Chapter 30 An Answer #2
He’d barely stopped touching her. A hand at her lower back. Fingers brushing her wrist. His knee aligned beside hers like a compass needle drawn to the only direction that mattered.
By the time they rose from the high table, her skin was buzzing.
But before the court could fully drift out, the orchestra struck up one final melody — not the soft departure notes of an ending night, but something darker. A slow-burn waltz layered in tension and seduction.
Kael stood and offered his hand.
His silver eyes pinned her in place. And even after everything — the proposal, the bond, the whispers — it still made her breath catch.
“Dance with me,” he said, not as a question, but a command only she could make sweet.
Maris swallowed her nerves and placed her hand in his.
They glided into the center of the floor as the few remaining nobles paused to watch. The bond shimmered between them like an invisible thread pulling them tighter with every step. His arm wrapped around her waist, firm and possessive. Her hand trembled slightly in his — he noticed.
“Nervous?” he asked, lips brushing her ear.
“I don’t think it’s the dancing I’m nervous about.”
A low chuckle rumbled in his chest.
They moved like shadow and flame — Kael guiding her effortlessly, Maris catching the rhythm like she’d been born to match his steps. When he spun her out and back in, the crowd around them faded to nothing.
Just him. Just her. Just the hum of something ancient vibrating between their joined hands.
The music crescendoed, and he dipped her low, his face barely inches from hers. “You belong here,” he whispered. “With me. Let them see it.”
Maris couldn’t speak. Could only nod, her chest bursting with too many emotions, too much wanting, too much everything.
They finished the dance locked in each other’s arms.
And when the music died, Kael kissed her knuckles like a knight of some old, forgotten realm.
In those final moments in the hall, the bond was no longer a thread, it was a living thing.
He didn’t speak as he led her from the ballroom, the orchestra playing one final, fading note behind them. His hand remained wrapped around hers like a tether.
She felt his anticipation in her chest as if it were her own.
In the quiet corridor of their chambers, she turned to him—but he was already watching her, eyes lit silver with that storm she knew so well now.
“You feel it,” he said simply.
She nodded, breathless. “Yes.”
They didn’t make it to the bed right away.
Maris straddled him in a bath of silver-sheeted moonlight, his back pressed against the towering headboard, her fingers gripping the edge of his shoulder as if it were all that held her to this realm.
Kael’s voice dropped to a velvet growl in her mind:
“Feel that?”
She gasped.
He smirked up at her.
“The bond lets me know how close you are,” he murmured again, in her thoughts, deeper and more intimate than any kiss. “It’s maddening.”
Her body responded to that voice more than his hands. Heat seared through her. It was like being touched from the inside out.
“I could stay in your mind,” he whispered again, brushing her temple with his lips, “but I won’t. You have power too, little star.”
He took her wrist and guided it to his chest.
“Close the wall in your mind” he said aloud this time. “Think of sealing a gate. A lock. And the voice will dim.”
She tried it—visualized a door swinging shut—and his presence eased like mist dissipating.
But the moment she relaxed, he pushed back in.
“Unless I want in.”
“Kael,” she moaned, her voice trembling.
He smirked, devilish. “Gods, I want to ruin you.”
Their bodies tangled, hands desperate, mouths colliding in hungry rhythm. When the tension broke—when she shattered in his arms—it wasn’t just her pleasure.
It was his too.
And she felt it.
Like lightning crashing through bone. Like being caught in the pull of a tide so deep, she forgot the shore ever existed.
Later, wrapped in each other under silk and shadow, they laid in silence. His fingers traced the inside of her wrist slowly, as if still memorizing her.
“You haven’t asked why I proposed,” Kael said, voice low.
Maris turned toward him, heart already thudding again. “I assumed the council—”
“The council can rot,” he said quietly. “This was mine.”
She softened. “I suppose I didn’t want to know if you’d say otherwise.”
He studied her face, then sighed and asked carefully, “Do you… dream?”
The question hit too pointedly. Her breath caught.
He was fishing.
Her mind reeled, but she didn’t give in. “Everyone dreams, Kael.”
He raised a brow, brushing a knuckle down her cheek. “Yours seem vivid.”
Her stomach twisted. She fought the flicker of guilt. “They’re only dreams.”
“Are they?” His voice held that teasing chill—half flirtation, half test. “You write about them in your journal.”
She froze. She knew he had seen in the day he disappeared and returned covered in blood, but with the goddess kiss the notion to ask has dissipated in her shock.
His gaze didn’t waver. “You left it open. And I am a possessive man, Maris. Especially when the dreams mention another.”
She pulled back, chest tight.
“Don’t turn this into something it isn’t,” she whispered. “I don’t even know who he is.”
“But you want to,” Kael snapped, suddenly sharp. “You crave answers you don’t share with me.”
Her eyes flared. “Then ask me instead of going through my things like I’m some pawn in your court.”
His jaw locked. He turned away, running a hand through his black hair, the muscles in his back rippling with frustration. “You are not a pawn,” he growled. “You’re the whole fucking board, and I keep playing as if I can win you.”
She blinked. The fire in her throat dimmed. Guilt swept in.
Kael looked wrecked—not with rage, but with a strange ache that ran bone-deep.
“Hey,” she said, voice softening.
He didn’t turn.
So she rose on her elbows and slid beside him again, pressing her body into his side. She touched his hand.
“I didn’t mean to keep things from you.”
He exhaled slowly.
“And I didn’t mean to invade you,” he said. “I just… I need to understand you.”
She nodded. Then leaned forward and kissed him—slow and full of apology.
The second time they came together that night, it was slower. Less hunger, more reverence. Like they were relearning each other’s language.
They fell asleep tangled in silence, skin to skin.
But for the first time in many weeks…
Maris did not begin to dream.