chapter twenty-four
kaden
The scent of roses still clings to my skin, dragging me back to her.
To the restricted archives. To the market. To the wisteria tree.
No matter how hard I try to shake it.
I hadn’t gone out that day intending to buy her anything.
I’d done everything in my power to keep my distance—to drown out the roses that followed her like a promise, to ignore the phantom echo of Ronan’s hand in hers, even as it scraped like a hot knife beneath my skin.
But then she stopped so suddenly it was like the world had shifted around her.
Her attention had snapped sharp and focused towards that stall in a way I recognised all too well. The same way she looks at her plants, or books, or anything that speaks to her soul. Awe bled faintly through the bond in a soft, reverent pulse, and it caught in my chest like a held breath.
The sheath was extraordinarily beautiful and unmistakably her. Every pressed rose and every whisper of silver spoke of beauty honed too finely to remain harmless. The way she held it undid me completely.
Like it was made for her. Like it belonged to her.
When the merchant named his price, her disappointment bled through in fractured pulses, quietly devastating, followed by a brittle kind of acceptance that made my jaw lock.
She’d already let it go. Already convinced herself she didn’t want it. Didn’t need it.
Fuck that.
I was buying it before I fully realised what I was doing. Then, as I grasped the sheath in my hand, her emotions twisted. Confusion first, then hurt, edged with a tinge of anger. The kind that comes from believing someone has taken something from you on purpose.
I felt it click into place for her as certainly as I felt her every breath filter into my own lungs. She thought I’d bought it for myself, thought I’d purchased it just because I could. Just to hurt her.
That was when I dropped to my knees.
Leather meeting dirt and pride meeting something far more dangerous.
I’ve never knelt for anyone.
Not commanders. Not The Council. Not warriors who once held the power to wound me with a single glance.
But for her? I didn’t hesitate, not when I felt the way her heart fractured.
My hands were steady as I fastened it to her thigh, careful and delicate, like I was touching something sacred.
Involuntary heat flared through me at the contact with the ferocity of a tsunami crashing against a cliff, and the bond hummed low between us as if it approved of our closeness, as if it had always known this was where my hands were meant to be.
Every brush of my fingers sent a quiet tremor through her, her pulse fluttering beneath my touch, her breath hitching in small, betrayed pauses she tried to hide.
I felt it all, even through her shield—the skipped beat of her heart, the way her desire curled inward, mirroring the slow and dangerous pull tightening in my own chest. The way her throat worked as she fought to remain composed, like wanting me was something she refused to allow herself.
It took everything in me not to linger longer.