ONE NIGHT STAND WITH HOT DUKE-Chapter 185: Wind has changed

Vedseel finally moved.

Not with loud prayers, nor with shimmering magic circles. He chose the quietest place in Castle Morvex the old underground chamber whose stone walls still bore the stains of blood and oaths from generations past. A place where magic had no need to pretend it was holy.

He drove his staff into the stone floor.

"Smoke of memory," he murmured softly, almost like a whisper to something unseen. "Traces left behind by those who were once bound."

A small flame ignited before him not ordinary fire, but a pale greenish light that pulsed like a living breath. Vedseel drew an object from within his robe: a tattered strip of old lace, nearly disintegrated.

Valerie’s.

The only remnant of the night when the girl had nearly died by her own magic.

"Don’t disappoint me," Vedseel said coldly, then cast the lace into the light.

The flame trembled.

Somewhere far away, the wind began to turn.

But before any vision could fully take shape, Vedseel felt a pressure hard, insistent. He knew its source without needing to turn.

Demian.

The Duke of Morvex stood not far from him. Silent. Rigid. His eyes did not blink. There was no explosive anger, no shouting, no threats. What remained was something far more terrifying:

Absolute focus.

"How long," Demian asked curtly.

Vedseel did not take offense. "A searching spell is not a deer hunt," he replied. "It reveals direction, not guaranteed results."

Demian did not respond. His hand clenched slowly into a fist.

Kaiser stood near the door. With bitter clarity, he realized his words no longer had a place here. All advice, all warnings gone. There was an invisible wall around Demian now, built from loss and regret that had arrived too late.

"You won’t listen to me," Kaiser said at last not asking, but concluding.

Demian glanced at him briefly. "I hear you," he said flatly. "I just don’t care."

That hurt more than rage ever could.

Kaiser exhaled slowly. "If you find her... and she refuses you—"

"I’m not considering that possibility," Demian cut in.

"That," Kaiser said quietly, "is exactly the problem."

Demian turned away again. The conversation was over.

From that moment on, Demian’s world narrowed.

There was no more Ivanka. No more politics, nobility, or banquets. Castle Morvex felt hollow, like a body without a heart. Every corridor reminded him of Valerie’s footsteps. Every window felt wrong because she no longer stood there, gazing out with a calm too practiced for a woman whose life had been nothing but wounds.

Demian did not sleep.

When he closed his eyes, there were no dreams only fragments: Valerie standing with her back to him, Valerie not turning when called, Valerie walking away without anger, without tears.

That was what hurt the most.

He sat alone in his study, maps spread across the table. Caravan routes. Nomadic territories. Lands beyond Morvex’s law. His finger traced those lines again and again, as though staring long enough might force the world to yield an answer.

"Where are you going, Valerie...," he murmured softly.

Not because he could not find the path.

But because, for the first time, Valerie did not want to be found.

And that only deepened Demian’s obsession.

Elsewhere, Vedseel’s ritual finally reacted. The green flame shuddered violently, forming a vague image green hills, wide skies, a temporary encampment.

Vedseel narrowed his eyes. "You move quickly, Lady Valerie," he whispered. "Or perhaps... you are deliberately moving away."

One thing was certain now:

Valerie was alive.

And she was not alone.

Vedseel rose slowly. "I have a direction," he said to Demian. "But this path will not be clean."

Demian stood at once. No hesitation. No questions.

"Prepare whatever is needed," he said coldly. "Troops, horses, provisions."

Vedseel studied him for a long moment. "And if, in the end, you must choose... between forcing her to return or losing her forever?"

Demian answered without pause, his voice low and absolute:

"I do not lose what already belongs to me."

Under a different sky, far from the castle and its threats, Valerie closed her eyes inside Lena’s tent. The night wind brushed her face gently. For a moment, she felt safe.

But in her chest, there was a subtle vibration.

As if something... was drawing closer.

Fate had begun to move.

And this time, it would not stop halfway.

The campfire finally burned out completely, leaving behind only dull red embers glowing faintly, like a heartbeat that refused to die even as the night grew colder.

Valerie remained standing there.

The sky stretched wide above her, scattered with stars whose names she did not know. There were no castle towers, no night bells, no guards’ footsteps lingering just a little too close. Only wind, grass, and a silence that felt almost too honest.

Her hand moved again to her stomach, tighter this time.

Not from the cold.

But from a strange sensation she could not name a subtle pull, like an invisible thread being drawn from far away. It was not painful. Not forceful. But unmistakably real.

"What is this...," she whispered again, her voice more fragile now.

Inside her chest, her heart beat out of rhythm. Each pulse carried images she had not invited: cold gray eyes, a low commanding voice, a presence that always made rooms feel too small.

Demian.

She swallowed hard, brushing the thought aside as nothing more than an old habit resurfacing. She had left. She had chosen. She was not supposed to look back.

And yet... her body did not fully obey her mind.

Before the largest tent, Lena stood motionless, her staff planted firmly in the ground. Her gray hair stirred gently in the wind, her eyes narrowing as she stared toward the hills toward Valerie.

The old woman felt something she had rarely known in decades of wandering, the pressure of fate, urgent and insistent.

"The wind has changed," she murmured softly, more warning than observation. "And someone with an unyielding will is pulling a thread that should have been left loose."

She turned toward the other tents, where the mages were resting. Several of them stirred uneasily in their sleep brows furrowed, breaths uneven. A searching spell. Lena knew its sensation far too well.

"So you’ve finally moved, Duke of Morvex," she whispered soundlessly.

Valerie pulled the blanket tighter around her shoulders. The sense of safety that had wrapped around her these past days the warmth of the fire, soft laughter during daylight, footsteps that carried no fear fractured subtly that night.

For the first time since leaving the castle, she did not only feel free.

She felt seen.

Not by ordinary eyes, but by a will that was stubborn, relentless, and deeply unaccustomed to loss.

She closed her eyes for a brief moment. 𝙛𝒓𝓮𝒆𝔀𝒆𝙗𝓷𝒐𝙫𝒆𝙡.𝒄𝓸𝓶

In the darkness, the image returned Demian standing in a doorway, neither angry nor pleading. Only watching, as if declaring that the world itself would be bent until what was lost was returned to his grasp.

Valerie opened her eyes, her breath caught.

"If you come...," she whispered softly to the night, to the wind, to fate itself, "what will you do to me?"