Chapter 29 #2
"Why are we here?" she asked, arms folding. "Trying to redeem yourself for being emotionally incompetent?"
His grin lingered, but something shifted behind his eyes. "I don’t regret anything I’ve done, princess. Even the worst of it. Not if it meant getting here, with you."
The words hung, heavy and unguarded.
Her breath caught. Only Kareon could say something so devastating and make it feel like a vow.
He turned toward the water, watching the surface ripple in the breeze. "That day, I didn’t want to speak to you. Didn’t know what you were. What you’d mean to me. To the pack." He drew a breath. "But moon above, I’m so damn glad I did."
She swallowed hard. The confession settled, dark and heavy, like blood in water. Then he turned, his golden eyes locking fiercely with hers.
"My whole life, my pack lived for one purpose: to wipe vampires off the face of the earth." His eyes caught hers. "And then you happened."
That look. She had never seen it on him before, soft, wrecked, almost awed. His gaze moved over her, slow and searching.
"You," he murmured. "That tiny, fragile frame. That spacey, doll-like face. Hands that didn’t know a sword from a spoon—"
Eris crossed her arms, eyes narrowing, half offended, half amused. "Are you going somewhere with this, or are you just committed to being insufferable?"
He huffed a laugh, but the humor didn’t last. His fists clenched. His voice dropped, gravelly and strained.
"You came in and shattered everything," he said. "Turned our world upside down. Changed the way we see it." He swallowed, eyes steady on hers. "You gave us something I didn’t think existed—hope."
Eris stiffened as a sharp, cruel ache bloomed in her chest. She turned toward the lake. The water sat too still, too silent.
"Hope," she echoed. "And war. And death."
A bitter truth, spoken to no one. But Kareon was there before she could move. His hands found her shoulders, steady. A wall against the weight she carried.
"Look at me." It wasn’t a plea. It was a command.
She obeyed, her breath hitching as his golden, fire-bright eyes met hers. His grip tightened, anchoring her.
"Peace was never ours, Eris," he said, voice like iron. "War’s the only language we ever spoke. Death—our oldest companion."
He exhaled slowly, the truth a weight in his lungs.
"But you… You made us believe it doesn’t have to be."
Her pulse faltered. She didn’t know if it was the words or the way he said them, as if each one were a blade, a promise.
Their eyes locked, feral and breathless. He wasn’t letting her go, not from this, not from the truth.
"You’re the sun breaking through a sky that’s only ever known night," he said. "And now you don’t get to dim."
A shuddering breath escaped her. She wanted to deny it, to argue that she had never asked for this, never wanted it. But she could not, because he was right, and that terrified her.
Kareon let her sit in that truth. Then he stepped forward.
"Tomorrow, Lycans fight beside Firstbloods against the Obsidian Order.
Do you understand the madness of that?" A disbelieving laugh broke from his chest. "Even saying it makes my blood curdle.
" He exhaled hard, raking a hand through his hair.
Every muscle in his body was drawn tight.
"Centuries of bloodshed have been undone. Because of you."
The truth hit her suddenly and inescapably. She had done this.
Eris swallowed, her breath trembling before it steadied. She stepped forward and placed her hand against his chest, right over his heart.
He stopped breathing.
Her fingers curled into his shirt as if she could stop time with her bare hands. "You speak like I did this alone. But I am only who I am because of all of you." Her voice faltered from the weight of truth.
The bond between them surged, like lightning beneath skin, as though the moon itself had tilted toward her.
Kareon did not move. He ached to touch her, to pull her in, to brand her with his love and kiss her until the world collapsed around them. But he stayed still. If he touched her first, she might run again.
The last time she had opened to him, it was the spirits in her blood who called, not the girl, who still believed that loving him meant betrayal.
So he waited. His hands remained clenched at his sides, his pulse pounding like war drums.
She stared up at him, her hand still resting on his chest, lips parted in something between pain and promise. His eyes held her as if she were the last holy thing left in a godless world.
“If the last thing I ever bleed for is you,” he said, his voice breaking against the silence, “then it will be worth every wound.”
Her lungs stalled. The image of him bleeding in the dirt—his bones broken, the fire fading from his eyes—was unbearable.
She surged into him, as if sheer force could tear the thought from existence. Her fists twisted in his shirt, dragging him close. Her voice cracked, fierce and shaking.
“Listen to me. Don’t you dare die tomorrow. Not for me. Not for anything.” Her entire body shook with rage, with terror, and with something dangerously close to the truth twisting inside her. "I won’t allow it. Not when I—"
She stopped, breath caught, but it was already too late.
Kareon’s hands wrapped firmly around hers, pulling her closer to a truth she had been pretending didn’t exist. He bent to her level, eyes burning into hers. "You what, Eris?"
The bond screamed between them. Even the air held still.
His voice dropped, low and solemn. “Say it.”
Her jaw tightened. Her eyes burned. The silence stretched thin, trembling with everything she’d buried and everything she could no longer contain.
Maybe if he knew—really knew—he wouldn’t throw himself into battle like a man with nothing to lose.
Maybe she could save him.
Just once.
“You want the truth?” Her voice shook, then sharpened with something feral. “Fine. Have your damn truth.” She rose without thinking, dragging him down and crushing her mouth to his like she was setting herself on fire.
Their lips met—not in confession, but in consumption. He caught her with a groan that split his chest open. One arm locked around her waist, the other tangled in her hair as if releasing her might break some holy vow.
She kissed him like she was drowning. And gods, he let her, because he already was.
Her back slammed against a tree. She gasped but didn’t stop. She bit his lip, savage. Clawed at his shoulders like there was no tomorrow. This was no kiss. It was a storm. A war. A reckoning.
His mouth found her throat, her jaw, then her mouth once more. They didn’t breathe. They devoured. The bond pulsed between them like a second heartbeat, wild, holy. Defiant.
She moaned his name against his lips. He whispered hers like prayer.
His hand slid lower, gripping her ass with a force just shy of worship, like holding her against his hardness was the only thing keeping him sane.
And somewhere beneath the fire, the bond, and the breaking, he smiled, chuffed and just a little smug. Because he had what he wanted and still kept his promise to Stephan. He hadn’t kissed her. She had kissed him.
And moon above, it tasted like victory.
But then she gasped, and just like that, the weight of it hit her. The fire she had lit with her mouth turned to ash in her throat. Desire collapsed into dread. She had kissed him like surrender, but freedom, she realized, was far more terrifying than captivity.
She pulled away as if he had burned her alive. She stumbled back, hand over her mouth, heart hammering in her throat. She touched her lips, still swollen, still trembling. Her eyes were wide and wrecked.
What have I done?
And then the tears came, raw, wild. Cataclysmic. She turned, hiding her face in her hands. Her sobs hit like thunderclaps.
He stood frozen, lips bruised, breath shattered, still tasting the truth of her. The space she had left still burned.
Behind her, Kareon did not move or speak. He stood silent, watching and waiting, because now he saw it. The love tearing her in half. The truth she could no longer deny.
Kareon exhaled softly, steady as the tide. Then he did what he had always done. He held her together.
His fingers brushed her cheek, warm and grounding. A silent reassurance. “Breathe, Eris.”
Her eyes snapped to his, wide and raw, edged with fear.
His voice was steady and unshakable. “There is no shame in truth.”
She swallowed as if the words had cut. Her lips parted, but no sound came.
He did not push. He waited.
“You love him.” His voice held no doubt.
She exhaled, shaking. “Yes.”
He nodded. “And you love me.”
She froze. She had spent too long pretending. There were no lies left.
Her shoulders fell. “Yes,” she whispered in surrender.
Kareon smiled, not smug or triumphant, but warm and knowing—infinite.
“Good.” He brushed a strand of hair behind her ear. “Then do not run from it.”
She shut her eyes and shook her head. “It’s wrong,” she whispered. “I shouldn’t—”
His fingers tilted her chin. “You shouldn’t what?” His voice was gentle, coaxing. “Love us both?”
She nodded, her silence heavy with ache.
Kareon leaned closer, voice low, eyes unrelenting.
“Maybe the gods did not give you two hearts by accident. Maybe they gave you one wide enough to hold a kingdom.” He did not flinch.
He offered it like a truth older than prophecy.
“Love is not a cage, Eris. It does not ask you to carve out pieces of yourself to be worthy.” His thumb brushed her jaw.
“It asks you to be whole. To be seen. To be terrifyingly true.”
Her voice cracked before the words could form. “If I give in to this…I’m afraid I will lose everything I have sworn to protect. Including him.”
Kareon’s gaze softened. “Then let him love you through it. If his love is true, it will not shatter when it sees the rest of you.”
He did not move. He did not need to. He was already close enough to be everything she could not escape.
“You were crafted to love like the gods do. Without fear. Without end.” His voice dropped, became intimate. “You are divine, Eris. The spirits marked you. Seraphina lives in your skin. You do not love in halves. You never could.”
She shook her head, tears breaking, breath faltering. “It’s not fair.”
“No,” he agreed. His voice was firm. “But it is the truth.”
The silence that followed was not empty. It was sacred. In that stillness, he pulled her close, not to claim her, but to anchor her. His arms wrapped around her, solid and safe, one hand in her hair.
She buried her face in his chest, holding him tight. His lips brushed her ear.
“You have spent too long lying to yourself.” His voice was warm and quiet. “Don’t do it again.”
She did not answer with words, but she was breathing again. And when she lifted her head, eyes wet and voice fragile, she did not tremble. She met his gaze, unflinching for the first time.
“I don’t know how to walk this truth yet,” she whispered. “But I will not keep running from it.”
Kareon smiled, small, crooked, and real. “Good.” He reached for her hand, threading his fingers through hers like a vow remembered across lifetimes. “Come on, princess. I’ll take you back home.”
Her chest tightened; she finally understood. This moment, this truth, had always been waiting for her to claim it.
And just like that, the moment passed. The war inside her was far from over.
But Kareon—he had already won.