than a threat to flee.
“Hazel, then.” He kept his voice neutral, professional. “Did you have a good day?”
“Sure. If you don’t count the impossibly alive plants and the new security consultant with weird timing.” She tilted her head, studying him with unnerving focus. “Can I ask you something?”
This was dangerous. But the bond hummed in his chest, urging him closer, and Orion found himself nodding.
“Have we met before?” Hazel asked. “You seem… familiar. Like I should know you.”
The bond. She was feeling it too, even if she didn’t understand what it was.
“I don’t believe so,” Orion lied smoothly. “I have one of those faces.”
“No, you really don’t.” She laughed, but it was shaky. “You look like you walked out of a different century.”
Too perceptive. He’d need to be more careful.
“I get that sometimes.” Orion stepped back, creating distance before the pull got stronger. “Drive safely, Hazel. The mountain roads ice over after dark.”
“How do you know I live in the mountains?”
Damn. Careless.
“Small town,” he said. “I’ve been studying the area. Most residential properties are in the mountain foothills.”
She didn’t look convinced. But after a moment, she nodded and continued toward her car—a small, sensible sedan with a bumper sticker that read “Teach Peace.”
Orion waited until she’d pulled out of the parking lot before allowing himself to shift.
The change rippled through him like water, bones and muscle rearranging with the ease of long practice. His human senses expanded into wolf senses—sharper, deeper, attuned to magic and threat and the electromagnetic song of the earth.
He caught Hazel’s scent on the wind. Honey and herbs and something wilder underneath. Power, barely contained, bleeding into the world around her.
She was a beacon. Every magical creature within fifty miles would be able to feel her soon.
Orion launched into a run, silver fur blending with the shadows as he followed her car at a distance. She couldn’t know he was watching. Not yet. But he’d be damned if he let her out of his sight while dark magic circled the town.
The bond pulled him after her like a leash, and for the first time in three centuries, Orion resented it.
—
Hazel’s cottage was exactly what Orion had expected.
Small, isolated, surrounded by woods on three sides. Defensible, if you knew what you were doing. A death trap if you didn’t.
He circled the property in wolf form, marking the wards already in place—old protections, fading now, probably placed when she was a child. They wouldn’t hold against a serious attack. Barely enough to deter curious lesser spirits.
He’d need to reinforce them. Tonight, while she slept.
Through the window, he watched Hazel move around her kitchen. She’d changed into leggings and an oversized sweater, her chestnut hair loose around her shoulders, and she was muttering to herself while chopping vegetables with more force than necessary.
Orion’s wolf ears picked up fragments.
“…not crazy… perfectly reasonable explanations… security consultants don’t have silver eyes… wolves aren’t real in Colorado anymore…”
She was spiraling. He could taste her anxiety on the air, sharp and electric.
Then she stopped chopping and pressed both palms flat on the counter, her shoulders heaving.
“I’m not crazy,” she said clearly, firmly. “Something is happening. Something real. And I’m going to figure out what.”
The vegetables on the counter suddenly sprouted leaves.
Hazel jumped back with a yelp, staring at the impossible greenery now growing from her dinner ingredients. A carrot had produced feathery tops. The onion had sprouted. Even the garlic cloves had pushed out tiny green shoots.
“No no no no—” She backed away, shaking her head. “That’s not—that’s not normal—”
The plants grew faster, reaching toward her like they were alive and seeking.
Orion tensed, ready to shift and intervene if her power spiraled out of control.
But Hazel surprised him. Instead of panicking further, she closed her eyes, took three deep breaths, and when she opened them again, her expression was determined.
She reached out and touched one of the sprouting carrot tops.
“Stop,” she whispered.
The growth halted immediately.
“Calm,” she said, her voice steadier now. “Be calm.”
The plants seemed to sigh, their frantic reaching settling into gentle swaying.
Orion’s wolf brain hummed with approval. Natural control. Instinctive. She had good foundation—she’d just never known to use it.
Training her might be easier than he’d thought.
Hazel opened her eyes and stared at her hand, still touching the plants. “Oh my God. I’m doing this. I’m actually doing this.”
Then she laughed—a slightly hysterical sound that made Orion’s protective instincts flare.
She needed help. Soon. Before her power attracted the wrong attention.
As if summoned by his thoughts, Orion felt it. A cold brush against his senses, probing and malicious. Dark magic, testing the wards around the property.
His hackles rose, a growl building in his chest.
The presence retreated, but not before Orion caught its signature. Familiar. Ancient. Hungry.
Mara’s scouts.
She’d found Hazel already.
Inside the cottage, Hazel had moved to the window, staring out at the dark woods with troubled eyes. Could she feel it too? The watching?
Orion melted deeper into the shadows, his wolf form invisible in the darkness. He’d stay here tonight. And every night until the threat was neutralized.
The bond pulsed in his chest, warm and insistent. *Protect her. Guard her. Keep her safe.*
He would.
Even if it meant revealing himself sooner than planned.
Even if it meant putting himself between her and the most dangerous dark witch alive.
Even if—and this was the thought that unsettled him most—he was starting to look forward to seeing her face when she looked at him, really looked at him, and saw past the danger to the person underneath.
Orion shook his wolf head, dispelling the useless thought.
He was her familiar. Her guardian. Nothing more.
The bond might make him feel connected to her, but that was biology, not emotion. Protection, not affection.
He’d learned that lesson with eleven other witches over three centuries.
But as he settled into the shadows outside Hazel’s cottage, silver eyes fixed on her window, Orion couldn’t quite convince himself that this time felt the same.
Inside, Hazel turned off the lights and disappeared from view.
And Orion Grey, immortal familiar, began his watch.
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