All Chapters of MATED TO THE ENEMY: Chapter 61 - Chapter 70

I’d searched every gods-damned corner of Norsen, and she was nowhere.The training fields—empty, the mats still rolled from afternoon drills.The library—rows of silent shelves, dust motes dancing in the dying light, no sign of her curled in her favorite alcove.The gardens, the hidden rooftops where I’d seen her sneak off to think.Nothing.I had searched until my legs ached and my lungs burned. Every corner of the academy grounds mocked me with its emptiness.Courtyards I had passed a hundred times, lecture halls now dark and abandoned, dormitory wings where students laughed behind closed doors while the girl I was supposed to be bound to had vanished like she had never existed at all.The sky had already begun to dim by the time panic truly sank its claws into me. I stood at the edge of the eastern practice fields, hands braced on my knees, breathing hard as though I had been running from something rather than toward it.My chest felt tight, too tight, like my ribs were closing in

I carried her the entire way back to Norsen, her weight light in my arms and unbearably heavy in my chest. She barely stirred, her head tucked beneath my chin, her breath shallow and uneven against my throat.The forest gave way to stone paths and torchlight, but none of it registered properly. All I could focus on was how wrong it felt, like I was holding something already slipping away.Her skin was ice-cold, seeping through my shirt like frostbite, her shivers vibrating through me like aftershocks from an earthquake. I held her tighter, my steps careful but urgent, the moon filtering through the canopy in silver shards that lit her pale face.She looked so fragile, so breakable, and the thought that I might have been too late, that Valora’s jealousy had pushed her to this, twisted in my gut like a poisoned blade.Sius whined endlessly in my head, a constant loop of our mate getting hurt, of tearing the person who hurt our mate apart. I didn’t have the energy to shut him up but for

My body ached like it never had before, every muscle, every nerve felt like they had been pulled apart and only just put together a few minutes before I woke up. Whatever I was feeling, it was hell on earth.I rubbed my eyes with the back of my hands and the sight of the strange room I was in came to view. The walls were painted in ivory and decorated in tones of burgundy and gold. It looked regal to say the least.I shifted to the side, Still groggy from the sleepiness and saw the large four-poster I had slept on, big enough to fit six bodies comfortably. Slowly, and I mean, painfully slowly, I realized this wasn’t my room, and the memories of last night began to flood in bits and pieces.I ran off into the woods from the bathroom where I had almost obliterated Valora and her minions.I pressed my palm to my chest as the recollection finally slammed into place. I remembered how I had screamed—not just with my mouth, but with something deeper, something buried under skin and bone. I re

The letter arrived at dawn.I found it slipping under my door like a secret shame, unconcealed and with no seal, just my name in my father’s sharp, unyielding handwriting. I knew what it would say before I opened it. I’d known for years.My heart didn’t race. It didn’t leap or falter or hesitate the way it used to when I was younger, when every piece of news from home felt like something sacred, something I wasn’t quite ready to carry. This time, it simply… settled in my bones like oil. Heavy. Certain.I closed the door behind me before breaking the seal, my fingers steady even as something deeper inside me shifted into place.I made my way to the edge of my bed and sat, the parchment trembling in my fingers, and read the words I’d been dreading since I was nineteen.“The time has come for the wheel of magic has turned. The Veil is thinning. The Marked One has awakened. Return at once and bring the Amulet of Othon with you. I believe you must have found it. Your son’s life depends on

I couldn’t sit still.The room felt too small, too suffocating, like the walls were closing in with every step I took. I paced from one end to the other, boots striking against the floor in sharp, uneven rhythms, my hands clenching and unclenching at my sides like I was trying to hold something back—something violent, something inevitable.“Aklan,” Kiyan said for what had to be the fifth time. “You need to calm down.”I didn’t answer because I couldn’t.Every time I slowed, every time I tried to listen, it came rushing back—the image of her in that clearing, trembling, terrified, completely out of control. I could still feel it, like it hadn’t ended, like it was still happening somewhere inside me.The mate bond pulsed under my skin, raw and relentless.I shouldn’t have been tapping into it.I knew that.It was torture—pure, self-inflicted torture, but I couldn’t stop. I kept reaching for it, kept brushing against the echo of her fear, her confusion, her pain. It wrapped around my che