Chapter 53 Pull Between
Chapter fifty-three
Pull Between
-Maris-
His hand, warm and steady rested at her jaw, as if he belonged there. As if her skin had been made for his calloused palm. As if they hadn’t just crossed every boundary she had fought to uphold.
Her pulse thundered.
The ship was too quiet. The air too thick. He was too close, eyes flicking from her mouth to her eyes and back again, reading a map he already knew by heart.
She should’ve pulled away. She wanted to say said something clever, something cutting, something that reminded him and herself that this was a mistake.
But her hands were still on his chest.
And the dream hadn’t faded from her thoughts as she had hopefully. Not really.
Not when he looked at her like this.
“Alarik,” she breathed, but it didn’t come out sharp. It came out as a question. A prayer. A warning too late.
“Tell me to stop,” he said again, voice hoarse.
She couldn’t.
Because she didn’t want to.
She hated herself for it but she didn’t.
“I can’t,” she whispered.
And that was all it took.
His lips brushed hers in promise. Testing, tasting, as if he were waiting for her to change her mind. But she didn’t flinch. Her lashes fluttered closed, her body leaned into his without thought.
The press of his mouth was worshiping.
She inhaled against him, her fingers twisting tighter in the front of his shirt. Her magic hummed in her veins alive. It bloomed beneath her skin. A silver fire, curling through her chest, and wrapping around the flicker of something dangerous she didn’t want to name.
His thumb stroked along her jaw, anchoring her there. Making her forget time, and oaths.
Kael.
She jolted back, breath shuddering, lips tingling.
“Maris … ” Alarik’s voice was tight, rough, worried.
She held up a hand. “No. We can’t, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have —”
“Don’t,” he said gently. “Don’t apologize for something you want.”
Her chest rose and fell. “It’s not that simple.”
His expression a war of restraint and longing. “No. It never is with you.”
Silence crackled between them. Below deck, the crew’s voices stirred faintly, a reminder that the world hadn’t stopped, even if it had felt like it had.
“I need air,” she said, already stepping back.
He let her go.
But this time… she saw it in his face. The devastation. The hope. The battle he hadn’t won, but hadn’t lost either.
She was trying not to drown in something she no longer had the strength to deny.
-Alarik-
She walked away with regret in her tear rimmed eyes.
Alarik stood still, the deck tilting beneath his feet, though the ship hardly moved at all. His hand fell to his side, fingers curling to hold onto the heat of her skin just a moment longer.
She hadn’t slapped him. Hadn’t screamed. Hadn’t cursed the gods.
No, she had kissed him back. She had trembled in his arms, sighed against his mouth like it was the first breath she’d taken in days. But the second her thoughts caught up to her body, she fled. Not far, but far enough.
He whirled toward the railing, staring out at the open sea as though it held answers. But the ocean offered no counsel. Only wind and foam.
He should’ve known better. He should’ve kept his distance. Should’ve stayed quiet after the dream, let it lie buried..
But he was hers. Even if she never said it. Even if she never looked at him that way again. Even if she still wore Kael’s name in the hollow of her heart.
His jaw clenched. Kael. The king who’d claimed her as a pawn in a long, bloody game. The one who’d dared to bond her and leave her in a palace full of lies and teeth. Alarik could taste the fury curling in his gut but it wasn’t just at Kael anymore.
It was at himself.
Because hadn’t he done the same?
Assumed she was delicate, breakable. A vessel for prophecy. A thread to unravel Kael’s kingdom. It had taken seeing her rise in the Hollow, silver-eyed and starlit, to realize the depth of his mistake.
He’d looked unto a goddess and kissed the mortal girl beneath her skin.
A noise behind him made him glance back. Just a crewman passed with a rope and averted eyes. No one would speak of what had nearly happened.
But he couldn’t pretend anymore.
He wasn’t Kael.
But he wasn’t better, either.
Not if he still treated her as something to be won.
Alarik exhaled hard, letting the spray of the sea sting his face.
If she came to him again, it would be her choice.
Not magic. Not dreams. Not fate.
Just Maris.
And if she didn’t… then he would carry this ache as a reminder.
That power without trust meant nothing.
That desire without respect was just another kind of ruin.
And he would not be her ruin.