Chapter 15
Kael
The first time I’d met Evangelina Corvo, in the academy courtyards after the riots, a seed had been planted.
I had tended it in secret, following her, watching from the shadows when I could, never daring to come too close.
I was drawn to her even then, yet I already knew I must keep my distance.
Evie threatened every wall I had built, every inch of discipline I had carved through years of practice and, to name it rightly, torment.
One glance from her, and my layers of control splintered like eggshells.
I was not one to lay blame on the divine, yet it felt as if she had been fashioned to undo me, to call the storm from its cage, lightning answering her presence as if she were the metal itself.
As if fate meant to mock me, she had found her way to the Court. I’d known from the moment I’d seen her in her magister robes that nothing good would come of it. I’d told myself that if she listened to me and stayed away, the world would remain intact. But who was I fooling?
Of all the flings, all the women I’ve had in my life, none of them broke my walls like Evie did. None of them moaned with that sweet, crystalline vibration that melted my bones.
I wasn’t one for kissing. Not because I disliked it, but because it served no purpose for me.
I got off on making women scream my name then fucking them until their minds touched the heavens.
It was the only way I could find release, though most often, I finished the act alone, once they were finally gone.
I didn’t need their affection, their fragile admiration, and certainly not their loyalty. But Evie…
Evie needed only to breathe by my ear and the ache for that release rose fierce within me, a yearning to spill into her, upon her, across her skin, until she wore the mark of my seed.
The gown she wore tonight transformed her into something divine. My own little Sud goddess, her curls soft as silk, her dark eyes glimmering with tears that caught the fairy lights like stars, her lips begging to be bitten.
And for a moment, against the wall, my mouth tracing her neck, teeth grazing her skin, I’d deceived myself into believing I could keep the storm leashed.
When I’d drawn her into the darkness of that cursed lavatorium, I had willed it to stay within.
But then she’d come apart by my hand, and control had fled like breath from my lungs.
The way she said my name, her lyrical Sud accent turning it into a vow.
Ka-el.
I never wanted to hear it spoken any other way.
She had lost control too. I’d seen her eyes turn white, her power flaring through her like light breaking from stone the moment she’d shattered.
I’d felt the air shift around her, spiraling inward as she had drawn it into herself.
Evie was a seerling, and a very powerful one.
More powerful than she knew.
That revelation struck me like a blade. All those times I’d watched her, studied her from the dark, and I had never seen it. Never known what power was buried inside her.
What echoes had she heard, I wondered? What truth had burst through her sight when she’d come undone?
Had it frightened her?
Perhaps not. She had only clung to me, her trembling body pleading wordlessly for more.
And I would have given it. Fuck, there was nothing in this world I had wanted more than to answer her pleas.
The wolf had broken free. The storm had not stayed within.
Light radiated from me, revealing the ruin I had wrought. Blood traced down her shoulder and arm, and beneath her skin, a mark of roots and branches writhed as if alive. Her eyes were wide with horror. Her lips trembled, struggling to form a sound.
Only one sound filled my mind—her scream when the lightning had struck. Pure, raw agony.
I never wanted to hear that scream again.
I fled the lavatorium, moving through the gallery as though chased by my own shadow, until I burst into the gardens. I had to release the storm, at least enough to keep from harming her further. Light still clung to me, every breath seething, the wolf clawing at the thin cage of my restraint.
At last I reached the secluded alcove at the necropolis’ end, where Henrich’s tomb lay. A sarcophagus of marble and quartz, its surface pale beneath the moonlight, a single silver-engraved plaque marking his name. Opposite it stood his statue, watching in silent judgment.
Deep breaths. Ground yourself. Clench your fists. Draw blood if you must. His voice echoed through memory, steady and cruelly calm.
I obeyed that phantom counsel, standing before his tomb, moonlight washing the alcove in a silver calm that could never reach my bones.
Cage the wolf. Keep the storm within.
The light dimmed, but the wolf still growled.
Even if my cock was still rock hard, threatening the fabric of my breeches, for a moment, there was quiet. For a moment, there was peace.
Until footsteps broke it.
I prayed it was Evie. I prayed it wasn’t.
“Kael…”
That voice…
Selena.
I sighed, disappointment tightening my chest. “What do you want?”
“You fled the ballroom so quickly, I thought something was wrong. When you didn’t return, I came to find you.”
Something was wrong. Terribly so.
“You seem tense, Kael…” she murmured, drawing nearer. Her hands glided over my shoulders, kneading lightly before pressing her body against my back.
The scent of mousseux drifted between us. She was drunk.
For a woman built on poise and hard ice, she was crumbling beautifully tonight.
I turned to face her. Her eyelids drooped, her cheeks were flushed, her breath thick with sparkling wine.
“What do you want, Selena?” I asked again, quieter this time.
Her fingers traced the edge of my tunic, sliding up toward my collar.
“I thought perhaps… we could…” she whispered, her voice melting into breath.
I didn’t have the patience for this. I looked at her, and all I could see was Evie.
Evie’s eyes. Evie’s lips. Evie’s neck. Evie’s chest…
Selena kissed me.
“Do you remember…” she began, her mouth leaving mine, but I caught her wrist.
“Don’t go there, Selena.”
“I was hoping we could do it again.” She smiled.
Not Evie’s smile, but my cock throbbed in my breeches and lightning cracked behind my eyes.
Selena saw it, her lips parting. Her hand lifted to my jaw, fingers threading into my hair. “Let me…” she whispered. “I can quiet it for you.”
No. I would not let her quiet anything.
She wanted to tame the wolf, to lure it into her cave of ice and drown it, but the wolf wanted out.
And I was perilously close to setting him free.
Her psionic magic brushed against my scalp. I felt it and shut it out. Easily so.
“Go away,” I growled.
She kissed me again. “I can take it, Kael…”
Can you?
My voice rasped, “You don’t even know what it is.”
“I can make the storm go away.”
I won’t let you.
I had fucked Selena once. The night I’d granted her sick mother the mercy of ash. She had asked for it, desperate to drown the noise in her head, to forget what the plague had taken from her and the kingdom.
Had that single night made her believe she understood me, understood this? The wolf that gnawed at its cage, pacing beneath my skin?
Back then, the storm had been quiet, docile enough.
But tonight, lightning crawled beneath my flesh, ready to spill free and swallow the city of Befest whole.
What did Selena wish to forget this time?
Yet none of that compared to the sound in my head. Evie’s scream.
The knowledge that she’d taken pleasure in the pain I’d caused had not repelled me; it had unleashed something primal, something raw and hungry that I barely contained. It drove me closer to the edge. And I had done exactly what I dreaded most.
The storm had called her, and she had answered. But I had hurt her, drawn that agonizing scream from her. And I hated myself for it.
I hated how it cracked open the vault of everything I’d buried.
All that blood.
All those bodies.
All that ash.
“You think you can take it?” I shouted, my voice ragged with fury. “You think you can make it disappear, just like that?”
I didn’t wait for an answer. I caught her by the hips and turned her, pressing her forward so she’d bend over Henrich’s tomb.
I’d use her to choke the storm, by fucking her the way the wolves did.
I gathered the folds of her pink gown, keeping her pinned to the cold stone with one hand.
She squealed and wriggled as if she weren’t comfortable.
I wasn’t there to be kind. She wanted this, then she’d have it on my terms. And we would see if she still wanted me after that, after she saw the monster.
The storm demanded release, and she’d made herself the perfect vessel for its wrath. And I, the perfect monster to wield it.
She deserved this. I deserved this. We all did.
I unbuttoned my breeches and freed my cock, still hard. I pushed her undergarments aside and entered her.
She was tight in all the wrong places.
My cock wasn’t even halfway in when she started squealing like a pig. A drunk sow.
I seized her by the nape of her neck and pressed, hard, her face digging into the cold stone.
I knew what I was doing, and shame didn’t even try to reach me. I was far beyond its grasp.
“Is that what you want?” I snarled, thunder coiling beneath each word. “To be fucked like the world wouldn’t care if you died?”
She didn’t respond. Her squeals turned to moans.
“Do you truly think you can take it away? Still deluding yourself that you can change me?”
I thrust into her, harder and faster. She clenched, shudders rippling through her, unable to take my full length.
I leaned over, caught her hair and yanked her head back up. My movements stilled. I thrust deeply, pressed close enough to whisper against her ear, “There’s no saving me, Selena. That’s another failure you’ll have to live with.”
She yelped. Tears spilled over her face. And in that moment, I understood. Selena hadn’t come to me for comfort or affection. She’d come seeking punishment.
Atonement for the things we’d done.
For the sins we called salvation.
I straightened, still digging her face into Henrich’s grave. The speed of my thrusts increased to a rhythm I reserved for hunts. Henrich’s name glared up at me like judgment itself.
Selena moaned. Loud, ragged, and broken. She was going to come apart all over my cock, screaming my name.
I thrust harder and harder, pounding Selena’s flesh in sinful slaps and clacks. If I tore her apart, maybe it would quiet the storm. Maybe it would drown the sound of Evie’s scream.
“Oh, Kael!”
The scent of roses suddenly threaded the air. Evie’s face appeared between my thoughts.
I saw her mouth.
I heard her voice.
I slowed my thrusts, feeling nothing but hate coursing through me. Anger. Rage. At first, I did not notice how Selena writhed beneath me, her body hungry for more.
All I saw was Evie.
But the image twisted as lightning cracked inside my thoughts.
“Kael, please, don’t stop!” Selena moaned. She wanted me to continue whatever I did to her, however unpretty it was.
The light surged around me, blinding and wild. The last warning before my control slipped.
“Please, Kael. Please continue.” Her moans turned to desperate pleas.
Was that how much she hated herself?
Something inside me broke free, shattering the fragile hold I had on control. I pushed myself off her, releasing her and myself. She squealed and twisted in protest.
The storm swelled within me, lightning coiling down my arms as her voice dissolved into the thunder’s roar.
She looked over her shoulder, and I saw pure fear. Her legs trembled as if they were about to give beneath her. She made herself small and covered her ears.
“Kael, no!”
I didn’t stop it. I couldn’t. No matter how much I wanted to. Lightning burst around us.
She screamed, collapsing to the ground, knees and palms sinking into the grass as my thunder roared.
“Kael, snap out of it! I beg you… You’re going to kill me!” Her voice shattered into a million pieces.
“If you want to beg, do it right. Don’t look so pathetic.” It wasn't my voice anymore.
One last thunderclap split the air. Lightning struck Henrich’s statue across the alcove, marble splintering in roots and branches until it shattered.
And behind my eyes, I saw only Evie, the mark burned into her shoulder, the horror in her gaze.
My breath came in shallow gasps. Selena didn’t move. She squeezed herself, tears flowing, strands of hair stuck to her face.
I didn’t say what I should have said. Instead, I heard myself say, “Don’t you ever fucking touch me again.”
The alcove lay in shadow and ruin, the statue split, the air scorched. Marble dust drifted like smoke. I left Selena there, crumbled in the grass against the tomb, silent now, her arse wet and raised to the moon.
I didn’t apologize. I never did.
Maybe I should have.
The storm had emptied, but not enough. It never was.
I fastened my breeches and turned toward the castle. The wind carried the faint scent of roses again, as if the night itself mocked me. Because even after that, I still thought of Evie.
I hadn’t known she’d been there. Hadn’t felt the eyes watching from the edge of the garden, too far for the light to touch.
Hadn’t seen her turn away, her tears shining like glass in her doe eyes.
Hadn’t seen her run.
Behind me, the garden still smelled of dust and roses.