CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE
elysia
“My head hurts so much.” Odette groans into the table, arms wrapped around her head like she’s protecting herself from the gods themselves.
Sirena and Brynn aren’t much better, both slumped forward with faces half-buried in open tomes that have definitely not been read. We’re supposed to be researching the plague, but clearly that plan died somewhere between the third and fourth bottle of wine last night.
My lips twitch, amusement bubbling up until a quiet laugh escapes me.
“Laugh all you want, Elysia,” Sirena mumbles into her tome, voice muffled and pitiful. “Next time you’ve got a hangover, I’ll have no sympathy for you.”
I grin, flicking my plait over my shoulder. “Well, thank the gods I stopped drinking when I did. I wouldn’t have survived without your sympathy.”
She lets out a sound that’s half laugh, half groan. Honestly, it could be either.
Cole sits beside me, flipping through a book he’s clearly not reading. He’d declared himself ‘one of the girls’ for the day, claiming he wanted to spend his last few hours with me… though his not-so-subtle glances toward Brynn tell a different story.
“Where did you disappear to last night, Sparks?” he asks casually, eyes still on the page.
“Oh, uh… I just went for a walk. Needed some air.” I fidget with the ring on my finger. Shit. He’s going to see right through me.
Sure enough, that infuriating smirk curls on his lips. “Kaden disappeared for a while, too. Run into him, by any chance?”
Not to give in to the ache.
Not to pretend it wasn’t completely fucking undoing me.
When I straightened, her eyes met mine, and that barely-there twinkle she tried so hard to hide made my pulse skitter.
Fuck, those eyes.
Eyes that look like Neytiri herself fashioned them out of the moon. Too beautiful for a world like this, too powerful not to make every one of my reckless actions worth it.
My fist slams into the bag.
Blood stains my wrapped knuckles, and regret claws at my ribs. Not regret for the sheath, I’d never regret seeing her light up like that. But for touching her last night, for letting her unravel me even further and for wanting her still.
Even after my countless cold showers this morning, even through the sweat coating my skin, her scent lingers… stubborn, faint and taunting. A whisper of the fiery little mage I held beneath my touch only hours ago.
I throw another punch.
The bag swings back hard, the chain above creaking under the impact and echoing across the combat hall. Sweat slicks my skin, salt and heat mixing with the phantom sweetness of her scent, driving me to the edge of insanity bit by bit.
My knuckles burn, my skin split open and bleeding through the wraps, but I don’t stop.
I can’t.
I need the pain. I need the distraction.
Because every time I close my eyes, I see her.
The way the violet light bled from the wisteria, pooling across her skin like she was a fallen angel sent down just to torture me. The way her lips felt against mine, the way they parted when I touched her, the sound she made when my fingers found her— gods, that sound… it undid me.
It was the kind of sound that makes a man forget every promise he ever made to stay away.
I throw another punch, harder this time.
Then another strike.
The bag jerks back, slamming into the chain with a hollow crack.
Another.
Faster. Harder.
The leather tears beneath my fist, but all I feel is her. The heat beneath her skin, the tremor in her breath, the taste of her lips… I should never have touched her.
What the fuck was I thinking?
A growl escapes before I can stop it, and my punch makes the bag swing wide. I catch it and hold it still with both hands. My pulse roars in my ears like a war drum, my chest heaving.
One breath. One look. One moment of weakness.
One single fucking kiss and I’m ruined.
I wanted her so badly, since the moment she walked through those damn Binding Hall doors, if I’m being honest with myself.
It took everything in me to pull away and stop myself from going any further last night.
It almost broke me to see the depleted look in her eyes when I demanded she leave, but I refused to keep acting on desire that wasn’t hers.
And yet… the way she touched me back, the way she moved against me, the way her lips claimed mine with equal desperation. It took me all night mowing over our encounter to realise it wasn’t just my desire but hers as well, untamed chaos and pure need.
The bond only magnified it, feeding our emotions until I couldn’t tell whose hunger was whose.
But the desire was real; it always has been.
I drive my fist into the bag again and land a brutal strike, the impact shuddering up my arm. The frustration twists deeper, and I let it fuel the next punch, and the next, until my muscles tremble and the air in the combat hall tastes like iron and regret.
My breath comes in short, ragged bursts as I grab a dagger from the nearby rack and hurl it toward the target across the room.
Thud. Dead centre.
Another.
Thud.
The room fills with the hum of my frustration, the swing of my arm, the bite of steel hitting wood and the echo of her name inside my head.
Elysia.
Even thinking it now feels dangerous, her name alone pulling me back. Her nails on my skin, her magic dancing with mine, her body melting and moulding to my touch as if she were made for me.
“Fuck.” I growl, slamming my fist into the wall. The stone bites back, and pain flares through my knuckles, but I welcome it.
I need distance.
I need control.
I need to remember who the hell I am.
But as the scent of roses lingers on my skin, sweet and faint beneath the tang of sweat and blood, all I can think is that if she were to walk through that door right now, I know I’d do it again.
I wouldn’t hesitate to strip her bare, pin her against the wall and watch as my touch sends her crashing into insanity along with me.
The doors creak open, and I stiffen, dragging in a breath and narrowing my eyes as dawn light shifts across the hall.
“Reinheart.” Instructor Seraphine’s voice cuts through the haze of my relentless thoughts like a blade. “You don’t have classes today.” Her tone is calm but laced with question.
I turn, wiping the blood from my hands with a rag.
Her gaze sweeps over the shredded bag, the blood coating my knuckles and the embedded daggers across the wall.
Her eyes narrow slightly. “Losing control, are we?”
My jaw flexes as I re-wrap my knuckles. “No, just training.”
She walks toward the target, her boots silent against the stone. “Training doesn’t usually look like self-destruction.” Her tone isn’t mocking but measured as she yanks the embedded daggers free.
I force a smirk, but it feels wrong on my lips. “Didn’t realise The Council started caring about punching bags.”
Her eyes sharpen. “They don’t… but they do care about the bond.”
My breath catches before I can stop it, the bond in question humming faintly across my skin, subtle and electric. I can feel her even now, the warmth of her sleep brushing against my mind like a whisper. Usually, it calms me, but I’m too caught up in my own self-loathing this morning.
Instructor Seraphine studies me for a long moment. “Be careful, Kaden. Power like yours… especially when mixed with Elysia’s… it can become volatile when emotions spiral.”
I nod once, my jaw flexing at the warning coating her words. “Understood.”
When she finally turns and leaves, the silence swallows everything again.
I exhale, slow and uneven. It’s almost funny… I’ve faced wars, monsters, men who’d sell their souls for half my strength, but none of it holds a match to the frightening amount of power my Elysia holds over me, even without knowing it.
I inhale a deep breath, gather my things and force myself to move, walking out of the combat hall and into the Concordium corridors.
My boots echo against the stone with each step, the sound too loud in the hollow quiet.
By the time I reach the suite, my thoughts are a tangled mess, circling her no matter how hard I push them away.
The door to my private quarters closes behind me with a muted thud, sealing me into stillness.
Her scent lingers stubbornly in the space, roses and warmth threaded through the quiet, clinging to my skin like a phantom that refuses to leave.
I exhale slowly, drag my hand through my hair, and cross to my desk before I can talk myself out of it, fingers already itching for the weight of charcoal.
I lower onto the chair, the fabric sighing under my weight as I flick on the rune lamp. Soft light spills across the desk as I reach for a fresh sheet of parchment. The first lines come without thought, as if my hands have been waiting for permission. Her dagger takes shape from memory alone.
The star iron edge sharp and precise, cerulium inlays curling inward toward the centre rune. I sketch the tear-shaped vein of lunalith, shading the azure veins in the crystal until it catches the candlelight.
My strokes slow when I turn to the rings band. I darken the curves, then ease my hand to lighten the point where light would strike, lingering there longer than necessary. The charcoal smudges across my fingers, and I don’t bother to wipe it away.
I lean back slowly, my breath catching in my throat as my gaze drifts over my newest piece. Eyes lingering on the familiar shapes etched into the parchment, rendered in charcoal and shadow, yet every bit as real as the marks the woman who wears them has burned into my soul.
It hits me quietly as my gaze lingers.
I’m completely ruined, undone.
Not by enemies or the battles I’ve survived countless times. By her. By the way she moves and breaths, by her smile and the way she laughs.
She’s in the next room sleeping, unaware that I can’t stop thinking about her, can’t stop feeling her in the spaces I thought were mine alone. I realise, with a slow tightening in my chest, that she’s already unravelled me.