35. Chapter 35
Chapter thirty-five
Icaught his weight enough so that he steadied himself before crashing to the marble flooring.
“Don’t,” he said, pushing off me.
“Don’t what? Help you? Just leave you there?” I pulled out from under him. He didn’t fall, but I fought the tic in my muscles to stand under his weight again.
A breath of cold air sat between us like a gulf.
“You don’t need to help me. You shouldn’t—You shouldn’t have tonight.” His breath was uneven.
“Why?” My face clouded with confusion. “I couldn’t just leave you there. I saw what they were doing to you. What they would keep doing to you if I hadn’t gotten Eryk.”
A muscle feathered in his jaw at the mention of Eryk.
“What did you give him? What did you promise him?” he asked through clenched teeth.
“Nothing.” I tried to scoff, but it got lodged in my throat. “What does that matter? I got you out. Again,” I said with heavy intonation.
“It matters,” he ground out.
Of course I had given Eryk something. I just didn’t know what it was yet.
I planted my feet to affirm my statement. I got him out. With Eryk’s help. Yes. But what other option did we have?
Kaed noted my stance, took a deep breath and looked to the ceiling. “It matters because Eryk never does anything without a price.”
Kaed regarded me then, his eyes searching mine.
When he set his jaw like that and looked at me, I found a heat blooming deep inside me. There was command in his stare alone.
“What did you promise him?” he said, forcing the words to fall a little softer.
“Nothing. I told you.” I glanced at Kaed. “Fine. I said I was in his debt.”
If the room was quiet in the dark before, now it felt like every sound in the world had been sucked from the air.
Kaed’s face was harder than granite as he shuddered a breath before the room grew impossibly darker.
“Stop it, Kaed!” Shadows were coming from his fingers now and pooling on the floor, devouring the snowy marble beneath.
But he didn’t stop. The shadows kept going until they reached my feet and rippled over them.
Shadows latched across my feet. The shimmering smoke of their fabric wrapped around my ankles until I was riveted to the floor.
“I said, stop it. Eryk did it for me!” There was panic in my voice. “What else was I going to do?”
“Leave me!” he shouted. “You should have left me. You should never do anything like that for me!” The same moment he shouted over me, his shadows retreated, and my feet came free again.
His eyes closed and opened to clear his vision, but even that magic had taken something from his very depleted well.
“Tonight was worse?” I asked, taking a step toward him.
Kaed looked down at me.
“Let me,” I urged, leaning against him.
Kaed resisted as I lifted his wrist, and I thought maybe I’d touched the burns.
“Why would you help me after today?”
I shrugged. Not willing to tell him what I’d discovered about my motivations. I cared. But I didn’t know what that meant, so I kept it to myself.
“Tell me why you helped me today?” I pushed.
He finally relaxed. And laughed. “I don’t think throwing you on Vega’s back counts as helping. But I appreciate you seeing it from my perspective.”
“That’s not what I mean.” I looked up from under heavy lashes.
We started up the stairs. I was hardly taking his weight but I walked closely enough in case I had to.
He was drained, but his body refused to show it.
His muscles were firm under my hand. They’d stripped him of his riding attire, and the shirt he wore did little to stop the heat that poured from him and my fingers warmed as they pressed into the carved muscle beneath it.
My hand moved, tracing. I told myself it was just to steady him, to help.
But I couldn’t resist the heat I felt with each explorative touch.
It took all of me not to let those fingers stray further, to tug on the light fabric that covered him.
“What do you mean?” He looked down at me as we cleared the first set of stairs.
I’d actually forgotten what I was going to say. My mind was lost in tracing the ridges of his abdomen, those dips and hollows like blocks stacked upon one another. I wondered if he had those sweeping diagonal lines that disappeared into his—
“What?” I blinked. “I only meant—When the soldiers arrived, you looked like you were about to fight. I could feel it. Your magic. Under your skin.” Kaed looked at me but didn’t say anything. “And then you stopped. Could you have beaten all of them?”
“Yes.” His breath was even now as we cleared the second staircase. “But if I had destroyed them … the council would have done worse.” He paused as he regarded me.
“Worse?” My voice was so quiet in the darkness. Worse than taking his freedom? Locking his magic away?
Kaed looked to me, but didn’t answer my question.
“They’d have destroyed you if …” His eyes closed for a moment.
Cold replaced the heat I’d been feeling from touching him. Cold from where the soldiers’ magic had forced itself through me.
“If I had killed them all,” he said it like he regretted not doing just that, “they’d have never let me leave.”
Kaed trembled beneath my touch, and I wasn’t sure if it was exhaustion or anger that shuddered through him.
“The Cage?” I swallowed. Hard.
We’d come to his door.
“There are worse things than the Cage, peach.” He said it with humour, coloured with exhaustion. But I couldn’t feel it, couldn’t laugh. In fact, all I felt was a sick feeling swirling in my gut.
“So, why did you stop …” I couldn’t look at him as I wondered.
Kaed paused. “I did it,” he said, turning to me, “to protect what’s mine.” He held my gaze as he let the words sink in. My heart felt like a pealing chorus of worship bells, the beats seemingly erratic but in perfect time and harmony.
And then I realised we were in his room.
I ducked out from under his arm.
Navy blue dripped from the curtains, from the bed.
There was even a navy-painted ceiling. Gold lines ran through the blue paint, and scattered stars splayed across the expanse.
A dark mahogany bed frame rose up against the far wall, its four posts like spears.
The pillows of down on his bed looked like they’d been slept on; the sheets were askew.
I swallowed again, trying to banish the thoughts of that bed … lying on it. Kaed above me, every dark shadow he possessed caging me to his body.
I cleared my throat and looked away from the bed to the open windows that led to a balcony.
“No victims or torture implements?” I glanced around the room, admiring the beauty. And ignoring the bed.
He chuckled low in his chest. “My bedchambers are for pleasure. Not torture.” Blue fire flamed to life in those eyes as he spoke.
The words he’d threatened earlier tonight suddenly had a very different meaning.
I will tie you to my bed at night if I have to.
A quiver ran through me at the words.
Gods, he would be the death of my independent thought. He’d already managed to find his way to my wandering mind and my dreams.
I had to get out of here. To the cool night air.
Or a hot bath.
“Goodnight, Kaedian,” I said abruptly, and made for the door.
“Imogen.” My name whispered from him, and I turned. “Whatever Eryk wants, you don’t have to do it.”
I nodded in dismissive agreement.
But I did. A bargain was a bargain. I wouldn’t break my word.
I paused on the threshold. “What do you think he will ask for?” My fingers traced the grain of the door.
“I don’t know.” Every muscle in him was rung out like lines on a ship in a storm. “But I won’t let anything happen to you.”
“You can’t protect me.” Even from my perspective, I could see that’s why he had acted earlier tonight, even if there were other personal reasons at play. “Not always. And besides, I’ve also saved you twice now.” I allowed the corner of my lip to tug into a smile.
“Perhaps we’re even then,” he mused.
I don’t know what the soldiers would have done to me if Kaed hadn’t surrendered to them. I’d never felt anything like that. It had been crushing. It had been like lead on my chest, in my veins, through my bones.
“Thank you,” I whispered and shut the door behind me.