Chapter 15 #2
“He had his hands on you.” Each word came out like broken glass. “His filthy fucking hands on what’s—”
“Dancing! We were just dancing!”
“That wasn’t dancing.” Kaelren pressed the blade against Fenric’s palm—the hand that had been on my hip, on my back, touching me. “That was claiming. Marking. Hunting what isn’t his to take.”
Fenric made a choked sound, eyes wide with genuine fear now. “I didn’t—I didn’t know—”
“You knew.” The blade pressed harder, drawing a bead of blood. “You saw her sitting with me. Saw her marks responding to mine. And you thought you could just take her anyway.”
“Kaelren, please—” I tried again.
“Did he touch you here?” The knife traced up Fenric’s arm, leaving a thin red line. “Here?” Another line across his chest. “Where else? Tell me where else his hands went, Elle, and I’ll carve those parts off him.”
The entire tavern had gone silent, everyone watching. Even the music had stopped.
“Let him go,” I said, and this time I put command in my voice. The kind I’d been learning to use with the marks, with the power growing inside me.
Kaelren’s eyes finally found mine, and what I saw there made my breath catch.
Rage, yes, violence barely contained. But underneath it—possessive hunger that matched what I’d felt in the dream.
Raw need that bordered on feral. His marks were spreading up his neck, black veins pulsing with corruption that made the air shimmer.
“Please,” I said more softly. “Not like this.”
Something in my voice cut through his fury. The knife trembled in his hand.
“He touched you,” Kaelren said, and his voice cracked. “He put his hands on you like he had the right. Like you were his to take.”
“But I’m not his,” I said quietly. “And he didn’t take anything I didn’t allow.”
That was the wrong thing to say. Kaelren’s expression shuttered into something cold and terrible. The knife moved with brutal precision, slamming through Fenric’s hand and into the wall behind him, pinning him there like an insect in a collection.
Fenric screamed.
“Kaelren!” I lunged forward, but Vashael caught me, holding me back.
“Let him finish,” she murmured in my ear. “This has been building since the glade. Better he takes it out on someone who deserves it.”
“Next time,” Kaelren said, his voice deadly calm now, “when you see a woman whose marks are responding to someone else’s, when you see power calling to power, you walk away. You don’t touch. You don’t pursue. You don’t presume. Understand?”
Fenric nodded frantically, tears streaming down his face.
Kaelren yanked the knife free with a wet sound that made several patrons flinch. Fenric collapsed, clutching his bleeding hand.
Then Kaelren turned to me, and the look in his eyes was pure possession. “We’re leaving.”
“We’re not—”
In one fluid motion, he bent and threw me over his shoulder like I weighed nothing.
“Kaelren!” I beat at his back, but he was already moving, carrying me through the stunned crowd toward the door.
The crew watched with expressions ranging from shock to entertainment. Bryx whooped. Vashael looked deeply satisfied. Even Sarnyx cracked a rare smile.
“Have fun, kids!” Bryx called. “Try not to kill each other! Or do—actually that would be very entertaining!”
“Put me down!” I demanded, but Kaelren ignored me, shouldering through the door and into the cool night air.
He carried me into the narrow alley between the massive trees, where the bioluminescent lights from the tavern barely reached. Only when we were shrouded in darkness did he set me down—not gently, but not roughly either. Just with enough force that I stumbled back against the rough bark of a tree.
“What the hell is wrong with you?” I shoved at his chest, but he didn’t budge.
“He was touching you.” Each word came out like gravel, like violence barely contained.
“So?” I shoved again, harder. “People touch when they dance!”
“Not like that.” He stepped closer, and I could see his marks blazing even in the dim light, black veins crawling up his neck, across his jaw. “Not with hands that wanted to own. To claim. To take what isn’t theirs.”
“I can decide who touches me!”
“Can you?” He was closer now, so close I could feel the heat radiating off him, could smell corruption and pine and something wild underneath.
“Because from where I was sitting, watching his hands slide down your body, watching him pull you against him, watching him whisper things that made you smile—it looked like you were deciding to let him have you.”
“And what if I was?” I challenged, anger and alcohol making me reckless. “What if I wanted someone who actually wants me back instead of—”
“Instead of what?” His hands slammed into the tree on either side of my head, caging me in.
“Instead of me? The one who can barely breathe when you’re near?
The one who dreams about tasting you every fucking night?
The one who wanted to rip that man’s throat out with my bare hands for daring to touch what’s mine? ”
“I’m not yours!”
“Aren’t you?” He leaned in, his face inches from mine, and I could see the wildness in his eyes, the barely-leashed violence.
“Then why does your pulse spike every time I get close? Why do your marks respond to mine even when you’re trying to ignore me?
Why did you kiss me in that shared dream like I was everything you needed? ”
“That was just—”
“Don’t.” His voice dropped to something dangerous, something raw. “Don’t lie to me. Not about this. I watched you dance with him. Watched him touch you. Watched you let him, and do you know what I felt?”
“What?” The word came out breathless.
“Murderous.” He shifted closer, his body almost flush against mine now. “Possessive. Feral. I wanted to kill him. Wanted to make it hurt. Wanted to carve my name into every inch of skin he touched so everyone would know—”
“Know what?”
“That you belong with me.” His forehead dropped against mine, his exhales ragged. “That you’ve been meant for me since the moment you looked at me with fire instead of fear. Since you challenged me. Since you—”
“Stop.” But I wasn’t pushing him away. My hands had somehow ended up fisted in his shirt, holding him close instead of shoving him back.
“I can’t.” His hands left the tree, sliding down to grip my waist, fingers digging in hard enough to bruise. “I’ve tried. Gods, I’ve tried. But watching him touch you, seeing his hands where mine should be—”
“Your hands?” I challenged, even as my body betrayed me, arching slightly into his grip.
“Yes.” One hand slid up my side, achingly slow, burning everywhere it touched. “My hands. My mouth. My—” He made a frustrated sound. “You have no idea what you do to me. How badly I want to—”
“What?” My marks were flaring hot at my collarbones now. “What do you want to do, Kaelren?”
His hand came up to cup my face, thumb brushing across my lower lip. “Everything. Things that would terrify you. Things I shouldn’t even think about doing to someone like you.”
“Someone like me?”
“Someone good.” His pupils had swallowed his irises completely. “Someone who deserves better than a monster who wants to mark every inch of her skin, who wants to make sure no one else ever touches her, who wants to—”
I grabbed his face and kissed him.
For a heartbeat, he froze, shocked. Then he made a sound—something between a growl and a groan—and kissed me back with a hunger that stole my breath.
His fingers tangled in my hair, gripping tight, angling my head so he could deepen the kiss.
The other arm wrapped around my waist, hauling me against him, and I could feel every hard line of his body, the way his marks pulsed against mine, the corruption spreading between us like wildfire.
This wasn’t like the dream. This was real. Raw. Desperate.
He kissed me like he’d been starved and I was a feast. Like he’d been suffocating and I was oxygen. His teeth caught my lower lip, and I gasped, which he took as an invitation to kiss me deeper, harder, until I couldn’t tell where I ended and he began.
My back pressed harder against the tree, bark biting through my clothes, but I didn’t care. His touch was everywhere—my waist, my hips, sliding up my ribs, one hand venturing to cup my breast through the fabric and I gasped into his mouth.
“This is insane,” I managed when he moved to kiss down my jaw, my neck, finding the place where my marks pulsed hottest.
“Yes.” His teeth scraped against my throat, and I made a sound I’d never made before. “We should stop.”
“We should,” I agreed, but my fingers were in his hair now, holding him against my throat as he kissed and bit and marked me with his mouth.
“Someone could see.”
“Let them.” His hand slid down to grip my thigh, hitching it up around his hip, and suddenly we were pressed together in a way that made coherent thought impossible. “Let everyone see. Let them know you’re—”
“Don’t say it,” I warned, but there was no heat in it.
“Mine.” He said it anyway, against my skin, and I felt the word like a brand. “You’re mine, Elle. Say it.”
“I—”
His hand slid higher on my thigh, fingers digging in possessively. “Say it.”
“This doesn’t mean—”
“Say. It.” His mouth found that spot behind my ear that made me shake.
“Yours,” I finally gasped. “I’m yours. But you’re—”
“Yours.” He pulled back just enough to look at me, and what I saw in his eyes made something in my chest crack open. “I’ve been yours from the start. From before I understood what that meant. From before I could admit it to myself.”
“HEY!” Bryx’s voice carried from somewhere close by, loud and urgent. “HUNT’S BEEN SPOTTED! WE NEED TO MOVE NOW!”
Kaelren pulled back with a snarl that was pure frustration. We stared at each other, both gasping for air, both disheveled, both marked with swollen lips and blown pupils.
“This isn’t over,” he said, voice wrecked.
“I know,” I replied, still trying to remember how to breathe normally.
He stepped back reluctantly, and the loss of his warmth felt like a physical ache. His hand caught mine, threading our fingers together in a gesture that felt more intimate than everything that had just happened.
“We need to run,” he said.
“I know.”
But neither of us moved for another heartbeat, just standing there in the darkness, holding hands like the world wasn’t ending around us.
Then Bryx’s panicked shout came again, and reality crashed back.
We ran back to find the crew already moving, weapons drawn, supplies gathered. The Wild Hunt’s horns were closer now, close enough to make my teeth ache. Fenric was nowhere to be seen, but the Florakith servers watched from the doorway with knowing smiles.
As we fled into the night, Kaelren’s hand never left mine.
We were spiraling toward something inevitable.
And whether it would save us or consume us entirely, neither of us could say.