Damien collapsed.
One second, he was standing in her doorway, scratched and bleeding from a dream battle neither of them should've survived. The next, his knees hit the floor and his head slumped forward, skin pale, breath shallow.
"Damien!" Aurora scrambled to him, her fingers pressing to his pulse point.
It was there—but weak. Thready. Like a candle flickering before it died.
He wasn't healing. Not like before.
Panic surged in her throat.
She whispered, "You said our bond brought you into my dream. If that's true… then it's also what's killing you now."
His eyes fluttered open. "Magic backlash… won't kill me," he murmured.
She grabbed a healing charm from her belt and pressed it against his chest. The charm sizzled. Then cracked in half.
"Liar," she hissed.
Damien gave a breathless, crooked smile. "You're cute when you're mad."
"Shut up," she said, but the tremble in her voice betrayed her.
He wasn't healing because something was draining him. Something that attached during the dream realm battle.
Aurora's fingers tightened around the grimoire beside her. Her mother's warning echoed in her mind.
"Magic is a river. But binding spells? They are floods. They don't ask. They take."
But if she didn't cast it now… she'd lose him.
And something inside her, something ancient and buried, refused to let that happen.
She flipped to the page. The Luna Binding Spell glowed faintly in golden ink, as if it knew it was being called on.
"Aurora," Damien rasped, "you don't have to do this."
"I know," she whispered.
And then she began to chant.
The words didn't sound like her own. They rolled off her tongue in a dialect she'd never spoken, but one her blood remembered.
Gold light wrapped around them both, spinning faster, forming a sigil in the air—two interlocking moons and a flaming crown.
Damien's body jerked.
The scratch on his chest flared red—then vanished.
She reached her hand out. He took it without hesitation.
The spell finished with a pulse so powerful it cracked the floorboards beneath them.
Aurora fell forward into him, panting.
And for a moment—just one moment—they simply breathed together. Still. Alive.
Then Damien leaned in and brushed his lips against hers.
Not a kiss for show. Not a power play.
But a promise.
The connection between them snapped into place like a puzzle finally clicking shut.
She felt it. Everything. His emotions. His fear. His fire.
He pulled back, eyes burning gold again. "It's done."
She nodded. "We're bound now."
Damien exhaled slowly. "You have no idea what you just did."
"Neither do you."
Later That Night...
Aurora stood in her bathroom, staring at her reflection.
On her collarbone, a mark had appeared—subtle, elegant, glowing faintly. The binding sigil.
It didn't hurt. But it hummed… like it was alive.
She touched it gently.
That's when she saw it.
Behind her reflection, in the bathroom mirror…
A figure.
Not Damien.
Not her.
It was back.
The Marked One. But different now.
Watching. Smiling. And this time… it whispered something new.
"The bond won't save you. It only makes you shine brighter… for us."
Aurora turned sharply.
Nothing there.
But the mirror had cracked… right down the middle.
----
Now bound, Aurora begins feeling Damien's instincts inside her… and the need to protect him is starting to override her own fears.
But the Marked Ones are getting closer. And one of them is already inside the town.
----