CHAPTER THIRTY
Cassandra
The world is quieter tonight.
Not silent—the city never is. But softer.
Like the air finally remembered how to breathe after holding its lungs tight for too long.
The wedding is tomorrow, and the streets are strung with lights that look like stars someone pulled down and hung on wires.
The glow hits the river, turning black water into molten gold.
Dax’s hand is heavy in mine, rough and scarred, calluses scraping my softer skin like reminders. Wounds stitched into his palm. Ghosts stitched into mine.
He doesn’t speak at first. He just walks beside me, his limp uneven, his jaw sharp in the amber light. Every shadow clings to him like it knows his name. Every flicker of fire in the windows seems to bend toward him, like he belongs to the dark more than he’ll ever belong to the day.
Still, my chest aches just looking at him because he came back. I have him here, now, even if he’ll never be whole again.
We stop at the bridge. The air smells like cold stone and old wood, like the kind of place stories should begin—or end. He leans against the railing, eyes on the water, hands braced like he’s keeping the whole world from tilting.
When he turns to me, his gaze is thunder and worship all at once.
“You remember this?” His voice is low, scraped raw, but it threads straight into me.
I frown. “The bridge?”
He shakes his head, lips twitching into something that isn’t quite a smile. He digs into his jacket pocket and pulls it out—thin chain, battered pendant, the shine dulled by war and blood and dust.
My necklace.
The one I lost the night he left me.
The one he’s carried like a secret all this time.
My throat locks. The chain dangles from his fist, swaying in the lamplight like it’s still alive, like it’s still breathing me in.
“When do I get it back?” I whisper.
He studies me. Long. Hard. Like he’s trying to decide if I’m ready, or if he is. His fingers tighten around the pendant until his knuckles blanch.
“When you stop thinking I’ll leave again.” His words are brutal, but his eyes—they burn. “When you finally believe that no matter how broken I am, no matter how fucked up this gets—I’ll crawl back to you every time.”
Tears sting my eyes, hot, sharp. “Dax—”
He steps forward, closing the last inches, his breath cold on my mouth, his voice dark and dangerous and holy all at once.
“You’ll get it back the day you understand the truth.”
“What truth?” My voice is shaking.
“That it was never yours.” He presses the pendant into my palm, curling my fingers tight around it, his hand gripping mine so hard it hurts. His forehead tips to mine, and his whisper is a vow carved into bone. “It’s mine. Just like you.”
The chain bites my skin. My knees weaken. And I know I’ll never forget this moment—not tomorrow, not ten years from now, not ever because on this bridge, under borrowed stars, he didn’t just give me back my necklace.
He gave me back himself and the most dangerous part?
I’ll never give him back.
His thumb drags across the charm like it’s alive, like it’s more than silver and chain. His eyes never leave mine—blue, burning, fragile, furious.
“You’ll get it back,” he rasps, voice low enough it’s almost lost to the river’s whisper. “Not tonight. Not tomorrow. You’ll get it back when you need it most.”
My breath stumbles. “And when’s that?”
His mouth curves, jagged and dangerous, the kind of smile that looks like a scar. “When you need it like I do. When you need it like breath. Like blood. Like the only thing keeping you from going under.”
The world tilts. My knees feel weak, but his hand is already at my jaw, dragging me closer until I can’t breathe anything but him.
“You think this necklace belongs to you?” His lips brush mine, brutal and reverent all at once. “It’s mine. Just like you.”
His mouth crashes to mine so hard I swear the bridge shakes under us. His hand fists in my hair, tilting my head back, forcing me open as his tongue sweeps in like he’s starving. My fingers clutch his shirt, pulling, clawing, hating and needing him all at once.
The world disappears. The stars. The river. Even the ghosts in my chest.
All that’s left is this—his mouth. His breath. His vow burning into me with every savage press of his lips.
When he finally rips his mouth from mine, my lips are swollen, wet, ruined. His forehead presses to mine, breath ragged, voice breaking.
“You’ll get it back when you understand, Butterfly.” His thumb drags my lower lip, slow, filthy. “That it’s not a necklace. It’s me.”
His mouth doesn’t give me a choice.
It devours.
It punishes.
It worships.
The chain of the necklace digs into my collarbone as his hand slides down, his fist still wrapped around it like he’s tethering me in place. The charm presses into my skin, cold against the heat of his palm, and I realise—he’s branding me with it. With him.
My gasp breaks into his mouth, but he swallows it whole, teeth scraping, tongue claiming, until my lungs burn and I don’t care if I ever breathe again.
The river hums below us, dark and endless, but the only thing pulling me under is him.
His other hand fists in my hair, tugging until I arch against him. The kiss grows harsher, filthier, his lips dragging mine raw, his breath hot and frantic, like he’s trying to crawl inside me and never crawl back out.
“You feel that?” he growls against my mouth, the words hot, wrecked. “Every time I kiss you like this, I take more. Piece by piece. Until there’s nothing left but me.”
My knees buckle, but his arm hooks around my waist, lifting me off the ground like I weigh nothing. My back slams against the rail, the cold bite of metal bleeding through my dress as he cages me there, his hips pressing into mine, his cock already hard and unyielding against me.
The necklace chain tangles between us, cutting into my throat as he yanks it tighter, his mouth crushing down again. It’s filthy. Desperate. A kiss that doesn’t know where it ends and where it ruins.
I realise—this isn’t just a kiss.
It’s a vow.
It’s a fucking possession.
When he finally tears back, his lips are wet, his jaw clenched, his eyes burning through me like a brand.
“You want it back?” he whispers, his fist tugging the chain until I choke on air. “Then prove you need it as bad as I do.”
His chest heaves against mine, breath hot, eyes wild, and then he does something that knocks the air straight out of me.
He unhooks the chain from my throat.
The charm swings once between us, catching the light, and then he lifts it to his own neck. Clasps it there. Lets it rest against his skin like it’s always belonged.
My heart stutters.
He yanks me closer by my hips, grinding against me, lips curling into that sharp, dangerous smirk that used to ruin me in seconds. “Now it’s mine,” he rasps, his voice low, feral. “And so are you.”
The necklace glints between us as his mouth crashes to mine again, harder, hungrier, until my lips feel split and bruised.
His hand drags up my thigh beneath my dress, rough fingers slipping higher, spreading me against the rail.
The cold iron bites into my back, but his heat burns everything else away.
“You want people to see?” he growls into my mouth. “Want the whole fucking world to know who you belong to?”
My moan betrays me, raw and shaking.
His thumb presses hard against my clit through the thin fabric, rubbing in filthy circles, dragging sound after sound out of me until I’m clawing at his shoulders. His teeth catch my bottom lip, tugging until I cry out, and he swallows that too.
The chain against his throat flashes again as he thrusts his hips forward, his cock grinding against me through the thin barrier of fabric, hard enough I see stars.
“Say it,” he demands, his voice shredded, animal. “Say this cunt belongs to me right here, where anyone could fucking hear.”
“Yours,” I sob, head slamming back against the rail. “It’s yours, always yours.”
His fingers shove past the fabric, sliding inside me, stretching me open right there under the moonlight.
My scream echoes off the river, broken, shameless.
His mouth covers mine again, silencing, claiming, devouring while his fingers fuck me open like he owns every sound, every tremor, every goddamn beat of my body.
The necklace chain presses tight against his throat as he pulls back, eyes blazing, teeth bared. “Good girl,” he snarls, curling his fingers until I see black. “Now fucking show me.”
The necklace digs into his throat as he shoves my dress higher, rough hands fisting the fabric until it tears. My gasp is swallowed by his mouth, his tongue fucking me deeper than his fingers already are.
“Mine,” he snarls, pulling free just enough to slam his cock out, heavy and hard, the head already slick against my cunt. “Every fucking inch of you. Mine to ruin.”
I can’t even beg before he drives into me in one brutal thrust, pinning me against the cold iron rail. The shock rips a scream from my chest, my nails clawing his shoulders, but he only grins—dark, feral—as he grinds deeper.
“Fuck—you’re so tight,” he growls, his hips snapping hard, brutal, each thrust rocking the bridge beneath us. “Like your body remembers me better than your brain ever will.”
The sound of his skin slamming into mine carries over the water, filthy and raw, mixing with the wet slap of my cunt gripping him. My legs lock around his waist, desperate, trembling, and he drags me higher, fucking me like he’s trying to carve his name into my bones.
“Say it again,” he pants against my ear, biting down hard enough to make me cry out. “Say who owns this pussy.”
“You!” I sob, broken, clinging. “It’s yours, Dax—it’s only ever been yours.”
His laugh is jagged, dangerous. His hand grips my throat, thumb pressing the necklace into my skin as his thrusts grow harsher, faster, pounding me against the rail until sparks shoot behind my eyes.