Chapter 46
Where it leads
KADE
My mansion is quiet, the kind of stillness that hums with contentment.
Zara moves around the rooms, her hair falling loose in soft waves, catching the sunlight streaming through the windows and turning it to moonlight.
She’s humming under her breath, and it’s a melody I don’t recognize, but I already want to memorize.
She fits here, in my home.
More than that, she belongs here.
I lean against a doorway, watching her. She’s pretending not to notice, but the small smile tugging at the corner of her lips betrays her.
It’s almost magical to see her move through my house, as if she’s always belonged here.
As if my home was just waiting for her to arrive and fill a void I didn’t know existed.
As if it were an empty canvas she’s finally brought to life.
I grind my teeth, irritated I’ve become a lovesick twit who’s fawning over his girl.
There wasn’t one grain of untruth in my words when I told Zara she could have anything she wanted, and that little witch knows she has me exactly where she fucking wants me.
With my balls trapped in a vise, ready to do whatever it takes to keep her happy.
“You’re staring again,” she says without turning around.
“I can’t help it,” I admit. “You’re the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.”
She snorts, but the flush creeping up her neck gives her away.
Zara is many things, but being graceful while taking compliments isn’t one of them.
She turns to face me, making sure her skirt bellows outward as she pirouettes, and I catch a glance of her lithe thighs that need to be reminded of their fucking place.
“Beautiful?” She giggles and I love it. “That’s what you see when you look at me? Not the trail of dead warlocks or devastation?”
My laugh is dark and she loves it too.
Zara’s as obsessed about me as I am about her, and we’re both completely fucked.
She’s going to be the death of me and I’m going to ruin her, and we’ll torment each other into happiness for the rest of our goddamn days.
I don’t want it any other way. Neither does she.
We work—chaotic, volatile, perfect—like we were carved from the same darkness and meant to collide.
“I see it, kitten,” I say, snaking an arm around her waist. “You’re a tempest, but even they can be beautiful.”
“Flattery will get you nowhere.”
“Good thing I don’t need it.” I close the space between us, brushing my fingers over her cheek, tracing the line of her jaw like I’m committing it to memory. “You’re mine. All of you—fire, fury, and that wicked little pussy of yours that I’d burn down the world to fuck.”
I’m not lying.
Zara’s cunt has my cock aching most of the goddamn time, and it’s frankly embarrassing how often I’m hard for her.
The slightest touch makes my dick quiver and when she looks at me with those emerald eyes of hers it turns me hard in a fucking instant.
It’s impossible to be anything other than permanently ready to fuck her, and I’m planning on making good on my threat to christen every surface in every room with our come.
My fantasies run wild and the possibilities are endless, and I’m looking forward to breaking her in ways neither of us could have imagined before we collided.
She knows it, too, because her wicked frown sharpens, daring me to keep going, to keep pushing until there’s nothing left between us but raw need and the jagged edges of our dark obsession.
“What are you thinking about now?” she asks, her eyes glinting with curiosity and mischief.
“All the ways I’m going to ruin your cunt, kitten,” I say, my voice low.
Her laugh is breathless, her head falling back as she bares her throat to me.
“You’re too fucking cocky for your own good, Kade.”
“Confident,” I correct, nipping her collarbone and savoring the way she shudders beneath me. “And you love it.”
Her laughter echoes, a bright sound against the darker backdrop of my thoughts.
Zara’s right. I’m a cocky, arrogant bastard who takes what he wants without a shred of remorse.
It’s who I’ve always been, and for a long time, I believed that was all I’d ever be.
But Zara sees the monster I am and she doesn’t flinch, not even for a fucking second.
She loves me, not despite of my evil, but because of it.
She is darkness, stitched into flesh, breathing, smiling, waiting. Her power isn’t something she uses; it’s something that devours, seeping into the bones of the world and bending it to her whim. There’s no spell to break, no charm to unravel. Once she’s touched you, you’re already lost.
Zara doesn’t need threats or weapons because she is the weapon, her power coiled beneath her skin like a serpent waiting to strike. She speaks, and the air bends. She moves, and the world shudders. There is no safety from her, no distance great enough to escape the reach of her magic.
She could unmake a man with nothing but a look, peel away his strength, his sanity, until he’s nothing but a whisper of who he was.
She could turn love into obsession, devotion into ruin, and never lift a finger.
And the worst part? She wouldn’t need to force it. They’d thank her as she destroyed them.
Zara is not a woman to be loved.
She is a woman to be survived.
And that should terrify me.
Because Zara is power and I crave her. I love her, despite myself and perhaps because of it, and I've stopped caring whether this is right or wrong.
She’s perfect for me in ways that should terrify me but only leave me hungry for more.
Zara is darkness wrapped in silk, a cruel and cunning creature who doesn’t just survive.
She thrives. She’s vicious when she needs to be, relentless when she wants something, and utterly unapologetic about anything, no matter how dark it is.
It’s why we work.
She doesn’t fear the evil in me because the darkness inside her is even blacker than mine.
She doesn’t hesitate to play dirty, to cut throats and burn bridges if that gets her what she needs or wants.
Her lack of morals matches mine, and I know without a doubt she’d do whatever it took to stop me if I ever threatened her.
But she’s also more than that. She’s an enchantress, her power vast and unknowable, an untamed force I’ve barely begun to comprehend.
I’ve seen her weave illusions so real they could distort minds and summon storms with the flick of her wrist. Her magic pulses through me now we’re bound by the blood weave and I want more of it.
I want to use it and know it and consume it, to uncover every depth and every secret buried inside her.
Zara insists she doesn’t know the extent of her powers and I’m inclined to believe her.
She’s more than capable of lying to me, but I don’t think it’s in her interests.
The girl wants to discover what she’s capable of, and she knows I’ll help her reach her full potential.
I’ll protect her and guide her, soothe and calm her, and teach her the control she’s so desperately lacking.
In truth, I’m surprised how well our magic merges and the balance we’ve found is a rare and precious thing.
She’s fire to my fury, and I’m the control that contains her chaos.
Zara burns with a raw, untamed power that is as beautiful as it is destructive, and I’m the steadying force that channels her magic into something stoppable.
We’re a perfect, volatile equilibrium and she needs my discipline. She completes me in ways I didn’t know I needed, and in her, I see a reflection of the darkness and brilliance I carry in myself.
But more than that, she gives me a purpose. A reason. A meaning I haven’t felt in years. I’m not just a weapon, I’m her weapon. Her shield and her strength too, and that makes me dangerous in ways we’ve yet to discover.
“I don’t deserve you, Zara.”
The words slip out before I can stop them.
Her laughter dies, her eyes snapping to mine, sharp and assessing.
“What was that?”
“You heard,” I mutter, my thumb brushing over her lower lip.
She bites the pad of my thumb, her teeth scraping the sensitive skin, and I growl low in my throat.
Her grin is sharp and feral, as if she can taste the vulnerability in my words.
Zara always manages to take the pieces of me I keep hidden and drag them into the light, unapologetic and merciless, and strangely, I feel better for it.
“I think you’re forgetting something,” she says, her voice honeyed venom. “I chose you, Kade. All of you.”
Her fingers trail over my chest, searing through the fabric of my shirt. She’s always warm, like there’s fire running just beneath her skin, and when she touches me, it ignites something deeper inside me.
“So don’t talk to me about what you do or don’t deserve. You’re mine, just as much as I’m yours.”
The air between us singes, not with silence or hesitation, but with the profound unspoken understanding that simmers between us.
I tighten my grip on her waist, dragging her against me so our bodies align. “You’re not just mine, kitten. You’re my everything.”
“I know,” she whispers, unusually vulnerable.
Her confession lingers, her walls slipping for that one precious moment before she pushes them back into place with a sharp inhale.
She steps out of my hold, and the absence of her touch is like losing a piece of myself.
The loss is sharp, a blade of cold reality that reminds me of how fleeting these glimpses of her true self can be.
I let her go, knowing Zara will always retreat when she feels too exposed, and that pushing her now would only drive her further away.
She’ll come back to me and, in time, she’ll learn to trust me.
I’ll force her to if she doesn’t come around of her own accord.
“We should check the wards,” she says, her tone brisk as she moves toward the window. “They’ve been temperamental since Galen’s death.”