Chapter 17
Kieran
She left before the applause ended.
Yes, I’d been the one to turn my back first, but the act of her fleeing felt like my ribs had been pulled from my chest and handed to a stranger.
The music still lingered, high and hollow, but the world had already narrowed to the echo of her steps fading down the marble corridor.
I could feel each one like a strike against stone.
For a moment, I couldn’t move. My body didn’t know how to stand without the shape of her beside me. Then Tobias laughed softly across the table—a sound full of wine and practiced falseness—and that was all it took.
I pushed away from the dais and went after her. The air in my lungs narrowed until I could taste copper. My heart pounded so loud I could hear it in my teeth. For once, leaving the hall didn’t feel like command or convenience. It was a stab—hers—and I’d been the one to let her walk on the blade.
The corridors were dim and full of candle smoke.
Perfume, bloodwine, and secrets—the whole place reeked of power and pretense.
She walked quickly, her black silk dress moving like stormwater.
Her shoulders were stiff, her head held high, but I could see the tension in her hands, the way her fingers clenched the skirt as she turned a corner.
“Merrit,” I murmured, the sound still echoing off the stone, but she gave me nothing.
I tried again, louder this time. “Merrit.”
She didn’t slow, didn’t even glance back. The silence she left behind her felt like judgment. When I caught up, I reached for her wrist, and she spun.
Her eyes were wet. That was the first thing I saw. Fury and tears, fighting for the same ground in those glittering green eyes. The second was the dagger, bright and firm between us. She raised it fast, single-handed, breath ragged, shoulders trembling.
Her signs came sharp, violent. “You left me. Again.”
The motion of her fingers hit me harder than any insult.
I swallowed. “I had to.”
“You always have to.”
Her movements were wild—hand blurring almost too quick to read, more emotion than words. Anger, disbelief, hurt. “You left me there like I was nothing.”
It hit me harder than steel ever could. “I didn’t want to.”
“Then why did you?” Her fingers struck the air, hard enough to sting. “You didn’t even look at me.”
“I couldn’t,” I said. “If I had, I wouldn’t have stopped.”
She froze, tears streaking down her face. One slipped off her chin and hit the floor.
Then she lunged—not to strike, but to shove. The dagger’s point pressed just below my collarbone, an inch from my throat. For a breath, I thought she’d cut me, and a part of me wanted her to. The jagged place inside me wanted to bleed the truth.
Her chest heaved; her lips pulled back into something that wasn’t quite a snarl, wasn’t quite a sob.
For a heartbeat, I thought she’d drive it in.
“Do it,” I said quietly. “If it helps. Do it.”
Her grip faltered. The blade wavered. Her eyes flooded again, too bright, and she looked at me like she hated that she couldn’t hate me enough.
I reached out and closed my hand around hers. The dagger trembled between our palms, both of us shaking.
Together we lowered it an inch, the edge kissing my skin.
“If you want my blood,” I whispered, “it’s yours.”
She stared at me, breathing hard. Then the dagger slipped from her hand and clattered to the floor, spinning once before settling. The sound went through me like a strike. I bent and picked it up, the weight of it cold and familiar in my hand before I placed it back in the sheath at her thigh.
Her body sagged. She was still crying, silent but uncontained, and every tear felt like an accusation.
When I finally closed the distance between us, she didn’t look up. Her lashes were wet, her breathing ragged and raw. It hollowed me out, left nothing but guilt and the need to fix what I’d broken.
I stood there, useless, while her tears soaked into the silk at her collar. The smell of her blood, faint and fading, mixed with the salt of her skin until I couldn’t tell where remorse ended and hunger began.
She didn’t back away, not meeting my eyes. The silence between us went on too long. I could hear her heartbeat—uneven, and harried, echoing against the walls—and beneath the thin fabric of her gown, her pulse stumbled.
As the candlelight shifted, I saw it: faint shadows crawling back under her skin, bruises reappearing like ghosts. The purple bloom at her jaw. The mottled dark along her collarbone. Her body was unraveling before my eyes.
She noticed it, too. Her hands went to her ribs, her breath catching with the pain she’d tried to hide.
“You took something,” I said quietly, realization sinking in. “A healer’s tonic.”
She didn’t answer, just pressed her lips together, trembling. I stepped forward and brushed my thumb just beneath her jaw—close enough to feel the fever in her skin, the bruise reforming beneath it.
“It’s wearing off,” I murmured, voice low. “You’re hurting again.”
Her lashes flicked up, glare bright through the tears as her hands shook. “Not your concern.”
I almost laughed, but it came out as a breath instead. “Everything about you is my concern.”
The corridor felt too narrow, too full of echoes that didn’t belong to us. I noticed the bruise on her jaw darken by the heartbeat, and something in me gave way.
“You shouldn’t be out here,” I said, though I wasn’t sure if I meant her or myself.
She swayed when she breathed too deeply, her hand catching the wall for balance. That was all it took. I stepped forward, catching her before pride could make her fight me.
She tried anyway—hands striking my chest, a flare of stubborn strength—but her knees nearly buckled.
“Enough,” I muttered. “You’re coming with me.”
I scooped her up before she could argue, one arm under her knees, the other at her back.
Her hair brushed my jaw, smelling of her pain and that gentle spice of her fire.
She hit me once, twice, uselessly. The sound of it hurt worse than the impact.
I carried her anyway, down the long corridor, past guards who pretended not to notice. The thud of my boots echoed too loud.
By the time we reached my chambers, she’d stopped fighting. The door slammed behind us, sealing the world out. What was left was her heartbeat against my throat, wild and breaking.
I set her down gently on her feet. For a moment, she swayed, fingers curling in the front of my coat before she realized and pushed me away. Her breathing was shallow, the anger still there, but under it, I caught a flicker of something else—pain. The kind that sank deeper than bruises.
Her legs shook when she tried to step back. I saw her wince, jaw tightening as color drained from her face. She was falling apart and still trying to stand proud. Saints, she’d rather collapse than let me see her hurt.
I reached for her again, slower this time. She didn’t retreat, only lifted her chin in defiance.
I plucked her dagger from the strap at her thigh, the metal cold when it should have been warm from her skin. She watched me warily, trembling but not stepping back.
“Let me fix it,” I said.
Her head snapped toward me, disbelief cutting through her tears. Before she could argue, I raised the blade and pressed it to my throat. The edge kissed my skin. A clean line of red welled up, bright as candle flame.
Her eyes went wide, hands flying, “Stop!”
But it was too late. Blood slid warm down my collar. She reached for me, but I caught her wrist before she could snatch the dagger away. “Easy,” I murmured, gentler than I meant to be. “It’s just a cut.”
She struggled, silent and shaking, tears still wet on her cheeks. The fury had faded to something smaller, something wounded.
“Drink,” I urged softly.
Her mouth parted, hesitant, confusion tightening her brow.
“My blood will heal you,” I said. “No one’s ever touched it. Not even my lovers.”
The admission came out rougher than I meant it to, stripped bare by the thought of what I was offering. No lover, no enemy, no one had ever been this close.
I could feel the heat of the cut, the trickle sliding down my throat, and the way her gaze followed it: cautious, hungry, afraid.
I swallowed, voice fraying. “But you—”
Her eyes lifted, meeting mine through the shimmer of candlelight, wary and unsteady.
The smell of blood hung between us, metallic and faintly sweet.
My cock pulsed against the fabric of my trousers at the thought of her blunted teeth against my skin, of her tongue lapping the blood from my flesh.
Something inside me craved it, needed it.
I sank down onto the edge of the bed so we were level. Even then, she had to tilt her chin up to meet my eyes.
“You can,” I murmured, quieter now. The words came out like a confession and an invitation. This was more than an offering, it was a truce wrapped in a promise, and I had no idea what I was giving up.
The dagger clattered to the floor between us. The scent of blood thickened in the air—metallic, sharp, intimate.
Her lips hovered over the wound, trembling. I could feel the heat of her breath on my skin, every exhale brushing the cut like a promise she hadn’t meant to make.
“Go on,” I whispered. “It’s all right.”
She hesitated, shaking her head once, then inched closer. Her hands fisted in the front of my coat. When she finally closed the distance, her mouth met the wound in a touch so soft it nearly undid me.
The first pull sent heat through me so suddenly that I was lucky I’d decided to sit down.
Her mouth was soft, cautious at first, then desperate as the taste hit her.
The sensation wasn’t pain—it was ignition.
Fire racing through my veins, light blooming behind my eyes.
Every heartbeat echoed hers. The world tilted, blurred, folded in on that single point of contact until I couldn’t tell where I ended and she began.
I caught her shoulders, not to keep her still but because I couldn’t bear the distance, dragging her into my lap until there was nowhere left for her to go but against me.
Her body went taut under my hands. A muffled sound escaped her—half-gasp, half-wonder—as the power took hold.
I felt it more than saw it: the tremor in her muscles, the sudden steadiness of her pulse, the way the weakness drained from her as if the world itself remembered she was alive.
Her breath hitched, quick and startled, and I knew it was working.
“Stay,” I whispered, fighting off the urge to strip her bare and fuck her into the mattress. “Just a little more.” This wasn’t for me. This was for her.
She obeyed, shivering, her fingers clutching at my shirt as her scent sweetened with arousal.
It was rain and wind and something wild and alive beneath the copper of my blood.
It curled into my nose, lengthening my fangs as I imagined what fucking her while I fed on her blood would be like.
Every part of me craved her, needed her, never wanted to let her go.
Her heartbeat fell in sync with mine as the room seemed to hum around us, a heartbeat shared between bodies that refused to stay separate.
Then it hit.
A resonance deep in my chest, a vibration that wasn’t sound but recognition. Her pulse beat through me; her breath moved inside my lungs. For a moment, we were the same rhythm.
The world didn’t tilt—it sharpened. Every sound, every flicker of light snapped into painful clarity. The hum in my veins turned melodic, almost sentient. I drew in a breath that didn’t feel like mine.
She pulled back before I could speak, eyes wide, lips red with my blood.
“Merrit—” I started, but the word splintered.
The air between us was vibrating, a faint, resonant pulse threading through the space she’d left. Not music. Not thought. Something older.
A whisper uncoiled in the back of my mind—not in my ears, but beneath them, in the marrow of me.
You remember me.
The voice was soft, feminine, yet threaded with something deeper—a sound like water over stone, wind through the trees. It didn’t belong to any language I knew, and yet I understood it the way I understood my own name.
My pulse stuttered. The connection hadn’t broken with her mouth—it had deepened. The air hummed with her heartbeat. The whisper threaded through every part of me, speaking again, clearer this time.
Bound and answered. Found and known.
The words rippled through me like something older than breath, as if the blood itself was remembering what it once was. I froze. The words weren’t sound at all. They were blood. They were hers—woven through mine.
My chest ached. I couldn’t breathe right; my body didn’t know what to do with something this vast. The stories came back in fragments—old priestesses whispering of blood that heard, of bonds forged before language, before gods.
Superstition. Nonsense.
But her pulse still echoed through my veins, and the whisper was still there, patient and knowing. What I’d passed off as interest was obsession. What I’d once called fascination was nothing short of hunger. What I’d mistaken for curiosity had evolved into an all-consuming ache.
I looked at her, and the only thing I could manage to think was: This is exactly what they’d meant.
All the old myths. All the impossible things I’d sworn were fables. Everything I’d feared the second I’d tasted her blood. It was all true.
Whisperbound.
Saints help me, we were Whisperbound.