31. Chapter 31
Arwen
Later, long after Atticus has gone back to his room, I slip quietly into the hallway.
The corridor is silent, the plush carpet swallowing my footsteps as I tiptoe the short distance to Maddox’s door.
I knock, and the door swings open almost immediately. Maddox stands there, surprise flashing across his face.
“What are you doing out by yourself?” he asks at once, scanning the hall behind me. “Where’s Atticus?”
Before I can answer, he catches my wrist and pulls me inside, shutting the door behind me.
“He went back to his room hours ago,” I say. “And you’re two doors down, not across the continent.”
He ignores that.
“What are you doing here?” he asks again, softer this time.
I study his face. He looks exhausted. The kind of exhaustion that sleep does not fix. My courage nearly abandons me, but I clear my throat and stare at the floor.
“I...” My voice comes out smaller than intended. “I was hoping I could stay with you tonight… since I’ll be heading to the academy soon.”
I look up cautiously, nervous to see his expression.
Maddox is staring at me like I have just spoken another language.
“What?” I ask, self-conscious.
“I just thought...” He swallows, fumbling over the words in a way so unlike him it makes my chest ache. “I thought you wanted nothing to do with me. That’s why I’ve left you alone.”
Without thinking, I take both of his hands in mine and tug him toward the bed, sitting side down beside him as his eyes find mine.
“Maddox,” I say gently, “I care about you. You’re my bonded and my friend. Nothing is going to change that. I know it was confusing, the way we left things, but you have to know, even though I can’t stay here, my feelings for you are just as strong as they were before.”
He searches my eyes.
“Do I like the way things are going here?” I continue. “No. But I can understand your side of things.” I squeeze his hand. “I just need time. And distance. Away from all of this.”
I gesture vaguely at the entire building. The city. The madness of Gluttony.
“Before it changes me too much. But it’s this place I’m leaving,” I whisper. “Not you. I hope you know that.”
He exhales like he has been holding his breath for weeks. Then he reaches up and hooks a finger beneath my chin, tilting my face toward his.
“I’m coming to you as soon as possible,” he says quietly. “As soon as I get things sorted here, I’m coming back to the academy. I want to be with you, Arwen. Once I handle what needs handling. I’ll be there.”
A small smile breaks through.
“I want to be with you too.” The words barely leave me before I melt into him.
He catches me, arms wrapping around me like he has been waiting for permission to touch me again. I bury my face against his chest and breathe him in, feeling some knot inside me finally loosen after weeks of distance.
He presses his lips to the top of my head.
“I hate that you’re leaving with that asshat,” he mutters into my hair. “But at least you’ll have your other bond there to protect you if I can’t.”
Guilt stirs in my stomach, but I am not touching the bond conversation right now. Instead, I lean back enough to look at him.
“So...” I say carefully. “Your anger at Atticus…”
His expression darkens.
“It’s because he and Paris had a relationship?”
He groans and drags a hand down his face. “Something like that.”
That is not the response of a man who wants to elaborate.
I narrow my eyes. “Maddox… you don’t seem like the type to throw a fit over a friend getting a girlfriend.”
He huffs. “It’s not like that.”
He leans back against the headboard, looking annoyed that this conversation is happening.
“Don’t you think it’s time to let that grudge go?” I add, hoping I can repair the relationship between my two bonds.
His jaw tightens. “It’s not that simple,” he says. He doesn’t look at me when he speaks again.
“Paris… she’s not the worst of them,” he starts. “But she wants our father's approval. Same as the rest of us did.”
He pauses. “You know our fathers are close from their Council alliance. So Atticus and I grew up together. Same age. Same rooms, half the time. Same bullshit that came with the name.” His mouth tightens at the corner. “We were close. For a long time.”
His voice goes quiet. “I trusted him. With everything.”
Maddox drags a hand through his hair.
“I found a way to reach my mom after a ton of digging,” he says. “Burner phone. Took me a while to track down a number that worked.” He says it plainly, but his hands have gone still in mine.
“I was ten when they took me. Hadn’t heard her voice in years. I didn’t tell anyone. Just called her when I could. Late, when everyone was asleep. It was enough, for a while. Hearing her voice was enough.”
He pauses again.
“After a while, I wanted to see her. To escape and go to her. I told Atticus.”
My throat goes dry.
“Only him,” he adds, more firmly.
“I saw him less after he started seeing Paris,” he continues. “But I didn’t think much of it. We were teenagers. I thought it was normal.”
His gaze finally lifts, but it doesn’t meet mine. It goes somewhere past me, like he’s watching a memory.
“Then one day, my phone just stopped working. I got a disconnected message. Tried over and over again. Nothing worked.”
He removes his hand from mine and crosses his arms.
“Then they dragged me before my father. Paris standing beside him.” A short, humorless exhale. “I’ll never forget how she was smiling, like she had won a prize.”
My eyes water as I connect the dots.
“He told me she brought it to his attention. That I’d been communicating with my mother.
Said Atticus spilled all my secrets to Paris.
He was ashamed. He said it made me weak.
And that he had taken care of it… and he was right.
Even a couple of months later, when I snuck out to find the place she had told me she was staying.
It was empty… I haven’t heard from her since. ”
My chest feels like it caves in on itself the moment he finishes. I grab his hand back into mine, holding it tight.
“Atticus… what did Atticus say about it?” I ask, barely recognizing my voice.
Maddox’s eyes stay on mine as he nods his head and mumbles, “He doesn’t know.”
“He doesn’t know?” I echo.
He grinds his teeth as he looks at the ceiling, shaking his head.
“He knows I was angry. That I cut him off. That I told him to go fuck himself. He assumed it was because he was spending more time with Paris. Paris dumped him not long after. Got what she wanted and moved on.”
“Why didn’t you tell him?” I ask in a whisper. “Why wouldn’t you tell him what she did?”
“Because despite what you’ve seen, I’m not a monster, Arwen.”
Maddox’s gaze drops for a second before lifting again, steady and unflinching.
“It would’ve devastated him,” he continues. “Knowing what happened to my mom. Knowing what his decisions cost me, even if he didn’t mean it.”
His throat works once. “And I know he didn’t mean it. He was young and stupid and had a crush… he didn’t know yet how cruel my father could be.”
I want to cry over Maddox’s loss of his mother and best friend for stupid political maneuvering. I want to rage for Atticus, used and betrayed by a teenage crush. No one is bulletproof in this system’s power grab.
“He didn’t mean it, but Atticus broke my trust,” he says, rough. “When I look at him, all I see is what I lost. All I can hear are my mother’s last words. And that… I hate him for. I don’t know if I’ll ever get over it. But I don't need to bury him in guilt.”
I stare at this beautiful bonded of mine with a heart of gold he has to keep tucked hidden beneath a violent exterior. All this time... he’s been protecting Atticus in his own way. Because that’s who he is. Loyal to a fault.
I don’t think. I just move as my hand lifts to his face, and I lean in to kiss him.
It’s not the desperate hunger of before, not the wildness that overtook us during our first kiss. Instead, it’s slow, heartbreakingly tender. He kisses me back like he’s afraid I’ll disappear mid-breath.
I shift, rising to straddle his lap without breaking the kiss.
My knees press into the mattress on either side of his hips.
His hands slide slowly down my waist, brushing my sides before settling on my hips.
My tongue traces the seam of his lower lip, and he groans softly into my mouth.
Fingers dig into the soft hollows above my thighs, pressing me down against the hard ridge of him.
A sharp, breathless sound escapes me as the hard ridge of his erection presses exactly where I need it most. His tongue finds my jaw and slowly travels up to my ear, flicking my earlobe once.
Teeth close on the skin in a sharp nip that sends a jolt of pure sensation down my chest towards the peak of my nipple.
His fingers skim under the hem of my shirt, a silent question in his eyes.
I nod, breath catching as he lifts the fabric over my head.
The clasp of my bra giving way, his gaze never leaving mine—dark heat, wholly focused.
His palms slide up my spine, leaving warm tingles.
I feel the faint ridges of scars beneath his touch, but they’re only echoes now.
His hands trace up the column of my neck, finding the fine hairs at my nape. Fingers twist into the roots of my hair, with a gentle, claiming pressure as I arch into him, causing my nipples to brush against his chest. The electric contact causes us both still.
His gaze drops from my eyes, darkening as it travels down my throat, over my breasts, like he’s memorizing what he sees. The heat of his lips touches a small, jagged scar on my collarbone, reminding me of the arena fight where I earned it in 7th grade.
My eyes drift shut as his mouth moves from my collarbone, a slow, warm trail of wet heat that stops over the small dark spot just above my left breast. He lingers there, his breath a soft rhythm against my skin, before his tongue traces its shape.
I feel the shift of his jaw as he explores further—the curve of my breast, the vulnerable hollow of my throat.
Each touch leaves goosebumps, and it coils a deep tension low in my belly.
I roll my hips against him, seeking friction, and he lets out a rough sound against my skin.
Then his mouth is on my nipple, a slow, open-mouthed kiss that makes me melt.
Then, he bites it. The sharp sting after all the soft touches causes my hips to stutter forward on their own. My hands fly up to grip his hair, and the sound I make is embarrassingly loud in the quiet room.
His pace changes. The world tilts, a sudden spin of weightlessness before my back meets the mattress. His mouth doesn’t leave mine, a deep, claiming kiss as his fingers find my nipples again, rolling them. The hard ridge of him presses insistently between my thighs through the denim.
His whisper is raw against my lips. “I can’t stand it any longer; I have to taste you.” Hand slide from my breast to my waist, fumbling for the button of my jeans. His mouth follows a burning trail down my sternum, a line of rough, rushed kisses heading south without hesitation.
He stops above the open button. His eyes find mine and hold there as he unzips my jeans and pulls them down. His fingers slip into the waistband of my panties and drag them down too, unhurried, before he straightens and just looks at me.
My hips lift off the bed on their own. His gaze doesn’t move.
My hand slides down my stomach toward my thighs, and he catches my wrist without looking at it, pulling it back to the mattress. A small, mortifying sound breaks out of me as he deprives me of touch. I immediately wish I could take it back.
His restraint shatters. He descends, a sudden and ravenous shift that makes my back arch off the bed. My thighs are hauled over his shoulders, the position exposing me completely to the ruthless assault of his tongue.
The first rough swipe is a shock of wet heat against my clit. A finger circles my entrance, teasing the swollen rim before pushing slowly inward. At the same moment, his mouth closes over my sensitive nub, sucking hard.
The dual sensation unravels me. Stars burst behind my eyelids as my body convulses around his finger, involuntarily clenching.
He doesn’t pause. As the last tremor shakes me, his tongue drags down through the slickness, lapping at my release with a desperate, starving intensity that ignites the pressure all over again.
“You're so wet for me, Arwen. You taste better than I could have ever imagined,” he murmurs, the words half-lost against my skin. Rocking against his face, I tighten my fingers in his hair, pressing him closer.
His hands find the backs of my thighs as he lifts me up. I grab for his shoulders as he pivots and brings us both down onto the bed, resettling me higher up his body.
“Ride my face, baby.” His lips brush the inside of my thigh with the words. “Use my tongue. Do it again for me.”
He draws my hips up and forward. His tongue spears up inside me, and my hand shoots out for the headboard. The grip on my hips tightens, guiding, until my body understands what he wants from it.
Using the headboard for balance, I rock against him, chasing the rhythm until I hit the perfect spot each time. My thighs are trembling on either side of his face as my pussy squeezes around his tongue, desperate to have it deeper.
My free hand drops and finds my clit, two fingers working tight circles. A fingertip traces the curve of my backside, moving in between my cheeks. My breath catches, hips stuttering to a stop.
“Relax,” he whispers, the word warm against my inner thigh. I exhale and let my fingers move again. The tingling sensation of his fingertip circling my asshole, building the pressure. I’m so drenched, I slide against his face easily.
The circling doesn’t stop, a maddening touch that coaxes my body to open. My hips buck against his mouth, losing all rhythm, all thought as the pressure drives me right to the edge.
When the tip of his finger breaches that tight resistance, a silent, seizing shock locks my spine at the fullness. A broken sound tears from my throat as my body seizes, a raw, unraveling clench that milks the intrusion. My thighs tremble violently where they bracket his head as the waves dull.
His hands steady my trembling body and pull me down beside him. I notice distantly that I’m still bare while he hasn’t lost a single piece of clothing. My fingers drift toward his waistband, and he catches them gently.
“Not tonight.” His lips brush my ear. “Let me take care of you.”
The warmth of him around me and the slow unraveling of the last hour make it easy not to push back. He tucks me closer, his breath steady and warm against my temple.
“I’m going to spoil you rotten, bonded.”