17. Chapter 17
Chapter seventeen
“Been looking for me?” Emmaline pulled her hand away. “Why?”
Caelith blinked, clearly startled by her reaction, as if the thought of her pushing back hadn’t even crossed his mind.
“Well…” He hesitated, lips parting, but she didn’t give him the space to recover.
“How did you know I was here?” She took a slow step backward, putting distance between them.
The club throbbed with life behind her, but standing there, so close to him, the noise felt distant—muffled, as if she’d stepped just beyond its reach, leaving only the hollow press of dread pooling beneath her skin.
Earlier this week, he had barely even acknowledged her existence. And now, after the Patrol had scoured his castle, he was suddenly looking for her? She might have been obsessed with him, but she wasn’t a complete idiot.
“I don’t.” Caelith exhaled, rolling his shoulders. And then—
The charm slid into place like a mask. His voice softened, and his gaze dipped just enough to feign sincerity. “I didn’t mean to catch you off guard. I just wanted to check on you and make sure you were okay.”
“Why wouldn’t I be okay?” She took another step back and found the wall behind her. And why the hell do you care?
He moved closer. “The Patrol,” he said, like it was obvious, like it was something he’d spent so much time worrying about. “I was worried they’d found out you were there that night.”
He lifted a hand, reaching for her, brushing a loose strand of hair behind her ear with an intimacy that made her stomach lurch. His face held only concern, but the touch felt wrong.
“That doesn’t explain why you would come all the way out here.” Her voice was cool as she turned her head, forcing his hand to fall away. “Or how you knew I was here.”
For the briefest second, something dark flickered across his expression—too fast, too fleeting to catch. But she felt it. Then, just as quickly, his face smoothed back into that perfect look of compassion.
“Deyric.” He sagged, letting his hand fall to his side.
“What about Deyric?” A painful, breathless pressure tightened in her ribs, the edges of the room narrowing around her.
Caelith looked away. His jaw shifted, and there was something rigid in the set of his shoulders, as if the words sat heavy on his tongue, unwilling to be spoken.
“What?” She took a half step toward him, then thought better of it, pressing back into the wall instead.
He exhaled slowly, brows drawn in an approximation of distress. “He was talking about you. About how you’d…”
Her pulse hammered. “About how I’d… what?”
Caelith hesitated. “About how you’d thrown yourself at him.” His mouth pressed into a thin line as if tasting something distasteful. “His words were most uncouth and do not bear repeating.”
The walls felt too close. Her fingers flexed uselessly at her sides as something cold slithered beneath her skin. He couldn’t have said those things.
“He bragged about how you begged him to come here tonight. Begged him to…” He looked away. “Fuck you again.”
“No.” The word barely escaped.
Caelith stepped closer, offering an arm as if to steady her. “I’m so sorry…er…petal.”
“He wouldn’t.” She forced a hand to her chest as if to hold herself together.
Caelith shook his head, his gaze heavy with regret.
“You have my word as a Lord of the Vale.” His attention drifted to the club, his nose crinkling ever so slightly.
“That’s why I came down here,” he continued.
“I felt obligated to tell you before you saw him again. As Deyric is my servant, and thus, his conduct—however disgraceful—is ultimately my responsibility, I needed to warn you.”
Her mouth opened, then closed, but no words came. She searched Caelith’s face, scanning for any sign of insincerity, any tell that would unravel this web before it tightened around her. But he only looked back at her with careful concern, a mask of quiet sympathy.
Deyric wouldn’t. Would he?
“Oh my, petal.” Caelith patted her arm like she was a delicate thing in need of handling. “You look as if you might faint. Let me get you something to drink. Then I’ll take you home. My glider is just out front.”
She shook her head, the motion jerky, immediate. “I don’t—”
She didn’t want to go anywhere with him. She wanted to find Deyric. She needed to straighten this out, but Caelith was already gone, moving through the crowd toward the bar.
Emmaline sucked in a breath, gaze darting across the dance floor.
She should slip away now, vanish into the press of bodies, put as much distance between herself and this conversation as possible.
Or maybe she should find Ursula and wedge herself into a protective barrier of leather and bloodstained knives.
But before she could decide, he was back, carrying a tall, thin glass of something clear and softly effervescent. Tiny bubbles clung to the rim, winking in the blinking club lights.
“Spring water.” He extended it to her, his fingers grazing hers as she took it.
Her breath hitched at the contact, a small, startling shock snapping up her arm like a burst of static beneath her skin.
“Thank you.” She blinked down at the glass. She probably did need some water. After everything she had drunk tonight, her throat was parched, her body heavy with the slow, creeping exhaustion of the evening.
She lifted the glass to her lips, tilting it back—
Caelith never looked away, his face unreadable, watching her as she swallowed.
The taste was fresh and clean, cool in a way that went deeper than temperature, like the first sip from a mountain stream untouched by the filth of the world. It slid down smooth, crisp, carrying a faint, almost electric hum, causing her head to swim.
“You said this was water?” The words felt slow, a little distant.
She barely noticed Caelith’s thumb, tracing small, deliberate circles against the back of her free hand. It was a soft, rhythmic motion, soothing in its repetition, except for the faint, lingering slickness he left behind, oily and clinging.
“Spring water.” His voice rolled through her, deep and resonant. “From Cerridwyn’s Well.”
A place so well known, yet nearly myth, it was a hidden spring nestled deep within the Vale’s original heart, said to be the place Lyra first stepped back in time and into the ancient Ellyllon city.
“Oh…” The sound spilled from her lips, languid, sultry, like a slow exhale of pleasure.
A warmth coiled in her limbs, loosening the tension in her muscles and sending a delicious tremor down her spine.
Her fingers skimmed the bottom of the glass as she swayed slightly toward him, the world contracting to the deep ocean-blue of his eyes.
“That sounds lovely.” Her words stretched out as if time itself had unraveled, slowed into something rich and heavy. “You got this for me?”
“Yes, petal.”
Caelith’s fingers skimmed her cheekbone, gliding downward, following the curve of her face, the line of her jaw, before dragging over her lips—just enough for her to feel a ghost of pressure that left her breath stuttering.
This time, she didn’t turn away.
Why had she been so eager to flee from him, anyway?
The unease from earlier felt foreign, like a memory from another life, one that had no place here.
He’d come all this way, through the depths of the Gloam, to one of the seediest clubs in the city just to check on her.
That was devotion, wasn’t it? Proof of something real?
She had wanted this for so long. For years.
Her fingers itched to touch him in return, but something stirred deep inside her, something thin and scared, warning her that this was wrong, that she was drowning in something she didn’t understand.
She silenced it. Caelith was her mate. This was how she was supposed to feel. She took another sip of the spring water.
“Let me take you home.” His words were low against her ear, lips barely skimming the edge of her jaw.
A wave of heat washed over her, and her skin prickled with awareness, every nerve attuned to him—the closeness of his body, the warmth of his breath, the way his fingers traced her arm.
She leaned into him, heart hammering. “I…”
She wanted to tell him to take her. To get her out of here, to put his hands on her, to finish what had been brewing between them for so long. But then—
Deyric. The name sliced through the haze like a whisper in the dark.
She stiffened and tried to step back, steady herself, but Caelith didn’t falter. His grip on her face flexed, while his other hand—the one that had been rubbing slow, deliberate circles in her palm—slid up to her face.
“You want me to take you home.”
She didn’t answer. Couldn’t. Air stuttered in her lungs as he pressed forward, his thumb slipping past the seam of her lips, parting them with the faintest pressure. Something syrupy-sweet bloomed on her tongue, then, too sweet, thick and cloying, coating her mouth in a way that made her head spin.
Her eyelids fluttered, and a delicious pressure unfurled inside her, insistent and undeniable.
Her mind clawed at the edges of the moment, desperate to grasp something real, something solid.
But the thought slid away, lost in the tide of his voice, his scent, his thumb against her lips.
He was everywhere, flooding her senses, filling her lungs, wrapping around her in a way that made it impossible to think, impossible to want to think.
Her free hand clenched at the front of his coat. She needed him. Needed… her mate.
Her inhale wavered against his wrist as her lips parted further, tongue just barely grazing the pad of his thumb, desperate for the taste of him.
And the world outside of Caelith ceased to exist. The only thing that mattered was him.