Chapter 18 #2
Caelian spun, then yanked open the smoky glass door, a gush of steam flooding the bathing suite.
“I agreed to nothing.” She spat the words out, her face ablaze with fury, her eyes brewing with a storm of midnight stars. “This was a decision I made of my own free will. Because in case you forgot, General, you never once asked me to reverse it.”
Kjeld froze, her truth cutting through him with the sting of a thousand cold iron blades.
She’d called his bluff without him even realizing it.
All those tireless months he wasted loathing his life, dumping the full blame of it upon her shoulders, and never had he thought to ask her to take it back.
He thought he was such a martyr as he wallowed in his own self-pity, that it never even occurred to him to ask if she could reverse it.
If she could use her faerie magic to wish him back to normal.
Damn it.
Pressing her lips into a tight line, she lifted her chin in a show of superiority.
“Is that how it works?” He ground the words out, meeting her taunting gaze.
“Of course that’s how it works. I’m a fucking fae of House Celestine.
All you ever have to do is ask. Though it would appear you were too busy cursing my existence to recall that words have power.
” She slid the glass door closed, obscuring herself in a haze of smoke and steam.
“Now, I must ask you to please leave me, as I would like to shower in peace and get a little more rest before I ask Elder Lothaire to take me to Wenfyre.”
His blood boiled, gurgling with the rage of a smoldering inferno. “Not a chance, Starweaver. I refuse to let that bloodsucker take you anywhere.”
She turned her back on him again. “I’m afraid that’s not your choice. I know you would prefer to remain here, since Brackroth is your home. And it’s clear you’re capable of holding your own with Queen Viktoria, which means my presence is no longer required. So, you will stay and I will go.”
Kjeld shook his head, disbelieving the absolute nonsense that was pouring out of her mouth. Yes, he had every intention of returning to Brackroth once all was said and done, but she was out of her stars-damned mind if she thought he was going to let her go gallivanting off with a vampire.
“Caelian, you cannot be serious.” He stepped further into the bathing suite.
“Do you mind?” She heaved a sigh and tossed one scathing look his direction. “You’re letting in all the cold air.”
Fuck’s sake, when did she become so exasperating? Or perhaps she had always been this way and he never noticed. Maybe getting a breath of her magic meant her spark was slowly coming back as well.
Either way, Kjeld slammed the door shut with purpose.
She didn’t even bother to look at him again.
“You are not going—”
“Not your decision,” she chimed in a singsong voice.
“It’s out of the question, Cae.” He folded his arms over his chest, determined to put his foot down. No way in hell was she going anywhere without him. “Your brothers will kill me.”
“But I thought that was what you wanted from the start. To die a noble death?” She shut off the water, turning slowly to face him, a wall of steam and fogged glass concealing most of her from view. “Pass me a towel, will you?”
He snatched a fluffy gray towel off the nearest hook as she cracked open the glass door, thrusting it toward her.
He watched as she dried herself off, taking her time, like she meant to provoke him.
But when she wrapped the towel around her, knotting it between her breasts, and made to step out, he stood firmly in her way. Barricading her in the shower.
“Move,” she snapped, twisting her wet hair and wringing out the excess water.
“No.”
She glared up at him with her damp lashes and flushed face. “Nothing you can say will change my mind.”
“I will not allow it.” He puffed out his chest, daring her to cross him.
“Allow? You do not have the right to allow me to do anything.” She poked him squarely in the chest with one finger. “You are not my husband. You are not my brother. And you are most certainly not my keeper. I am quite capable of taking care of myself.”
Kjeld huffed, biting back the urge to smirk. “Says the lady who nearly died in a dragon’s den and slept for seven full days.”
“An unfortunate mishap of circumstances, nothing more.” Caelian adjusted her towel, but all it did was squish her breasts higher into his direct line of sight. “Besides, the loss of blood was beyond my control. Anyway, if you’d excuse me, I’d like to get ready for bed so I can ask—”
He snared her by the chin, forcing her to look up at him. “I. Said. No.”
Her plush mouth opened, and he tightened his grip until she gasped.
“I will be taking you to Wenfyre.” He bit out the words. “No one else.”
Her fingers curled around his wrist, and though she attempted to yank his hand away, she failed miserably. A testament to his earlier point.
“Why?” Caelian demanded, the sapphire of her eyes darkening with tempered fury. “You don’t care about me. This is all a result of my selfish wishing, you said so yourself. So why do you care if I go to Wenfyre with Lothaire when you’ve made your sentiments toward me painfully clear?”
It was an honest question.
The problem was Kjeld didn’t have a good enough answer. It shouldn’t matter if she went with someone else. She should be allowed to make her own decisions, and he shouldn’t care. At all.
“If you go with him,” he warned, his voice low and menacing, “there will be consequences.”
“I assure you, General Holtstrom, it is nothing I can’t handle.” She spoke with decorum, but there was the slightest waver to her bottom lip and her pulse shuddered. “I’ve paid my fair share of consequences, all for the foolish sake of loving you.”
Were his heart made of stone, then it surely would have crumbled.
Kjeld merely thought Caelian fancied him, or that her feelings were based on the simplistic rules of attraction.
He never considered their depth, or that her affection for him went beyond the purely physical.
In the grand scheme of things, he never pondered her feelings at all. Instead he assumed. Wrongly.
He moved out of her way, and she stepped from the shower, clutching her towel to her chest.
“You love me.” It was a statement of fact, not a question, and he spoke the words as though they were sacred. Invaluable.
No other female had ever declared their love for him before. Relationships were never his strong suit, as most women in Brackroth only wanted one of two things. His prestige or his cock. And nothing worthwhile stemmed from either of those desires.
“Rest assured, I am certain that which I feel for you will fade with time, as all things do.” Caelian’s voice was as calm as the surface of an untouched lake.
She braided her wet hair into a messy plait, the sleek strands of silver, pink, lavender, and blue swirling around each other.
Looking up, she met his gaze in the reflection of the arching onyx mirror.
“Since you seem so insistent upon the matter, I will allow you to escort me to Wenfyre. But from this point on, we are traveling companions. Our acquaintance is based on the circumstances my brother set before us. And I bid you not to speak to me unless absolutely necessary.”
“You’re serious?” Kjeld reared back, stunned by her ruthless dismissal. He scrubbed a hand over his face, confused by her sudden shift in demeanor. “Are we to have no conversations at all, then?”
“You cannot have it both ways. You can’t direct your rage at me, humiliate me completely in front of my peers, then confess all the wicked things you want to do to me.
I am not a doll that you can play with at any time of your choosing and then cast aside when you remember you’re supposed to hate me.
” Caelian sidled past him and pulled open the door to the bedroom.
“You’ve made your wish, Kjeld Holtstrom.
Now, let me do all that is left within my power to grant it. ”
Closing the door quietly behind her, she left him standing by himself in the bathing suite to process everything that had been said between them.
He didn’t know how long he stayed in there, his hands propped against the gray granite sink, staring at his own reflection, searching for answers he knew he wouldn’t find.
Caelian was wiping her hands of him. She was shutting him out of her life completely.
And isn’t that what he wanted? He thought it was, he’d been sure of it.
Except now that the freedom he craved was finally within his grasp, uncertainty strangled him like writhing bane.
She’d taken all that he was before and somehow transformed him into a more exceptional version of himself.
She’d made him stronger. Faster. More keen and more aware.
She’d basically turned him into all he’d ever wanted to become in his previous mortal life—minus the fucking ears—and how had he repaid her?
By treating her like she was a thief who’d robbed him of his supposed destiny.
Kjeld gripped the ledge of the granite counter until it cracked, muscles bulging, veins popping.
He wanted to scream.
Fuck!
Why couldn’t he make up his mind? Why couldn’t he be grateful for the gift she’d given him?
He was so determined to blame her, so blind to the world around him, that he convinced himself this wasn’t the life for him.
And maybe it still wasn’t, maybe he was meant for more.
Something greater than the grim of Brackroth.
Something more wondrous than the starscape of Aeramere.
If he accepted his fae form, if he welcomed it, then there was a chance he could still forge his own fate.
Yet despite all he wanted, Kjeld couldn’t imagine a world without Caelian in it.
He could ignore the nagging whisper of doubt. The one telling him that the only reason he felt anything for her at all was because she’d used her magic on him.
This was a war he fought with himself time and again. Made worse by one tiny admission, one sliver of raw honesty that pierced him like a needling thorn.
Caelian was in love with him.
Which meant she never wished for him out of spite. But out of love.
Pushing open the door, he planned to explain his confusion and beg her to forgive his aggressive actions and words against her. But when he stepped into the bedroom, Caelian was sound asleep in the bed, her face more serene than he’d ever witnessed before.
He also saw the towel discarded on the floor.
Holding back a groan of disappointment and something else altogether, Kjeld stoked the fire in the hearth once more, then dropped into one of the chairs near the blanketed nest of baby dragon eggs.
Forcing himself to rest, Kjeld begged for a dreamless sleep. But the moment he closed his eyes, he was swimming in a sea of starlight, and Caelian was there. Beckoning him like a siren luring his wayward heart to its doom.