Chapter 29 I Still Want You
I Still Want You
Yuna
I don’t realize I’m shaking until the petals start to follow me.
They lift from the council bowls as I storm through the corridor—small, charred moons spinning in my wake—then flutter down again when I force my breathing to even out.
Moonlight pours through the lattice windows, striping the hall in silver and shadow.
I want the wind to take the sting out of Taeyang’s words, but it clings like smoke.
Pathetic.
The word won’t stop echoing.
“Yuna,” Kaelen calls, quickening to match my pace.
“Hey—slow down.” His hand hovers near my elbow, careful, practiced. “Breathe with me. In… and out.”
“I am breathing,” I snap, then soften. “I am. I just”
“Know he didn’t mean it?” Kaelen’s mouth twists. “Maybe. But he said it. And you don’t deserve to be the target when someone else can’t manage their fear.”
We step into the eastern gallery, where night-blooming vines curl over pale marble and the city glows like a constellation spilled at our feet. I brace both palms on the balustrade and let the cold stone leach heat from my skin. The mark on my collarbone pulses once, furious and bright.
“I hate that it still hurts,” I say. “I hate that he can still make it hurt.”
Kaelen’s voice gentles.
“It hurts because you cared. Because you still—” He stops himself, then tries again. “You know I’ll stand where you tell me. With you. In front of you. Behind you. Whatever you need.”
“I need to be believed,” I whisper.
“I believe you.” His fingers brush my sleeve, then my forearm—light, testing. “And I think… you deserve someone who chooses you without making your strength a problem to solve.”
I turn, and that’s when I see it—the tilt of his shoulders, the way his gaze has already dropped to my mouth. I feel the shift before he leans in. The soft, steady caress at my jaw is meant to be comfort. It isn’t. Not to me.
“Kaelen—” I start, drawing back.
Bootsteps cut like thunder through velvet.
“Take your hand off her.”
The voice is gravel and flame. My pulse answers before my head does. Taeyang steps out of the shadowed arch with the night at his back and wrath banked low in his eyes. The air tightens; even the vines seem to stiffen.
Kaelen’s hand stills on my cheek. He doesn’t move it. “This is the Fae Palace,” he says without looking away from me. “Not the demon realm.”
“That’s my mate,” Taeyang says, each word sharp enough to bleed on. He closes the distance in three controlled strides. “Touch her again and I’ll kill you. Treaty be damned.”
The threat strikes sparks off the marble. My mark flares so bright it aches.
“Enough,” I say, and the word comes out colder than I expect. I step between them, palm to Taeyang’s chest to stop him, fingers to Kaelen’s wrist to move him back. “Both of you.”
Taeyang doesn’t look at my hand. He looks at my face, like he’s memorizing whether I’ll send him away. Kaelen exhales and drops his arm, jaw tight.
“Kaelen,” I say, not unkind, “you’re my friend. You’re my guard. That’s all. Please don’t blur that for me. Not tonight.”
He swallows, wounded pride catching in his throat, then bows his head a fraction. “As you wish, Highness.” His eyes flick past me to Taeyang—a warning he doesn’t voice—and he steps back to the archway, taking up a watch he won’t abandon.
Silence settles. The city hums below. My palm is still on Taeyang’s chest. His heart is a hammer.
“You shouldn’t have said it,” I tell him. “You shouldn’t have called me pathetic.”
His eyes close like the word itself hurts. “I know.”
“You say you’re protecting me. Then protect me from you. From that tongue when fear is driving it.”
He opens his eyes again. The anger is gone; only ruin remains. “I’m sorry,” he says, voice low. “It was fear pretending to be strength. I… failed it. And you.”
I drop my hand. The cold rushes back in. “Don’t do it again.”
“I won’t.” A breath shudders out of him. “I can’t lose you by my own hand.”
I look past him to the doorway where Kaelen stands, an outline cut from moonlight. I look back at the demon who keeps setting fire to all my certainties and then kneeling in the ashes with me.
“I don’t need a cage, Taeyang,” I say. “But I don’t want to do this alone.”
His throat works.
“Tell me how to stand with you.”
“Don’t choose pride over us.” The words shake, but I let them. “Don’t choose fear over me.”
Wind lifts the edge of my hair. A single petal spins up from the courtyard and lands in my palm, unburned. I close my fingers around it and finally say the thing I’ve been trying not to name all night.
“I still want you.”
The world goes very, very quiet. Taeyang doesn’t reach for me. Not this time. He bows his head instead, as if something sacred has just been placed between us and he’s terrified of breaking it.
“Then I’ll be worthy of being wanted,” he says. “I’ll learn how.”
I nod once, because anything more and I’ll unravel.
“Start with this,” I add, flicking my gaze toward the arch. “No more threats in rooms I have to live in.”
A corner of his mouth lifts, shame-soft and real. “Understood.”
I turn to Kaelen. “Walk me to my door?”
He straightens. “Of course.”
We move down the corridor together. I don’t look back, but I feel him—Taeyang’s presence held tight and careful, shadowing at a distance that’s half promise, half penance. The petal warms in my fist. Wanting him doesn’t erase the hurt.
But for the first time tonight, it doesn’t erase me either.