Scarlett
We don’t run.
That’s the lie my body tells itself at first—that I’m still running, still being chased, still allowed momentum. But the moment Kai’s hand closes around mine again, I know it isn’t true. This isn’t flight. This is being taken somewhere.
The jungle doesn’t blur anymore. It presses in. Leaves slap wetly against my calves. Stones bite into my feet. Every step lands heavier than the last, my lungs scraping raw air like they’re trying to punish me for still needing it.
“Kai,” I say, and my voice breaks immediately, ugly and hoarse. “Please.”
He doesn’t answer.
He doesn’t slow.
His grip is firm, unforgiving, like my wrist is an anchor point he’s already bolted into the future. I stumble, nearly go down, and he tightens his hold automatically—no pause, no hesitation. Not to help. To keep me moving.
“I’m sorry,” I blurt, the words spilling before I can think. “I’m so fucking sorry.”
That gets him to stop.
Just for a second.
Not fully. Just enough that my shoulder bumps into his back when he turns, hard, his body blocking the narrow path ahead. The sudden stillness is worse than the running. My heart slams into my ribs like it’s trying to escape without me.
“Sorry for what?” he asks.
His voice is calm. Too calm. It scrapes against my nerves like metal.
I swallow. My throat burns.
“For all of it,” I say. “For leaving. For lying. For—” I choke, breath hitching. “For surviving you.”
Something flashes behind his eyes. Gone too fast to name.
“I wish,” I whisper, the words tumbling out now, frantic, desperate, “I wish we could go back. Four years. Just—before everything went wrong.”
He exhales through his nose, sharp.
“There was no before,” he says.
“There was,” I insist, stepping closer without meaning to. “There was a version of us that didn’t end like this. We were stupid and young and it was messy but—God, Kai, it wasn’t this.”
My chest tightens. Tears spill whether I want them to or not.
“You didn’t have to do this,” I sob. “You didn’t have to come back for me. You could have lived your life. You could have found someone else.”
He laughs then.
It’s short. Bitter. It hurts worse than if he’d shouted.
“Someone else,” he repeats.
“Yes,” I say, nodding quickly, clinging to it. “Someone clean. Someone who wasn’t wrong. Someone you could have been happy with.”
The words taste like knives.
“Someone who didn’t make you bleed,” I whisper. “Someone you didn’t have to destroy yourself over. Not me. Not this fucking life.”
His jaw tightens so hard I hear his teeth grind.
“You think this is about happiness?” he asks quietly.
I nod. “I think you deserve it.”
That finally does something.
He steps into my space, close enough that my back hits stone I didn’t notice before. The air between us feels charged, brittle, like it might shatter if I breathe wrong.
“Don’t do that,” he says.
“Do what?” I whisper.
“Turn me into a tragedy you’re apologising for,” he snaps. “I didn’t lose my life because of you. I chose it. Every step.”
His hand comes up—not rough, not gentle—and cups my jaw, forcing my eyes to his.
“You don’t get to decide I’d be better without you,” he says. “You don’t get to make me smaller so you can survive walking away.”
I shake under his grip.
“I just want you to stop,” I plead. “Please. Just—stop. This isn’t who you’re supposed to be.”
He leans in, forehead almost touching mine.
“This is exactly who I am,” he murmurs. “You just forgot because I let you.”
My chest caves in.
“I didn’t forget,” I whisper. “I tried to live with it.”
The silence following my words is a parasite, eating away at the distance I’m trying so hard to maintain. I can feel the heat radiating off him—the smell of rain, copper, and that dark, heavy scent that is purely, undeniably Kai.
He doesn’t move. He doesn’t snap. Instead, his hand moves from my jaw, his thumb trailing over my lower lip with a pressure so light it’s agonising.
It’s the first time he’s touched me without the intent to bruise or restrain, and the tenderness of it makes me want to scream. It’s more terrifying than his rage.
“You tried to live with it,” he murmurs, his voice dropping into a register that vibrates in my chest. “But you didn’t, did you, Scarlett? You just built a prettier cage and called it a life.”
His other hand reaches into the pocket of his damp trousers. He pulls out a small, amber vial. It looks like a jewel in the moonlight, filled with a thick, honey-coloured liquid that catches the fractured light from the trees.
My breath hitches. “Kai?”
He doesn’t answer. He flips the cap with his thumb. The movement is fluid, practiced. He doesn’t look at the bottle; he keeps his eyes locked on mine, pinning me to the stone as he brings the vial to his own lips.
I watch, mesmerised and horrified, as his throat muscles work. He swallows half of it, his eyes darkening, the amber liquid staining his bottom lip. My heart is a frantic bird against my ribs.
“What are you doing?” I whisper, my hands coming up to his chest, not to push, but to steady myself as the air around us grows thick.
He doesn’t speak. He takes the last of the liquid, holding it in his mouth, his cheeks slightly full. He leans in, his shadow eclipsing me, and his hand slides to the back of my neck, his fingers tangling in my wet hair.
He looks at me with a hunger that is purely predatory, a silent apology wrapped in a death sentence.
Then, he crashes his mouth onto mine.
It’s not the violent collision from before.
This is a slow, methodical invasion. His lips are slick with the cloyingly sweet, medicinal taste of the liquid.
I gasp in surprise, and that’s all he needs.
He uses the opening to tilt my head back, his tongue forcing my mouth wider as he spits the viscous, drugged liquid directly into my throat.
I try to pull away, my hands clenching his shirt, but he holds me firm. He’s drinking me in, his mouth sealed against mine, forcing me to swallow. The liquid is thick, tasting like concentrated nectar and bitter chemicals, sliding down my throat in a heavy, inescapable wave.
“Swallow it, baby sister,” he mutters against my lips, his voice a low, distorted growl.
I choke on the sweetness, my eyes wide and searching his for a reason, for a hint of the man I thought I knew. I swallow. I have to. He won’t let me breathe until I do.
When he finally pulls back, a thin silver thread of the liquid connects our lips for a heartbeat before it breaks. I stumble, my head suddenly feeling like it’s filled with lead. The world tilts. The trees above us start to swirl, the moonlight turning into a long, blurred streak of white.
“What… what the fuck did you do?” I slur, my tongue feeling twice its size. My knees buckle, and this time, he catches me, his arms wrapping around my waist like iron bands.
“I’m taking the choice away, Scar,” he whispers, his lips ghosting over my ear.
I try to push him, but my arms feel like they belong to someone else. They’re heavy, useless, falling back to my sides as the darkness starts to bleed in from the edges of my vision.
“You… you drugged me,” I breathe, the realisation hitting me through the fog. “You’re not… you’re not drugged.”
“I’ve had a lot of practice with this shit in the holes they put me in,” he rasps, his grip tightening as he hauls my limp body up against his chest. I can feel his heart—steady, powerful, and utterly cold. “I only took enough to taste you. You took enough to forget the way home.”
“Kai… please…”
“Shhh,” he murmurs, his hand stroking my hair as the jungle begins to disappear. “Don’t fight it. You’re tired of being the bride, Scar. You’re tired of making decisions. I’m taking over now.”
The last thing I see before the world goes completely black is the jagged line of his jaw and the terrifying, beautiful certainty in his eyes. He isn’t running from the guards. He isn’t running from Noah.
He’s just going home. And he’s taking me with him.