Chapter 37
We reached a large study, the doors swinging shut behind us. And the moment we were inside, the instant the door sealed, Varyth turned.
His hands slammed against the wood beside my head, his body a breath away, his eyes blazing.
“Do you have any idea,” he growled, his breath hot against my skin. “How worried I was?” His voice was low, feral with something dark and consuming, something more than anger.
I flinched but held my ground. The study walls closed in around us, the air charged with tension.
“What happened?” Varyth demanded. “And don’t lie to me this time.”
“I already told you—”
“No,” he cut me off. “You gave me a bullshit version to protect Lincatheron.” He glared down at me.
“What. Actually. Happened?”
My heart stuttered, then lurched. “Why do you think I’m lying?”
Varyth’s laugh was humourless. “Because I know Xyliria. She doesn’t just show up, deliver a message, and leave. She enjoys the chaos too much.”
I hesitated, weighing my options. My protectiveness for Linc warred with the truth Varyth deserved.
“Fine.” I clicked my tongue in irritation. “When Xyliria hurt Lincatheron, I stepped between them.”
His whole body stilled, a statue of fury and restraint. “You what?”
I lifted my chin, refusing to back down. “I stepped between them. She was toying with him. Lincatheron tried to stop me. But I ignored him.”
Varyth’s expression transformed unrecognisably, unfiltered rage mixed with what bore a startling resemblance to terror. His hands slammed harder against the wall on either side of me, his body closing the distance, the heat of him washing over me.
“You stepped between Lincatheron and Xyliria?” The words were soft, yet they filled the entire room. “Do you even understand what she is capable of? What she could have done to you?”
I refused to cower. “She didn’t hurt me.”
“And that’s supposed to make it better?” he exploded, his composure finally shattering. “She could have erased you in an instant, Isara. She could have torn you apart, could have—” He cut himself off, his breathing ragged.
His fingers dug into the wood behind me, so hard I heard it splinter. “She kills for sport, Isara. For amusement.” His voice dropped, taking on a rough edge that made my spine tingle. “And you stepped between them?”
“Yes.”
Varyth’s chest rose and fell with breaths he was struggling to control. “Why?” The single word held a weight I couldn’t quite decipher.
“Because he was hurt.” I didn’t dare to even blink. “And she was going to kill him.”
“So, you thought that you would sacrifice yourself for him? That your life was worth risking for his?” His eyes searched mine, looking for regret, perhaps, or fear. But I offered neither. Only the truth.
“I wasn’t thinking about worth. I was thinking about what was right.”
“What was right,” he repeated, the words hollow. “And did it occur to you what your death would do to those who care about you? What it would do to—” He cut off again, his jaw clenching so tight I could see the muscle jump beneath his skin.
I stared at him. This wasn’t just anger. This was deeper; it reached beyond mere frustration or authority challenged.
“I didn’t die.” I didn’t raise my voice. “I’m right here.”
“But you could have.” The words tore from him, making the air tremble. The paintings on the walls shuddered, and I swore the floor beneath us vibrated with his fury.
His hands left the door, one gripping my arm, the other tangling in my hair, desperate, as if he needed to know that I was solid, that I was real.
“You could have died,” he repeated. “You didn’t even consider what that would—”
He crumbled. The walls, the rigid control he maintained over every aspect of himself all of it was falling apart. It was like watching a fortress collapse stone by stone, the foundation shaking beneath a force too powerful to contain.
“Varyth, I’m—”
He didn’t let me finish.
His hand tightened in my hair, tilting my head back as his mouth crashed down onto mine with devastating force. The kiss was consuming. A storm breaking after too long held at bay. His lips claimed mine with a ferocity that stole my breath, his body pressing me against the wall.
For a heartbeat, I froze, caught in the shock of his sudden move. But then, I ignited, a flame that had been smouldering since the first time he’d touched me.
I kissed him back.
My hands flew to his shoulders, gripping the fabric of his shirt, pulling him closer even though there was nowhere left for him to go.
Varyth made a sound against my mouth—half growl, half groan—my response shattering the last of his restraint.
His hand slid from my arm to my waist, fingers splaying across my lower back.
The hand in my hair tightened, angling my head to deepen the kiss. His tongue swept against the seam of my lips, demanding entry, and I opened for him without hesitation.
The taste of him was intoxicating, dark and rich and addictive. I moaned as his tongue slid against mine, the sound swallowed by his mouth. The hand at my waist slid lower, gripping my hip with bruising intensity, pulling me against him, against every hard line of his body.
Varyth growled, the sound vibrating through me. His teeth dragged over my lip.
“Isara,” he breathed against my lips.
My hands moved instinctively, sliding up to tangle in his hair, pulling him closer, needing more. His lips left mine, trailing down my jaw to my throat, his mouth hot and demanding against the sensitive skin of my neck.
“Do you realise,” he murmured against my throat. “What you do to me?”
His teeth nipped at my skin, sharp enough to make my fingers fist in his hair, earning another growl from deep in his chest.
“I was out of my mind.” His words were punctuated by kisses that burned against my skin. “The thought of you in danger—”
He pulled back enough to look at me, his eyes molten, chest heaving.
“Never do that again,” he growled. “Never put yourself in danger like that.”
Before I could respond, his mouth found mine again, and Varyth’s hand slid from my hip to the back of my thigh.
His hips rocked forward, and Varyth groaned in my mouth as the hard length of him ground against me. Every touch, every kiss, every press of his body was wildfire, consuming everything in its path.
“Do you understand now?” His voice was a rough caress against my lips. “Why I can’t bear the thought of you in danger?”
I couldn’t think, couldn’t form words with his body against mine. My hands slid beneath his shirt, fingertips tracing the hard planes of his abdomen. His muscles jumped beneath my touch. Varyth hissed, his eyes fluttering closed for a moment.
When he opened them again, they were dark, hungry. “Answer me, Isara,” he demanded.
“Yes,” I whispered, “I understand.”
His lips trailed down my throat again, teeth grazing my collarbone, and I gasped, my head falling back against the wall. “Gods, Varyth.”
But the second I said his name the guilt lashed through me.
Navaire.
No. Not now. Not now.
I wanted Varyth. Gods, I wanted him with a ferocity that terrified me, wanted his mouth on mine, his hands mapping every inch of my skin, wanted to lose myself in the heat and hunger of him until there was nothing left but us.
I wanted to stay in this moment, to let it consume me, to let him brand himself into my bones.
But my body betrayed me. Froze like a creature caught in a snare, every nerve screaming two different commands—pull him closer and run.
Varyth felt it instantly. The shift. The fracture.
His hands stilled on my body, his mouth going motionless against my throat. For a single, suspended heartbeat, neither of us moved. I could feel his breath against my skin, ragged and hot, could feel the tension coiling through him like a drawn bowstring.
Then he pulled back.
The loss of him was physical, a tearing sensation that made my chest constrict. His eyes met mine, and what I saw there made something in me crack wide open.
Hurt. Raw and unguarded and devastating.
“Varyth—” His name tore from my throat, desperate, pleading.
But he was already stepping away, already putting distance between us. His hands fell from my body, and the absence of his touch felt like frostbite, like something vital being ripped away.
“I’m sorry.” His voice was hollow, scraped clean of everything that had filled it moments before. “I shouldn’t have—”
“No, wait—” I reached for him, my hand grasping at air as he moved further back. “That’s not—”
“It’s fine, Isara.” The words were clipped, controlled. The fortress walls slamming back into place, brick by brutal brick. “I misread the situation.”
“You didn’t—”
“I did.” He wouldn’t look at me anymore, his gaze fixed somewhere over my shoulder, his jaw a rigid line. “And I apologise.”
The formality of it gutted me. This was Varyth the High Lord, not the man who’d just been kissing me like I was oxygen and he was drowning. Not the man whose hands had trembled in my hair, whose voice had broken saying my name.
“Varyth, please—” My voice cracked, and I hated how small it sounded, how desperate.
But he was already turning toward the door, his movements mechanical, empty. Varyth opened the door.
“Wait—” The word came out strangled, breaking in half.
He paused in the doorway, his back to me, shoulders drawn tight. For a moment I thought he might turn around, might let me explain, might let me close the distance between us and fix whatever I’d just shattered.
But then his hand tightened on the door frame, knuckles going white.
“Goodnight, Isara.”
And he walked out.
“Fuck.”
My legs gave out.
I slid down the wall, my back scraping against the wood until I hit the floor in an ungraceful heap. My hands were shaking. My whole body was shaking.
I could feel the ghost of his hands. On my hip, in my hair, gripping me like I was the only thing keeping him tethered to the earth.
And I’d frozen. Gods, I’d frozen.
Not because I didn’t want it. Not because his touch felt wrong.
But because for one terrible, guilt-soaked moment, I’d remembered what it felt like to kiss someone else.
Someone whose hands had been gentle instead of desperate.
Someone who’d made me feel safe instead of like I was burning alive from the inside out.
Someone who was dead.
“I’m sorry,” I whispered to the empty room.
The words cracked in half, splintering into something that sounded more like a sob than language.
I didn’t know who I was apologising to.
To Navaire, for wanting this. For letting another man’s hands on my body, another man’s mouth against mine. For the way my heart had raced when Varyth kissed me, like it was something I’d been starving for without knowing it.
To Varyth, for hesitating. For freezing when he needed me to be present, to be there with him instead of drowning in ghosts and guilt. For letting him think it was about anything other than my own fucked-up inability to let myself have anything good.
And to myself—for being such a goddamn coward.
“I’m sorry,” I said again, quieter this time.
The room didn’t answer. The walls didn’t offer absolution. There was just me and the silence and the brutal, devastating weight of knowing I’d just ruined something before it even had a chance to begin.