Chapter 24 Kael
TWENTY-FOUR
KAEL
The bond ignites like black fire in my veins.
One second, I’m leaning against the cold stone of the west corridor, shadows pooling at my boots like spilled ink; the next, her pleasure crashes through me—sharp, blinding, unrestrained.
Lindsay’s orgasm isn’t soft. It never is.
It’s a storm breaking open, lightning forking straight into my chest, my gut, lower.
My cock jerks hard behind the laces of my trousers; my shadows snap outward in violent ribbons before I can leash them, cracking against the wall hard enough to leave scorch marks.
I hiss through clenched teeth. My palm slams flat to the stone to keep from doubling over.
She’s coming apart for him.
Raiden.
I feel every pulse of it—the way her walls clench around him, the way her magic flares wild and wraps him in a swirl of blue and purple sparks, the way she cries his name like a prayer and a curse at once.
The bond doesn’t spare details. It never does.
It feeds me the heat of his tails curling around her thighs, the bite of his canines on her shoulder, the deep, claiming thrusts that make her sob his name until the tower room echoes with it.
My shadows coil tighter around me, bristling, alive with fury. They want out. Want to tear through the academy until they find her—until they wrap around her throat and his and remind them both who she was bound to first.
I force them down. Barely.
Because beneath the raw, possessive burn of jealousy is something colder. Sharper.
Guilt.
Mistress Cellan’s little performance in Forbidden Magic wasn’t a lesson.
It was a match held to dry tinder. She poked at Lindsay’s jealousy, stroked Kael-the-demon-prince like I was her favorite toy, and watched the darkness rise.
Watched the Veil-touched power Lindsay carried back with her surge to the surface—hungry, volatile, and barely leashed.
And I was the tool.
She used me—my presence, my history with her, the way Lindsay’s eyes track me even when she’s furious—to detonate the girl I’m sworn to protect.
Every time Mistress Cellan trailed her fingers over my arm, every purr of my name, every deliberate brush against my wing, she was feeding the storm inside Lindsay.
Pushing the Veil closer to breaking through her skin.
I let it happen.
I stood there. Smiled politely. Didn’t stop it.
Because part of me—the part that still believes the prophecy, still hears my father’s voice in the back of my skull—wanted to see how far the darkness had spread. Wanted to measure exactly how much of the Veil now lives in her bloodstream.
And now Raiden is fucking that darkness out of her in a forgotten tower while I stand here tasting her release secondhand, shadows writhing as though they’re trying to claw their way to her.
I shove off the wall. Pace three steps. Stop. Drag a hand through my hair.
The bond pulses again—aftershocks now. Softer. Lindsay’s breathing evening out, her body going lax against his chest, his tails curling around them both like a silver cage. She’s safe. Sated. Marked.
And still, the Veil inside her hums—quieter for the moment, but not gone. Never gone.
My shadows finally settle, slinking back to curl at my feet like chastised hounds. But they don’t rest. They watch. They wait.
I turn toward the western wing. The tower stairs are a long climb, but I don’t need to reach the top to feel her. The bond is a chain now—forged in blood and Veil and every secret I’ve kept from her. I could follow it blind.
But I don’t.
Not yet.
Because if I walk into that room right now, smelling of sex and fox and her pleasure, my shadows will lash out before I can stop them. They’ll wrap around Raiden’s throat and squeeze. They’ll drag her to me and pin her to the stone until she’s gasping my name instead.
And she’s already angry with me. Already wounded by the things I didn’t tell her.
So I stay.
I sink down the wall until I’m sitting on cold flagstone, knees drawn up, forearms resting on them. Shadows pool around me thicker now—protective, possessive, a living cloak.
I close my eyes.
I feel her heartbeat slow. Feel the warmth of Raiden’s arms around her. Feel the quiet satisfaction humming through the bond like a distant purr.
And beneath it all, the Veil stirs.
Whispering.
Waiting.
Reminding me that Mistress Cellan was right about one thing:
Some magic doesn’t respond to discipline. It responds to emotion.
And right now, Lindsay is drowning in it—love, rage, need, revenge—and every pulse of that emotion is feeding the thing that came back with her.
The thing I was supposed to kill before it woke.
The thing I can’t bring myself to end.
Because ending it would mean ending her.
And I’d rather watch the Veil tear the world apart than lose the only light that’s ever made my shadows feel like something other than chains.