Chapter 10
THE CONFESSION
Nesilhan
Three days.
Three days since Kaan returned from battle, since that war council where Yasar and I performed our elaborate dance of avoidance. Three days of the binding growing stronger, threading itself deeper into my bones until I can feel him breathing two wings away.
Three days of lying to my husband about what happened while he was gone.
The secret burns like acid in my throat, corroding me from within. Every time Kaan looks at me with those dark eyes full of suspicion and barely leashed violence, every time he asks if I'm alright, the words claw at my tongue, desperate for release.
But how do you tell the man who already lost everything that his father has turned you into a weapon against him?
I'm pacing our chambers at midnight, unable to sleep, when the door opens. Kaan enters like a storm given form, shadows pouring off him in waves.
"We're going to talk," he announces, and there's something in his voice—not his usual possessive fury, but something rawer. Fear. "Now."
"There's nothing to—"
"Don't." The word cracks like a whip. "Don't lie to me, Nesilhan. Not about this. I know something happened with Yasar. I can feel your terror every time he enters a room. The way you both pretend the other doesn't exist while the air between you practically screams."
My hands shake as I turn to face him. The binding pulses, reminding me that Yasar is in the eastern wing, close enough that my traitorous magic reaches for him even now.
"You wouldn't understand."
"Try me." He moves closer, and I see it then—beneath the anger, beneath the jealousy that's been eating him alive, there's genuine concern. "Whatever he did, whatever he threatened, I need to know. I can't protect you if—"
"Protect me?" The laugh that escapes is broken glass. "You can't even protect me from yourself, Kaan. How could you protect me from this?"
His expression shifts, shadows stilling. "From what?"
The words hover on my lips. Three days of secrets, three days of carrying this alone, and suddenly I can't anymore. The weight of it is crushing me.
"The cleansing ritual," I whisper. "When your father performed it, when he supposedly purified our bond... he did something else. Wove something into my soul."
Kaan goes absolutely still. The kind of stillness that precedes catastrophe.
"What did he do?"
"A binding." The confession tears from me like ripping flesh. "To Yasar. Your father bound me to your cousin during that ritual, and I didn't even know until—" My voice breaks. "Until Yasar told me."
The moment Kaan's shadows explode outward, I know I've made a terrible mistake telling him everything.
Furniture disintegrates. The ornate mirror shatters into a thousand glittering shards. The bed frame splinters with a sound like breaking bones. His darkness fills every corner of our chambers until I can barely see him through the writhing mass of fury given form.
"He WHAT?" The words tear from his throat, and the windows crack under the pressure of his rage.
I press my back against the wall, but I don't cower. I'm done cowering. "He revealed the binding. Showed me what your father did during the cleansing ritual. Made me understand why I've been—" The words stick in my throat. "Why I've been drawn to him."
"I'm going to rip him apart." Kaan's voice drops to something subterranean, inhuman. His eyes have gone completely black. "I'm going to make him scream for days before I finally let him die—"
"Kaan—there is something else."
"He kissed you." Not a question. A statement that lands like a death sentence. The shadows pulse darker, hungrier. "He put his fucking hands on you?"
"I stopped it!" The words explode from me with a burst of golden light that carves through his darkness. "I broke the kiss. But you want to know the worst part?" My voice cracks. "The worst part is that for one horrifying second, I wanted to stay. The binding made me want—"
I can't finish. Can't admit what my traitorous body craved even as my mind screamed violation.
Kaan goes utterly still. The shadows freeze mid-writhe. When he speaks again, his voice is barely audible. "You wanted him."
"No. The binding wanted him. Your father's curse wanted him. Everything Erlik wove into my soul during that ritual wanted him." I'm shaking now, my hands fisted at my sides. "But I didn't. I don't. I ran from him, Kaan. I chose to run."
"But you're starting to crave it." His eyes meet mine, and I see my own terror reflected back. "That's why you're so frightened. Not because of what he did, but because part of you liked it."
The accusation should enrage me. Instead, it breaks something inside because he's right. Gods help me, he's right.
"I hate you," I whisper, and it's not entirely meant for him. "I hate that your father did this to me. I hate that Yasar's touch feels like relief even though I know it's poison. I hate that I'm trapped in this palace, in this realm, in this body that doesn't even feel like mine anymore."
"Nesilhan—"
"And I hate," my voice rises to something close to screaming, "that the only time I feel like myself anymore is when I'm so fucking angry I could burn this entire realm to ash!"
The words hang between us like drawn blades.
Kaan moves toward me slowly, as if approaching something wild and wounded. His shadows have pulled back, leaving just the man—broken and desperate and looking at me like I'm his last hope of salvation.
"Then be angry," he says roughly. "Use me. Hurt me. Whatever you need to feel human again, take it."
"You don't mean that."
"I do." He stops an arm's length away. Close enough that I can see the fine tremors running through him, the way his jaw clenches with restraint.
"You need to reclaim something. Prove to yourself the binding hasn't won.
That you still control your own body, your own choices.
" His voice drops. "So use me to prove it. "
The offer should disgust me. Instead, something dark and hungry uncoils in my chest.
Because he's right about that too. My body has been a battleground for months—first with pregnancy and loss, then with Yasar's manufactured attraction. I've had no agency, no control, no choice in what happened to the flesh I inhabit.
But this? This I can choose.
"Take off your shirt," I hear myself say.
Kaan's eyes flash—dark, ancient, feral. For a heartbeat I think he will refuse. The Shadow Lord of the Dark Court doesn't take orders. Not from the Light Court princess he dragged into marriage.
But then he smiles—slow, deadly—and obeys. Not submission. Not compliance.
A warning.
The shirt comes off in one smooth motion, revealing a body carved by centuries of warfare. His scars shift with the movement of the shadows under his skin, as though serpents coil through living flesh, reacting to emotions he never voices aloud.
I step toward him as if pulled by a hook through my ribs. My nails rake down his chest. Bronze skin parts beneath my touch, blood welling up in hot, dark threads. His blood smells like iron and ancient storms—heady enough to make the room tilt.
He doesn't flinch. But his pupils blow wide, turning his irises nearly black. The shadows surge beneath his skin, restless, hungry.
"You want to be used?" I demand. "Want to be the weapon I turn against everything trying to control me?"
"Yes." One syllable. A growl. A promise.
The binding to Yasar tightens like barbed wire around my skull, punishing me for wanting the wrong man. Pain lances through my temples. I shove it aside with vicious satisfaction. This is my choice. Mine.
"Then get on your knees."
Power crackles between us. His jaw flexes. For a second—a terrifying second—he looks like he might devour me whole for the insult alone. Shadows coil up his arms, eager, waiting for his command to remind me exactly who rules this kingdom.
Then something shifts. His hunger eclipses his pride.
He sinks to his knees.
Even on the floor, he looks like a predator lowering himself before the strike. The sight sends liquid heat pooling low in my belly, a dark thrill that has nothing to do with Yasar's binding and everything to do with watching the most dangerous man in the realm submit to my will.
"What do you want?" he asks, voice thick with hunger and something darker. Something of mine.
An idea forms—vicious, perfect. If his shadows can be used as weapons, if they respond to his will, then they can be turned against him too.
"Your shadows," I say, my voice steadier now, edged with command. "Use them. On yourself."
His eyes narrow, curiosity and arousal warring in their depths. "What—"
"Bind yourself." The words come easier now, power singing through my veins. "Wrap them around your throat. Show me you mean it when you say I can take what I need."
For a moment, he's utterly still. Then understanding dawns, dark and hungry, and his lips curve into something that's almost pride.
"You want me helpless," he murmurs.
"I want you reminded," I correct, stepping closer, "that tonight, I own you."
The shadows respond before he even speaks a command—rising from his skin like living smoke, serpentine and eager. They coil around his throat in thick bands, tightening just enough that I see his breath catch, see the strain in his neck as they constrict.
Not enough to truly hurt. But enough to remind him he's given me this power.
"Tighter," I demand.
His eyes flash with something wild, but he obeys. The shadows constrict further, and I watch his throat work against them, watch the way his chest rises and falls with more effort now. He could dispel them with a thought. Could overpower me in seconds.
But he doesn't.
He kneels before me, shadows wrapped around his own throat, and looks up at me like I'm both salvation and damnation.
"Better?" His voice comes out rougher, strained by the pressure at his throat.