Page 239 of Marked By His Hunger
Not in silence.
Never silence.
Old places do not sleep quietly—they breathe.
Stone whispered with centuries of memory. Runes hummed faintly beneath the walls. The sea below roared its endless hymn against black rock.
And beside me—Serena.
My Unnasta.
My mate.
My present, my future.
She lay curled against my chest, her magic a soft violet glow beneath her skin—no longer wild, no longer breaking the veil, but alive in a way that felt sovereign.
She had not merely survived that night at the Institute.
She had claimed it.
And through her—I had broken a curse centuries in the making.
Professor Kenna had been right.
The contract was fulfilled.
The Draugr no longer required containment.
I was not freed by force.
I was freed by fate.
I brushed my lips over Serena’s hair and allowed myself something dangerous.
Peace.
But peace is never permanent in Asgarheim.
The wind shifted.
Subtle.
Wrong.
Not threat.
Not exactly.
But power.
Ancient power.
I rose from the bed without waking her, stepping out onto the balcony that overlooked the dark cliffs. The night sky stretched endless above — layered constellations belonging to different planes overlapping in faint shimmer.
Asgarheim did not have one sky.
It had many.
