Chapter 32 #2
Kallen had gotten inside me somehow, in the form of an ache in my chest and an urgent need I’d been trying and failing to ignore.
The tension growing between us was unbearable—I both craved and feared what would happen when it finally snapped.
Because where had a feeling like this led me last time?
Straight to someone who had seen my naivete and passion as useful tools.
Who had seen me as a tool. Selwyn was dead because of that feeling.
There were so many reasons why I should tell him to leave, rather than give him any more pieces of me. We were on the brink of war. Everyone in Mistei feared him. And I…
“I want to hit things,” I said. An answer and not an answer, because it was too dangerous to confess what I was really thinking.
“Then hit me.”
My breath caught. Such a blunt, simple offer. Hit me. Use me. Take out your anger on me. “As if I’d be able to land a punch.”
“Maybe I’ll let you tonight.”
The challenge in that annoyed me as much as it intrigued me.
A restless energy began to collect in my limbs, an urge for movement.
I seized that feeling like a thirsty traveler reaching for water and let it push aside the lingering fog of tonight’s nightmare.
I didn’t want to be wrung out and hollow anymore.
I wanted to fill that emptiness with something that made me feel alive.
I let go of the spear and faced him. “Weapons?”
“No.” He crossed his arms. “Think you can take me, Kenna?”
The taunting note in his voice made my skin flush hot. “Oh, I know I can take you.”
“You want a fight.”
The echo of a memory shivered through the room. Are you looking for a fight?
I had been looking for a fight that time, and I was again now. The difference was that this time I was willing to admit it. I licked my lips. “Yes.”
“You’ll get one.” His eyes held mine for a long moment, and then he raised his hands to his throat and unhooked the first silver clasp that held his black coat together.
My breathing grew unsteady.
He undid the next and the next, never looking away from me.
The hairs on my arms rose. “What are you doing?”
“Getting ready.” He shucked the coat off, revealing a sleeveless black tunic. The muscles of his arms rippled, and my eyes were helplessly drawn to the exposed skin.
I’d never seen his bare arms before, I realized with a jolt in my stomach.
He was usually covered from neck to wrist, wrapped in a dark formality that made him seem intimidating and aloof.
Now I couldn’t stop staring at this new part of himself he’d revealed.
His forearms were corded with veins, and his biceps swelled beneath pale skin.
Scarred skin, I realized. The marks curved in a familiar way—not as elaborate or as numerous as Anya’s, but it was immediately obvious who had caused them.
A sound caught in my throat—the start of a useless protest or a question that had no pleasant answers. Considering what it took for faeries to scar, either this had happened when he was very young or the king had wanted Kallen to carry a permanent reminder of his torture.
He kicked off his shoes and socks to match my barefooted state, then raked a hand through his loose hair. “We go until you tell me to stop.”
“You can tell me to stop, too.”
He shook his head, eyelids lowering. “I won’t.”
The promise made me shiver. We hadn’t even begun, and already this felt too intense.
Seeing his bared arms made me overly aware of my own attire.
My trousers were made of a soft fabric that clung to my hips and fluttered around my ankles, and my sleeveless tunic displayed more skin than I was used to.
Caedo spiraled around my upper arm, pulsing with restless energy. It wanted a battle, too.
No drinking from him , I reminded the dagger.
Caedo grumbled but didn’t argue. I stroked it, encouraging the circlet to grow tiny teeth to nip me with.
“Are you going to make me bleed?” Kallen asked.
“Not with this.” I looked at the pad of my finger, watching the cut heal over. There was a single drop of blood left, and I smudged it over the metal, letting Caedo absorb the last taste. “Though I suppose you’ll have to take my word for that.”
He nodded, as if trusting me were easy, when it had to be anything but. “You can make me bleed other ways, if you want. Bruise me. Break my bones. There are no limits, Kenna.” He backed away to stand in the middle of the floor.
No limits. Did he truly mean that? He looked like he might even welcome me breaking his bones. It was a terrifying level of permission for him to give—and even more terrifying for me to have.
The ceiling crystals brightened as they adapted to our intentions.
The light caught on Kallen’s dark hair, the angle of his cheekbones, the curl of his scars.
It was almost too much, seeing him illuminated so starkly.
I’d be raising bruises on those bared arms and shoulders if I could get close enough.
He would probably grab me, and there would be nothing to blunt the touch.
My skin would know his in ways it hadn’t before.
A pulse started between my legs. Terrifying, terrifying, all this terrifying, but I wanted it so badly. I needed it.
He looked like a predator, focused and expectant, waiting for his prey to come to him. But as my breath came faster and my pulse tapped an intoxicating rhythm, I wondered if I might be a predator, too.
I stepped forward.
Kallen smiled, small and tight. His eyes didn’t leave my face.
Another step.
He shifted his weight, sliding his right foot back, knees bent in preparation.
He raised his hands—not in fists, but in the loose position that would allow him to hit, block, or grab with ease.
Kallen was always so tense, like there was an invisible leash he’d wrapped around himself and couldn’t help straining against, but he never seemed so relaxed as when he was ready for a fight.
Only his body, though. His eyes burned in a way that raised goose bumps across my skin. I knew how quickly that relaxation could shift into brutal, mesmerizing power.
“Hurry up, Princess,” he murmured. “Or are you afraid?”
I bared my teeth as exhilaration rushed through me. Then I charged at him, ready to force those words back into his beautiful, taunting mouth.
My fist breezed past his cheekbone as he jerked to the side. My other hit his stomach, but he twisted away quickly. I spun and launched myself at him again.
He parried my blows, smacking my hands aside, blocking the hits with his forearms before launching a counterattack. He was pulling his punches—we both knew that—but he wasn’t letting me off easy. I blocked hit after hit, and then one landed on my ribs, and the sweet sting of pain made me gasp.
“Too much?” he asked, shoving his hair back from his face as he paced around me.
“Not enough,” I snapped. That bright spark of sensation had been far too brief.
His lashes flickered. “I’m not going to really hurt you. You know that?”
“I know.” Because he was Kallen, and even though he’d said there were no limits tonight, and even though he probably meant it when it came to hurting him, he was considerate beneath those layers of cold menace.
Considerate to me, anyway, and maybe only to me, and some greedy, dark thing inside me liked it that way. “But you can hurt me a little.”
His smile was subtle. “Maybe a little.”
He lunged and grabbed my wrist, yanking me towards him.
I let out a startled cry as I smacked into his chest, and then he flipped me around, one arm banded tight around my waist and one crossing my torso so his forearm dug in between my breasts.
His chest was hard against my back, and with his shoulders curving around mine, there was no denying how much bigger than me he was.
Not bulky, but tall and leanly muscled. That body was a weapon, and feeling it pressed against me made me dizzy.
He lowered his head so his breath puffed hot against my cheek. We stayed like that for a long, tense moment, and then he shifted and caught the lobe of my ear between his teeth. A ragged noise tore from my throat.
“Try again,” he whispered.
Fury and joy swept through me at the challenge. I rested in his hold, relishing the feel of his arms encircling me, knowing he could crush my ribs if he wanted to, but never would. Then I jerked my head back, cracking his nose with my skull.
He shouted and let go. When I turned, blood was pouring from his nose. Had I actually broken it? Remorse instantly filled me. I’d meant the hit to hurt, but I was so much stronger now than I’d ever been. “I’m sorry—” I started.
“No,” he said vehemently. “I told you. No limits.” He adjusted his nose, then swiped the blood away with the back of his hand. The flow stopped as his body healed, but a smear was left across his lips and chin. When he grinned at me, red slicked his teeth. “Do it again.”
A shudder raced through me. That rough, dark note to his voice was new. This wasn’t the contained, controlled Kallen anymore. He paced a circle around me like a wolf ready to pounce, and the burning excitement in his eyes matched the feeling sizzling inside me.
Was this wrong? It didn’t feel wrong. And that frightened me, but it was a fear I couldn’t get enough of. I wanted to drink this feeling down. I wanted to drown from it.
My eyes fell to his chest, to his waist. To the bulge pressing against the fabric at his crotch.
Kallen was hard.
I’d broken his nose, and he was hard.
The breath left me, and fresh slickness pooled between my thighs.
I’d already been wet from the thrill of the fight and the way he looked like he was barely restraining himself from some explosive action that would change everything, but this need was growing dangerously fast, and I didn’t know if it would ever stop.
No limits.
He was looking at me like he meant it. Like he wanted to taste his own blood.