Chapter 21 Acelynn
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
acelynn
A dull ache pulsed behind my eyes as I peeled them open. The space around me slowly came into focus—an unfamiliar ceiling, soft sheets, and the scent of the man who had filled my dreams still clinging to my skin.
My body felt heavy, like I’d been sinking in dreams that wouldn’t let go. I turned my head. The spot beside me in the bed was empty and cold. Covers untouched or rumpled, which meant I hadn’t been out for very long.
I drifted my gaze toward the open bathroom door.
The faint hiss of running water could be heard just beyond the wall.
Steam curled into the room like lazy fingers.
A dim light cast on Kaius, who stood shirtless in front of the sink, a loose towel slung low around his hips, head slightly bowed as he braced both hands on the porcelain.
My eyes traced the sculpted lines of his back, each muscle flexing subtly beneath his skin as he shifted his weight. His shoulders were broad, built like a man who’d carried more than his share of burdens on them. Strength coiled through every inch of him, but it was the ink that held my attention.
His skin was a canvas of dark, inked art.
Tattoos climbed up his spine and shoulders like creeping vines, ancient symbols woven with violent beauty.
But the one etched between his shoulder blades stole the breath from my lungs.
The Knights’ sigil stood out against all the other pieces marring his skin.
The cracked holy grail was shaded in just the right way that it appeared to jump from the surface.
The crooked crown hung off one side of the rim like it had been carelessly discarded over the cup.
He had no other color through his other tattoos, making the purple hemlocks blooming around the base of the grail stand out even more.
Delicate yet fatal, their petals curled up the cup like they were reaching for something just out of reach.
It made the deadly symbol look beautiful and terrifying without even trying.
I continued to admire the art until I noticed something. Underneath the ink, faint, almost hidden by the black swirl of lines, were scars. Pale ridges of flesh, some thin, others jagged, running like ghosts under the Knights’ sigil. They were old.
Wounds that had healed over time, only to be buried beneath ink.
I sat slowly, eyes locked on a particularly long scar that ran from below his left shoulder blade to his right hip. “Those weren’t from a fight, were they?”
Kaius didn’t flinch or look surprised at my sudden question. As if he had known the entire time I was watching him, like he wanted me to see them. His eyes met mine in the mirror. “No.”
His voice was a deadly quiet that sucked all the air from the room. I turned, letting my feet rest against the cold floor below the bed. My hands gripped the sheet, pulling it around me as I spoke. “Who did that to you?”
“My father,” he said through clenched teeth.
The words hung there between us. I knew it was the reality of the life he had grown up in.
Alec was always littered with bruises and cuts from my father.
It was something that shouldn’t be so normal for me to understand.
I stood now, letting the sheet trail after me as I went.
When I got to the doorframe, I leaned one shoulder against it, unsure if I was invited into the space.
Into this highly personal piece of him, but something in the center of my chest refused to let me move away.
Kaius straightened, running one hand through his damp hair. “My father wasn’t the type of man who believed in second chances. Or weakness. Especially not from his children.”
He turned toward me fully. The light of the bathroom cast a golden glow across his chest, highlighting every scar, every sharp edge, every dark line etched into him.
“I started to earn these the night I turned ten,” Kaius continued, voice even.
He reached out, pulling my hand not holding the sheet up to his chest. My fingers traced over a jagged scar that ran over his collarbone as he continued to speak.
“He said if I ever ran again, he would carve a crown into my back to remind me where I belonged. My being the shithead kid that I was didn’t believe him until he did make good on his promise.”
My gaze lingered on the reflection of his back in the mirror to the now obvious scar his tattoo covered. He had turned his trauma into something permanent. A badge. A warning. A vow.
“You tattooed over the scars,” I murmured, pulling my eyes back to where my fingers were still absentmindedly running over the puckered skin.
“I didn’t want to forget.” Kaius’s voice was soft, but the emotion behind his words was palpable. I could almost taste it. “But I wanted to decide how those memories were remembered.”
Something in me broke in that moment. Not just for the child who had been hurt, but for the man who still carried that pain—layered over with ink, power, and violence he wore like armor.
I smiled lightly up at him. “I thought you were invincible.”
Kaius stepped further into me, my back now pressed up against the doorframe. He placed one forearm above me, leaning into me until his lips were just a breath above mine. “I’m anything but invincible.”
The hand that was at his collarbone traveled down his chest, letting my fingers barely ghost his skin as I did. When I got to the edge of a scar near his ribs, his breath hitched slightly, but he didn’t pull away.
I wanted to hate him, to push him back and rebuild the walls I had let fall tonight. But all I could see was the boy who had survived hell and risen from it with nothing but fire in his veins. It reminded me of my brother, of all the boys who had survived this life.
And I didn’t know what scared me more—the fact that suddenly Kaius Mordred made me feel like I was the only person in this world he cared for. Or the part of me that still wanted to destroy him.