Chapter 14 #3
Kiran’s wand ceased its movement. His face showed no denial; instead, his expression hardened into something much more threatening.
“Imani,” he rumbled, her name heavy with warning. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.” But the rigidity of his shoulders betrayed him. Before she could press the advantage, Kiran let out a harsh breath, dragged a hand through his hair, and stepped toward her.
“This doesn’t have to be this complicated, you know,” he said, his tone dropping to a low, insistent plea.
“You’re making it harder than it needs to be.
Running across the Draswood, playing their games as if they won’t turn on you the second it suits them.
” His gaze locked with hers. “Come back with me. End this now, before it gets worse. You don’t need them, and you don’t need whatever this is becoming. You know where you belong.”
“It’s not your decision to make.” Imani held her ground but lowered her wand slightly. “I’m not being pulled into anything. I chose this. I’m not walking away just because it’s easier for you.” She lifted her chin. “I know exactly what I’m doing.”
Kiran closed the distance without asking, stepping into her personal space as though the boundary between them didn’t exist, his focus narrowing entirely on her.
His wand’s restless twirl stopped. The air grew stifling, charged with an inescapable tension.
Every inch he advanced felt like a physical impact, not a choice.
Then he closed the final gap, grasping her face with both hands before kissing her as if their argument hadn’t happened.
Driven by everything left unsaid, his hands moved from her face to her waist, catching her in a bruising grip to keep her from slipping away.
With a frustrated noise, she resisted, pressing her fist against his chest.
But he growled back, pressing his mouth harder, pushing his tongue against the seam of her lips.
The tension snapped, and she let him in, kissing him back with equal ferocity—a collision of anger and desperation that offered no resolution, only heat.
The Niflheim king dragged his hand up from her waist to frame her face. “I’ve missed you,” he breathed, his voice rough. “Gods, you’re still so beautiful even if you smell like him.”
His words cut through the intoxicating haze like a blade.
Imani broke the kiss. She tore herself from him with a ragged breath, her focus snapping into place with a bang. Panting, she pulled further away, refusing to let this surge of chemistry decide for her.
Without hesitation, she raised the Drasil again. Magic surged, crystalline energy slicing through the room’s shadows. She directed the power forward, and the air split with a violent tear, revealing a dark, waiting doorway between dimensions.
Kiran reacted with lethal speed, clamping a hand around her wrist as the doorway tore open. His grip was iron, trying to wrench her away from the tear and back against his chest.
“No, you don’t. Not again,” he snarled.
The struggle was brutal and brief. Their magic collided in the cramped space.
His was raw and desperate, hers disciplined and relentless.
He fought for every inch, but she drove forward, forcing him back, step by agonizing step, until the doorway’s vacuum caught him.
With one final, vicious shove, she sent him stumbling through the threshold.
His fingers slipped from her skin, and the gate sealed with a deafening crack, leaving no room to reverse.
Again, silence reigned as Imani fell back against the wall with a gasp. Her pulse pounded in her ears as she glanced around at the empty space where he’d just been, afraid he might still be there.
He wasn’t there, but Kiran would come back. Perhaps not tonight and certainly not through the same route, but he would keep looking for another way to reach her.
Since reaching Vathis, and especially in the few days since Ellisar’s return, one crisis after another had pushed Kiran toward the edges of her attention.
Tanyl. Lochheim. The Crown. Her claim. She had never forgotten what Kiran was capable of, but for several days she had been allowed to think about dangers that did not begin and end with him.
Finding him inside her bedroom had corrected that illusion.
As her breathing slowed, the larger picture formed in her mind: Ellisar, Tanyl, Kiran.
Separate pressures, intersecting agendas, all converging on the same point.
This had never been a single conflict between her and one adversary.
Reacting, including adjusting and countering, was no longer enough.
The pattern was too vast, the players too powerful.
If she wanted to survive them, she needed more people on her side.
Allies.
Imani looked toward the massive bookshelves lining the stone wall, her mind narrowing to a knife’s edge. Rulers of this realm had to have recorded how power was shared, contested, and controlled. She moved toward the leather-bound histories.
Knowing the rules wasn’t enough anymore. With three powerful witches vying for her power, she had to learn to rig the game in her favor.