Chapter 13 Amelia #2
We eat in silence, the kind that isn’t empty but crowded. Every movement feels too loud. The scrape of my spoon. The crackle of the hearth. His breathing, slow, controlled, far too measured for someone who insists he’s unaffected by proximity.
Then he reaches for the goblet.
I freeze. It’s obsidian, etched with old Vrakken script, the liquid inside so dark it drinks the light rather than reflects it. Blood. Fresh. Warm, if the faint curl of steam is any indication.
He doesn’t look at me when he lifts it. He drinks. And even in that he is precise and controlled, like everything else he does. I swallow, suddenly very aware of my pulse.
“You finally decided not to hide it,” I say, aiming for light. It comes out thin.
His gaze flicks up, onyx catching firelight. “You were curious.”
“I didn’t say that.”
“You didn’t have to.”
“Does it… help?” I ask, immediately regretting the question.
“With hunger?” he says calmly. “Yes.”
“And with the bond?”
He pauses, goblet hovering just short of his mouth. “That,” he says carefully, “is more complicated.”
I laugh once, breathless. “Everything with you is complicated.”
“Yet here you are.”
I take a bite of bread I don’t taste. “What does it taste like?” I ask, gesturing vaguely at the goblet. “Blood, I mean.”
His eyes narrow slightly. “You don’t want that answer.”
“I asked.”
He sets the goblet down with deliberate care. “It tastes like life,” he says. “Like heat. Like memory. It tastes different depending on whose it is.”
My pulse stutters. “And mine? What would happen if you drank my blood now that we’re bound like this?”
The bond flares, sharp, startled, intimate, like I’ve struck a live wire.
His jaw tightens. “That’s enough.”
I don’t know whether to be relieved or disappointed.
We sit there, the air thick and vibrating, until I reach for the bread again at the exact same moment he does.
Our fingers almost touch. I pull back instantly, heat flaring up my spine, pulse racing like I’ve done something unforgivable.
He stills. The bond reacts before us, my breath hitch and his shoulders go rigid. Neither of us comments on it.
Eventually, he clears his throat and stands. “You should rest.”
“Yes,” I agree too quickly. “We both should.”
We avoid each other’s eyes as we prepare to sleep, the silence between us heavy with everything we didn’t say.
That night, sleep betrays me.
I dream of heat and silk and shadow. I am not in my chamber, but somewhere vast and dark, the air heavy with magic and promise.
Zeidan stands before me, unarmored, unguarded, his usual sharp edges softened by firelight and something dangerously tender in his eyes.
Behind him, shadows unfurl—wings, vast and obsidian, stretching slowly as if they’ve been waiting for me to see them.
They frame him like a throne of night. I should be afraid. Instead, my magic sings.
He steps closer, close enough that I feel the warmth of him, the pull of the bond tightening until it hums through my bones.
Silk brushes my skin, my own clothes, dissolving into something soft and unfamiliar and when his fingers close gently around my wrist, the contact sends a shiver straight through me.
My magic answers his touch instantly, flaring bright and eager, curling toward him as if it knows him. As if it has always known him. His thumb traces the inside of my wrist, right over the pulse, and his wings shift, folding in slightly, sheltering us from everything else.
“Do you feel it?” he murmurs, voice low and velvet-dark.
I do. Gods, I do.
The bond tightens, warm and heady, wrapping around my thoughts until there is only him, only this, heat, shadow, inevitability, and just as his forehead lowers toward mine, just as my breath catches—
I wake, heart racing, skin warm, magic restless and aching beneath my ribs. And the memory of wings lingers far too vividly.
I am mortified, ashamed, and wide awake. Did I just dreamed of him kissing me? Of all people?
And then I realize I’m not alone.
Zeidan sits near the hearth, shirtless, eyes closed in meditation. Firelight gilds the sharp planes of his chest and shoulders, old scars catching the glow like stories he hasn’t told me yet. His breathing is slow, measured, deliberate, grounding himself.
I shift, and his eyes open instantly.
“You should still be asleep,” he says.
“I was,” I reply hoarsely. “Until… dreams.”
Something flickers across his expression. “Your magic is restless,” he says instead.
“It always is.”
“Not like this.”
I sit up, pulling the blankets tighter around myself, suddenly very aware of how little he’s wearing and how much I’m feeling. I am feeling so ashamed? Did he saw that dream? Gods I hope not.
“Amelia,” he says quietly, rising to his feet. “Don’t fight it.”
“I’m not fighting,” I snap. “I’m trying to control it.”
“That’s worse.”
I open my mouth to retort…and my magic lashes out. A surge of raw, unstable power tears from my chest, arcing straight toward him.
“Zeidan!”
He moves instantly, stepping into it instead of away. His hands snap around my wrists, grounding, anchoring, his magic flaring in answer, wrapping mine before it can burn him alive. The impact rattles the room, embers bursting from the hearth.
My breathing stutters. His grip is firm but careful, thumbs warm against my pulse points. I can feel his control like a wall holding back a storm.
His voice drops low.
“Easy,” he murmurs. “I’ve got you.”
My magic quiets, trembling, settling into the shape of him.
Too willingly. His eyes meet mine, black with something unreadable and very real. And now I am afraid not of what the bond might do to me, but of how much it already has.