Chapter 7
MAISIE
The cuts on my palms had stopped bleeding, but they still stung every time I moved my hands. I kept moving them anyway.
I sat on the edge of the hearth because the chairs in Kazan’s house were too big for me, and I didn’t trust my legs to get me into one without making a fool of myself. The fire had burned low. Outside the windows, the static storm washed everything in pulses of violet and gold.
It should’ve been beautiful.
I couldn’t care about beautiful right now.
I’d cleaned my hands myself. Found the tap, stretched up to reach it, and ran cold water over the cuts until the worst of the blood was gone.
Then I picked out the tiny shards of glass one by one and tried not to think about the sound the bottle had made when it shattered.
Or the look on Kazan’s face when he’d gone after the man who’d come for me.
I should’ve been thinking about that.
Instead, I was thinking about leaving.
It made sense. Horrible sense, but sense.
James wouldn’t stop because one hired thug failed. James never stopped. He would send someone else. Then someone after that. Lawyers. Auditors. Officials. Anyone he could pay or threaten, or charm into doing what he wanted.
He would keep coming.
And Kazan would keep standing in front of me.
That was the problem.
New Knossos was peaceful. Ceres-9 was supposed to be safe. There were people here who’d built lives out of nothing. Taverns and markets and homes, and orchards. Kazan had his cidery, his trees, his glowing fruit, his quiet routines.
And I had brought James to his door.
I couldn’t stay and let James destroy all of that. I couldn’t let him destroy Kazan.
So I had to leave.
Better to disappear before it got worse, and to be gone before Kazan decided I wasn’t worth the trouble. Better to make the choice before someone made it for me. I was used to calling running away something smarter.
The door opened, and Kazan stepped inside.
He didn’t look like he had when he left me there. He looked wilder. Bigger somehow. His shoulders filled the doorway, and the storm lit him from behind in flashes of purple and gold. His breathing was rough, and there was a sound in his chest so low I felt it before I really heard it.
His knuckles were scraped.
His tail snapped once against the doorframe.
His eyes still glowed gold.
Whatever he’d done outside, he hadn’t left all of it out there.
A week ago, I would’ve been terrified. A man that big, that angry, that close to violence should’ve sent me running. I knew what danger felt like. I knew the way the air changed before someone hurt me.
But my body didn’t tell me to run. That was the strangest part.
Kazan was dangerous. I wasn’t stupid enough to pretend otherwise. But none of that danger was pointed at me. He stood by the door like he didn’t trust himself to come closer until he’d locked the worst of it away.
For me.
“Maisie.” My name came out rough. “Are you hurt?”
“My hands.” I lifted them so he could see the thin red lines across my palms. “It’s nothing. I cleaned them.”
His jaw tightened, and the sound in his chest deepened.
I needed to say it before I lost my nerve. “I have to leave.”
Everything in him stopped.
I’d braced for anger. For argument. For the cold, reasonable voice James used when he was about to tell me I was being irrational. I’d braced for Kazan to tell me I was wrong.
He didn’t.
His tail went still. His shoulders dropped. The light in his eyes dimmed, and something in his face seemed to fold in on itself.
He looked wrecked.
And all he said was, “If that’s what you need.”
That hurt worse than if he’d shouted.
Because James would’ve fought me. He would’ve turned it into a battle and then made himself the victim. He would’ve told me I was unstable, ungrateful, impossible.
Kazan heard me say I was leaving, and he let me. Because he thought it was what I needed.
The plan cracked wide open.
“That’s not what I need,” I said.
His head lifted.
The words came faster after that. Messier. Truer.
“It’s what I think I’m supposed to do. To protect you. To protect this place. James won’t stop, and I can’t be the reason he ruins everything.” My throat tightened. “But I don’t want to go.”
Kazan didn’t move. He watched me like if he breathed too hard, I’d take it back.
“I’ve been fighting this since I got here,” I admitted. “Whatever this is. Whatever I feel when I’m near you. I keep telling myself I can’t trust it because the last time I trusted myself about a man, I ended up running across the galaxy.”
His hands flexed at his sides.
“But you’re not him,” I said. “You’re nothing like him. And I think some part of me knew that before the rest of me did.” I swallowed hard. “I don’t want to be safe somewhere else. I want to be safe here. With you.”
For a moment, neither of us moved.
Then Kazan crossed the room.
He didn’t grab me. He didn’t crowd me. He came down to one knee in front of me, putting himself below me even though he was still impossibly huge. Then he lifted one hand and touched my face so carefully it made my chest ache.
His palm covered my cheek. His thumb brushed the corner of my mouth.
“Say it again,” he said, voice low. “So I know I heard you right.”
“I want you.”
He kissed me. There was nothing careful about my answer.
I grabbed him by the front of his flannel and kissed him back, pouring everything I couldn’t say into it. Fear. Relief. Need. The terrible ache of almost losing something I’d barely let myself admit I wanted.
He wrapped an arm around me and lifted me off the hearth like I weighed nothing. My feet left the ground, and I clung to him. I didn’t want space between us. I didn’t want doubts, or contracts, or James, or anything else in the room with us.
Just him.
Just this.
He carried me to the kitchen counter and set me down on it. The height put us almost face-to-face, and I understood why he’d done it when he stepped between my knees and kissed me again.
His mouth was hot and hungry. His hand spread across my back, holding me close, while the other slid into my hair. My clip gave way, and my hair fell around my shoulders.
He pulled back just enough to look at me. There was a question in his eyes.
I nodded before he could ask it.
His hands went to my leggings, and he paused there too. Waiting. Making sure.
My breath caught. I nodded again.
He drew them down slowly, watching me the whole time. Not rushing. Not taking. Letting me choose every second.
James had never made me feel like this. He’d made me feel small. Wrong. Like anything I wanted was something shameful.
Kazan looked at me like wanting was a gift.
Then he sank to his knees.
“Kazan,” I breathed.
He settled my legs over his shoulders, and my pulse went wild. He was so big that even this felt impossible; my thighs stretched wide, my hands searching for something to hold.
I found his horns.
They were smooth and warm beneath my fingers.
Then his mouth touched me, and every thought vanished.
I gasped and tightened my grip. He made a low sound against me, and the vibration shot through my whole body. My head tipped back, and I forgot to be embarrassed. Forgot to be afraid. Forgot every ugly thing James had ever made me believe about myself.
There was only Kazan.
His hands held me steady while he learned what made me shake, what made me gasp, what made my fingers clutch harder around his horns. He was patient and relentless, and it was too much and not enough all at once.
The pleasure built higher than I knew it could.
“Kazan,” I said, or maybe begged.
Then it broke.
I came apart with his name on my lips, my body shaking as he held me through it. It went on and on until I was trembling and breathless and pushing weakly at him because I couldn’t take any more.
He stopped immediately.
I sat there on the counter, trying to remember how to breathe.
“Good?” he asked.
“Yeah,” I managed. My voice sounded strange. “That was… good.”
He laughed softly and pressed a kiss to the inside of my thigh before standing.
For one sharp second, fear came back. This was the part where he changed his mind. Where he pulled away. Where he gave me warmth and then left me cold, because that was the pattern I knew.
But Kazan didn’t step back. He stayed between my knees. And when my gaze dropped, I saw exactly how much staying in control had cost him.
He was hard against the front of his pants, the heavy fabric strained tight. Heat rushed through me all over again.
He saw me looking and went still.
Waiting.
Always waiting for me to choose.
So I did.
I reached for the button of his pants. My hands weren’t steady, and the cuts stung, but I didn’t stop. He braced both fists on the counter beside my hips and bowed his head as I worked the button open and dragged the zipper down.
The sound he made went straight through me.
He was hot and heavy in my hand, and for a second I could only stare. He was bigger than anything I’d imagined, and nerves flickered through the desire.
“You don’t have to,” he said, voice rough.
“I know.”
And that made all the difference.
I touched him because I wanted to. Because he would let me stop. Because with him, no didn’t feel like a word I had to defend.
I stroked him carefully, learning him the way he’d learned me. His forearms tightened. His jaw clenched, and his whole body shook with the effort of holding still for me.
I’d never felt powerful like that before.
Not because he was weak.
Because he wasn’t.
Because he was enormous and dangerous and shaking under my hand, and he still wouldn’t take one thing I didn’t offer.
When I touched him again, his hand closed around my wrist.
“Stop,” he said, the word nearly a growl. “If you keep doing that, I’m not going to make it to the bed.”
My whole body went hot.
I let go.
He lifted me off the counter and carried me down the hall. I’d seen his bedroom once before and forced myself not to think about it.
Now I couldn’t think about anything else.
His bed was massive. Of course it was. Dark wood, heavy blankets, built for a man who made normal furniture look like toys. He lowered me into the middle of it, and the mattress dipped beneath me.
Then he climbed in after me, and the frame creaked under his weight.
I tried to wrap my legs around him and couldn’t even get close.
A nervous laugh slipped out of me. “There’s too much of you.”
His mouth curved. “We’ll manage.” Then he kissed me, and the laugh turned into a sigh.
He took his time with me. Even now, when I could feel how badly he wanted me, he didn’t rush. His hands moved over me, slow and sure, until the nerves faded and the need came back stronger than before.
By the time he settled between my thighs, I knew what I was choosing.
James was still out there. The Agency could call tomorrow. Kazan had a contract that said he wasn’t supposed to touch me like this. My file had some kind of flag on it that could ruin everything.
None of it disappeared.
I just didn’t care enough to stop.
For the first time in years, I wanted something more than I was afraid of losing it.
So I reached down, put my hand over his, and guided him to me.
He pushed in slowly.
The stretch stole my breath. He stopped almost immediately, trembling above me, his face tight with restraint.
“Breathe,” he said against my temple. “I have you. As slow as you need.”
I breathed.
He gave me a little more. Then stopped. Then more. Every inch was careful. Every pause was for me. He watched my face like nothing in the universe mattered more than knowing whether I was all right.
It should’ve been terrifying.
It should’ve felt like something I had to survive.
Instead, I had Kazan above me, holding himself back with everything he had, making sure I felt safe even now.
When he was finally all the way inside me, we were both shaking.
“All right?” he asked.
I wrapped my arms around his neck and pulled him down to me. That was answer enough.
He moved. Slow at first. Deep. Careful. Devastating.
I clung to him, nails digging into his back, my face pressed against his throat. His heart pounded beneath my cheek, and that low sound rumbled through his chest and into mine.
I didn’t know where the fear ended and the pleasure began. Maybe it didn’t matter. Maybe this was what happened when fear finally had somewhere safe to go.
His hand slid between us, and the pleasure built again, faster this time. I held onto him harder, afraid of falling and knowing he’d catch me anyway.
“Maisie,” he said, ragged. “With me.”
I came apart first, crying out against his skin.
He followed a breath later, his whole body shuddering over mine, my name breaking in his mouth.
For a long time, neither of us moved.
Eventually he shifted onto his side and gathered me against him. Even then, he was careful. One heavy arm wrapped around me, holding me close without trapping me. My body fit against his in a way that didn’t make sense and somehow felt perfect.
I listened to his heart slow.
I’d come here to disappear.
I’d made a plan to leave before James could ruin this place. Before Kazan could get hurt. Before I could want too much and lose it anyway.
But now I was in the arms of the most dangerous man I’d ever met, and I felt safer than I had in years.
James was still out there.
The Agency could still call.
The contract still existed.
None of that had changed.
I pressed my palm over Kazan’s heart, cuts stinging, and felt the steady beat beneath my hand.
We’d find a way.
I didn’t know how. Not yet.
But I was done running before anyone chased me. Done leaving before I got left.
Whatever James sent, whatever the Agency wanted, whatever that flag on my file meant, I wasn’t disappearing this time.
I was staying.