Page 55 of Mane Squeeze
No answer.
She stood too fast. Her vision blurred. Her magic surged.
She moved from room to room, panic building with each breath. No muddy boots by the door. No half-drunk mug of coffee on the counter. No lion curled in the corner pretending not to care.
Her bond. Heranchor.
Gone.
Lillith staggered into the back hall and flung open the door to the guest room where the boy from the market lay. Her fingers shook as she touched his forehead.
Still warm. Still breathing. The shadow runes were gone. His color had returned. He was stable.
So why did it feel like everything was unraveling?
She stormed outside barefoot, the gravel biting into her skin, pain grounding her in the present moment. Her breath clouded in the early morning air. “Dominic!”
No answer. And this time, when she reached out with her magic to sense him—she felt nothing. Like he’d been carved out of her, root and stem.
“No, no, no…”
She didn’t think—just moved.
The forest greeted her like an old friend with bad intentions. Whispering Woods lived up to its name this morning, the trees humming softly in a language few dared understand. Moss clung to every stone. The earth was wet beneath her feet.
Every hair on her arms stood on end.
Magic buzzed here—strong, old, angry.
He hadn’t left her. He’d beentaken.And if anyone in this realm was cruel and cunning enough to tear them apart with such precision, it was Thaloryn.
She shoved her fingers through her curls, breathing hard, heart pounding. She’d spent her life keeping people out, keeping her power neat, her soul guarded. And now the one person who cracked through all that without permission was missing.
Because she’d hesitated. Pushed. Pulled. Guarded herself right into his absence.
“I will not lose him,” she hissed.
The wind answered, swirling dead leaves at her feet.
She stepped deeper into the trees, her fingers outstretched. She felt the faintest echo of him—faint, as if it were memory rather than magic.
She dropped to her knees in a circle of frost-covered violets, the place where ley lines met. She hadn’t done this kind of magic since she left the high fae courts. She’d sworn never to draw from that part of herself again.
But for Dominic she’d burn it all down. And she hated the fact that it took her this long to really see that.
She carved a circle into the dirt with her dagger, fingers nimble despite the chill. She laid her blood on the center, then her breath, then the charm she always wore hidden beneath her blouse—a scrap of gold thread from her mother’s wedding robes. She’d told herself once it was for protection. But really, it had always been a connection.
To love.
To loss.
She whispered the words in the language of stars and wind, voice shaking. “Take me to him. Show me what I can’t see. Bind me to his path.”
The trees trembled. The wind stopped. And something ancient stirred.
It wasn’t an answer. Not yet. But it was a pulse. A direction.
Her fingers clenched around the charm. “I’ll trade anything. I’ll give anything. Just bring him back.”
