Chapter 13 Lace
LACE
Anonymous-
She stirred. Not much—just a breath, a twitch of her fingers against the blanket I tucked around her. I watch it happen in real time on my screen: the slight furrow of her brow, the soft rise and fall of her chest.
I wonder what she’s dreaming about... I wonder if it’s me?
My thumb glides across the screen as I zoom in, frame by frame—there, the moment she tries to open her eyes, and she almost makes it.
But she’s still suspended in the soft, yielding fog of my control.
The feed skips, and suddenly he’s there—I clench my jaw as his hands, those massive, bone-shifting hands, invade the frame.
How dare he undress her! The sight burns, acidic and raw, in my throat.
I bandaged her, I carried her, I prepared her for waking—and now he takes credit for her safety?
Rage sears through my chest, hot and metallic. He violates the care I provided with his crude, possessive touch and then claims intimacy as if he is capable of anything but destruction.
I watch him dress her in the pink sweats she wore to the coffee shop on Tuesday. He thinks this simple domesticity makes him safe. He thinks washing the dirt away erases my presence. It only proves how deeply I’ve already burrowed.
I could’ve kept you, Lumi. Do you understand what that means? You’re still breathing because I let you. Because you belong to something higher now—me. So now I’ll watch him play house, because it's worth seeing the look in your eyes when you wake—that is the true reward.
You’ll realize you’re clean—but not untouched. Safe—but never unmarked.
And you won’t know what’s worse—what I could’ve done, or what it means that I didn't.
You’ll flinch every time the tea kettle screams, you’ll check every room twice before turning out the lights... if you can bring yourself to turn them off at all.
You’ll read my note over and over again. I can't wait until you see what I wrote inside. I chose that page from your journal carefully—the one you wrote after your sister’s funeral. The ink was already smudged from your tears. I added a single sentence that you’ll know you didn’t write.
I want you to wonder… to doubt: Your memory, your grief, yourself.
That’s the beauty of precision, little dove: everyone’s afraid of the monster who kicks down the door, but no one notices the man who picks the lock to leave flowers on your kitchen table.
Lumi-
The fog is lighter now. Something warm brushes the back of my hand. A weight, steady and solid, is pressed against my side.
I can’t open my eyes yet. My limbs are heavy. My thoughts even more so. There’s a flicker of memory just beyond reach. Something cold and sharp.
Woodsmoke and damp cloves linger in the air. My body responds before my brain can catch up, my fingers blindly curling toward the warmth beside me. A thumb brushes my knuckles.
I try to turn my head, but it’s like my neck has been stitched to the pillow. Panic hums beneath the surface, dull and aching, as if I’m trapped in someone else’s dream. A cold sweat breaks out across my nape, trickling slowly down the side of my neck.
I try again—eyes, arms, anything—but my body won‘t obey. It’s like I’ve been pinned to the bed by an invisible force.
The last thing I remember is snow, running, and colliding with something.
Antlers—not imagined. Real. Towering and backlit by moonlight.
Two sets of hands: one too gentle, one too rough.
I remember screaming... calling for someone.
Then—heat.
Fur.
A voice I recognize, though I can’t remember why.
Sael?n.
The word echoes somewhere behind my ribs. It doesn’t belong to English. It belongs to him.
He found me. Somehow, he found me.
I inhale shakily. My lashes flicker—the world blurs.
And then—his face.
Closer than I expected. His eyes are wild, fractured. He doesn’t speak. He just presses his forehead to mine.
He’s quivering.
I try to speak, but all I manage is a rasp. “Andrik—”
“Sael?n,” he rasps. “Thal?n... I would have torn Thala’vren open to find you.” (All of existence.)
The words curl around me like armor.
I try to ask what they mean, but I can’t get the question out.
My gaze drifts down: his knuckles are bruised, gashes streak down his chest, and blood drips slowly from his antlers.
“Are you hurt?” I whisper.
He laughs without sound. The shape of it hums against my skin like a melody. “You were unconscious, and you’re asking about me?”
I try to nod, but my neck protests.
He brushes a hand through my hair slowly. The rhythm of it lulls me under again—but I fight it. I don't want to fall asleep. Not yet. Not when everything feels like it’s unraveling.
My throat burns. I swallow, but it doesn’t help. My tongue feels swollen, like it’s too big for my mouth.“How long have I been asleep?”
His hand stills, his voice softens, “Not long.”
I think he’s lying.
“How did I get here?”
Silence stretches so long, I don’t think he’s going to answer. I hear his teeth grind, “You ran from me, Lumi. You ran. And then someone took you from my forest.”
My thoughts stutter, pieces scatter, nothing makes sense. It’s like trying to watch a movie with frames missing. A whole chunk of me is just.. gone.
Think, Lumi. Think. Why did you run?
“Why did I run?”
“I was hoping you would tell me that, Sael?n.”
I sigh, frustrated that I can’t remember. Everything feels like it’s made of fog and static.
“Did we argue?”
“No, nothing like that.” he pauses, his voice thickens. “I was struggling to control... a part of me. You had just taken a shower, and I asked you to block the door. We were supposed to talk when I got myself situated, but—” he swallows, “When I came to—you were gone.”
“Gone?” I blink at him. “Didn’t you say I had just taken a shower? How did I slip out without you noticing?”
“You climbed out of our bathroom window.”
“Our?” I echo.
“Yes, Lumi. Our. What’s mine is yours. I tracked you through the woods, but I was too late.”
“What do you mean—too late?”
My eyes threaten to shut again, but I force them open.
“You were drugged.” His voice tightens, “There was a puncture mark on your neck. Your scent was almost completely erased—and I haven’t had time to figure out how that’s possible.” His jaw clenches. “But I found you. I will always find you.”
My stomach drops
“Do you know—” The words catch in my throat. I can’t even force them out.
His fingers freeze where they’d been combing through my hair. The frame of my canopy bed cracks. His breath turns ragged.
“I couldn’t scent them.” His voice is strangled.
“I don’t know if it’s magic or some kind of divine interference, but they produced no scent at all, except for the chemical trace of the sedative.
” He lowers his head to rest right over my heart.
“When I found you, your hand was already bandaged, and your boots were gone. They’d. .. tucked you in.”
I close my eyes, but the world won’t stop spinning.
“Why?” My voice trembles. “Why would someone drug me just to bring me home and put me in bed? It doesn’t make any sense.”
His voice turns low, bitter. He gestures around the room. “This is the violation. They wanted you to know they've been watching. That they can intervene—whenever they want. That they don’t need to touch you to hurt you.”
I shift under my blanket, fingers curling into the sheets. It feels like someone is squeezing my stomach in their hands.
I thought I was going to get answers when I walked into those woods. Instead, I came back with so many more questions.
“I need the truth, Andrik.”
“You have it.”
“No.” My voice is steadier now. “What I have is your protection; what I need is the truth.”
A flicker. A breath of hesitation crosses his features.
“You mentioned... shifting. What does that mean?”
I watch the war behind his eyes. Every second of silence feels like a lifetime.
“Please?” I whisper
“I’ll tell you, Lumi,” he says at last. “I’ll tell you whatever you need to know—if you promise it won’t change the way you look at me.”
“Andrik,” I say, nearly laughing, You’re literally a giant snow beast. And yet...I’m still here.”
A sound catches in his throat, then the great, hulking creature in my lap folds in on himself.
He doesn’t move for a long time. Just counts my heartbeats under his breath. Quietly, as if he’s afraid of scaring me off, he begins to speak:
“We—my kind, the Rhavari—we aren’t born like you. We don’t crawl from a womb or grow in stages. We are summoned.”
I stay perfectly still while I listen.
“When the gods need a Guardian, they exhale through a snowflake, and the forest catches it… and we appear.”
He swallows.
“We are forged for one purpose, and I've spent my entire life chasing it. We’re isolated things, Lumi. We come into existence alone, fully grown, although inside we are just children. We don’t belong. We don’t have families—just... instinct and magic.
“We were made to be monsters—destined to stand at the edges of your world and weigh your kind for eternity. That is our purpose."
His voice cracks on the next breath.
“The only thing that keeps us from tearing ourselves apart is the discovery of our true mate—a bond so rare it’s considered a myth.
Most of my kind never find it. Most... go mad—driven to insanity by the unclaimed bond.
It festers—eating away at us, piece by piece, until we’re trapped in our beast form.
Until we're nothing but instinct, slaughtering anything in our path just to silence the ache. Eventually, our heart gives out.”
I don’t breathe.
“The gods created us for power, not for love. They didn’t care if we broke trying to survive it. Which is why what we have—what you are to me—is a miracle.”
He finally looks up, his eyes are luminous with something feral.
“I knew the moment your foot touched my snow that you were my Sael?n—my soulbond. You are the only thing that’s ever done more than hollow me out with loneliness. You are the first thing that’s ever made me want to be more than a weapon.”
The air thrums between us.
“But you don’t feel the bond with the same primal intensity,” he continues, voice rough.
“For me, it’s a hunger that claws at me from the inside out.
Sometimes the beast rises before I can shove him down.
He doesn’t want to hurt you, Lumi… but he doesn't want to let you go either. He wants to claim you. To mark you with our scent. To erase the concept of before.”
His voice falters. “I am trying—gods, am I trying—not to smother you with the sheer weight of what is building inside me.”
His head bows, shoulders trembling.
“And I will keep trying... until you ask me to stop.”
I study his eyes. He looks so vulnerable. His confession still hangs in the air between us. And there it is again—that chilling, aching pull. The unshakeable feeling that we’ve done this before.
He looks exhausted, not just physically, but soul-tired.
A hundred questions are circling my mind right now, but none of them matter when he’s lying next to me with those big, stormy eyes pleading with mine.
So I don’t speak.
I reach up, fingers brushing his jaw, as he trembles beneath my touch, a full body shiver, like I’ve knocked something loose inside him.
“I’m still here,” I whisper, rising to my knees. “And I don't see you any differently, Andrik.”
His breath is a sudden rush of ice fanning over my lips. His pupils blow wide—swallowing nearly all the blue. Heat blooms under my skin. My heart slams against my ribs. Warmth pools low in my belly, curling tighter with every breath.
He surges forward, one hand sliding to the nape of my neck, fingers threading into my hair, gripping just tight enough to make my breath hitch. The other fists the bedsheets. “Kael ves theln, Sael?n.” (Let me worship you, Soulbond.)
His mouth crushes mine, and he lets out a whimper. A soft, broken sound that vibrates against my mouth. “Virae ves’kai l?n,” he moans between my lips, desperate, like he’s been starving for centuries and I’m the first thing he’s been allowed to taste. (Your body calls to mine.)
My tongue brushes his, and he groans low in his chest—a sound that rumbles straight through my spine.
“Veyr’thaal ves kael’rin, Sael?n,” he breathes against me.
I have longed to taste you, mate. He moves before I can gasp, flipping me with a snarl, his massive frame caging mine like a creature cornering its prey—his forearms braced beside my head, hips pressed between my thighs, but not quite where I need them.
I can feel the iciness of his skin, the frantic beat of his heart against my chest. His nose drags along my throat, lingering at my pulse.
“Veyr’sal ves kael’rin,” he breathes, the words sinking into my skin like a brand.
(The frost marks you). His jaw drags across my collarbone, marking me with his scent.
“Veyr’kael ves thrae’mirin,” he growls. (You smell delicious.)
Even now—consumed by something ancient and barely leashed—he’s so gentle with me. Still holding back—trembling with the effort it takes not to claim everything he wants.
“Lumi,” he rasps against my mouth.
I arch into him slightly, and his whole body spasms. “Thrak’ven ves kai’mor?n,” he chokes out. (I will break for you completely.)
“I don’t want you to hold back,” I breathe.
His forehead drops to mine, chest heaving. I can feel how hard he is against my thigh.
“You don’t understand.” his voice is a rasp of barely restrained hunger. “If I stop holding back, I won’t be able to stop at all.”
My fingers twist deeper into his fur, pulling his mouth back down to mine.
He groans, his hand sliding up my thigh. Everywhere his fingers trail, frost blooms in delicate patterns across my skin.
“Kaemorin,” he growls against my throat, and I watch as the ice spreads like lace beneath his touch.
And I know, if I don't stop this now...I never will.