Chapter 25
Ithink I’m struck dumb, because I physically can’t move or speak.
Vendra herself, the moment he held me, everything else vanished. I forgot where I was, who I was, and the complete shitshow that has been my life. Not even a fleeting thought remained that he might drag his large, warm hands across my back and feel the evidence of my falsely accused sin.
“Amarah.”
I wish he’d go back to calling me little slayer. My name on his tongue is driving me mad, and I can’t fucking think straight. I want him to go back to viciously hating me—back to the point where he was ready to break my neck. Instead of this possessive, overbearing, way-too-caring man.
“What?!” I snap back, sharper than I intend.
“What happened? Who…”
His touch ignites every feeling I’ve been running from since he showed up in my hotel room to shave my damn legs.
“Don’t worry… you’ve already killed them.”
He pauses halfway down my spine.
“Butcher, this was my punishment—”
“For something you didn’t do!”
Well, that’s new. Atlas was concrete in thinking I hadn’t slaughtered all those people that night. Kayn, though…
I drop my chin to my chest and sigh. “There is always someone to blame…”
“But not you.”
That’s when I smell it—copper. A lot of it. The metallic tang seeps into the sulfur-thick air of the spring. Unmistakably blood.
The moment I try to turn around, his arm wraps across my collarbones, holding me still.
“What’re you doing?!”
My answer comes not from his voice but from the sudden warmth spilling down my back. I lift my gaze over my shoulder to look at him—at least as much as I can—but I only catch the edge of his face, jaw clenched and his blood covering his beard.
“Why doesn’t it work!”
It isn’t a question. He already knows why. I told him he can’t heal me, no matter how badly he wants to.
“Maybe you need to drink it.”
“It won’t work!”
My shout doesn’t stop him. He brings his shredded wrist to my mouth and presses it against my lips. When he flexes his hand, the coppery blood rushes straight to the back of my throat. I gasp and choke, pushing against him, clawing at his arm. He’s a stone statue, and I’m merely Mundane.
I scream against his skin, jerking my head back, desperate to get free. The gag reflex rips through me as I’m forced to swallow. My skin prickles with violent goosebumps, tears burning down my cheeks as I scream into his arm.
“Why… Godsdamn it!” he roars, yanking his wrist away.
I’m coughing, choking, snot and tears spilling down my face. It isn’t the blood—Beyond, I’ve tasted my own and others’ all my life. That’s nothing new.
It’s why he’s doing this.
The reason he’s trying.
The purpose behind it.
“Fuck… Amarah, I’m—”
“Stop, just… let me go.”
For once—just once—I wish he’d listen. But this is no different than every other time I’ve asked him for space. It’s like he’s incapable of giving it to me.
Kayn only allows me to slip forward an inch. Just enough for him to place his hand on my back again. I tense, twisting, fighting, but he holds me firm. The slick pebbles and mud keep me from getting leverage.
“Why won’t Vendra heal you? Witches can do it. I’ve read enough about your kind to know that.”
“You don’t understand!”
“Then make me understand!”
I suck in a breath to scream when his palm clamps over my mouth.
“Don’t,” he rumbles softly. “Gods, I’m not going to hurt you… and I am not trying to kill my friend because he sees you naked. Do you understand me?”
My knees buckle, and as I start to fall, he hauls me back against him, my spine flush to his chest, holding me tightly to him.
“I told you yesterday…” I speak against his hand, causing him to remove it. “Vendra can’t protect me. She can’t save me. She can’t heal me. Nothing can heal me. The Nocthariel prevents it.”
He goes still. One arm secured under my breasts, the other hooked around my collarbone, locking me in place. Fighting him is useless—his strength dwarfs mine, even replenished as I am.
“The Werewolf…” he murmurs.
“I… was protecting Atlas.”
His breath ghosts over my ear. “At the gate.”
“I was protecting you.” My voice cracks. “And at the train, I was protecting them.”
“You didn’t miss that shot.”
I shake my head. “I never miss. I was firing to protect myself…” A shaky breath trembles out of me. “Please let me go.”
He doesn’t.
Of course he doesn’t.
He tightens his hold instead… and it’s torture, because it’s exactly what I want, but exactly what I need him not to do.
“Yes or no,” he demands quietly. “Did you kill them? Any of them.”
“No.” The word comes fast—too fast—and I rush the rest before he can twist it. “But it doesn’t matter—”
“Yes, it does.”
“It doesn’t, because we can’t go back.” My voice breaks on the edge of a bitter laugh. “I have the scars to remind me I failed to stop what was inevitable. But what I want to know is—” I tilt my head just enough to throw the question over my shoulder, sharp and poisonous. “Why do you care?”
His forehead drops to my shoulder with a heavy exhale. One so raw and sad my chest constricts. It almost makes me want to take the words back.
Almost.
“Let me rephrase…” My voice comes out low, slightly angered. “Do they bother you?”
“What?” His response is a mix of bewilderment and frustration. “No—I mean, yes, but only because you shouldn’t have had to suffer like that.”
“But I already did.” I drop my head forward. “And what would erasing them do, Butcher? What would taking them away even accomplish for me?”
“Don’t call me that…”
His grip slackens, and I slip from his arms, wading deeper until the water reaches my bellybutton. “Vampires and Demons heal all wounds. I once could too. But why should I want that now?”
I finally turn to face him fully.
“What difference do invisible scars make compared to the ones you can see? I still suffered. Whether you can see them or not.”
His gaze lifts to mine, and the sadness there…
Gods, it digs under my skin, right into my ribs.
Right into the softest parts of me. I feel it through the bond—his hurt, his helplessness, his anger on my behalf.
He’s a brute, a killer, a force of will and violence…
but right now, he looks like a man trying not to break.
And as the realization settles in, heavy and unwelcome, I understand something I shouldn’t: I don’t want to hurt Kayn Butcher.
I never wanted to.
It’s why the bond terrifies me. It’s why I need it severed… even if Vendra has already denied me such a thing.
I smile—small, genuine, and soft in a way I rarely allow.
“I’ve pushed you away, so I don’t expect you to understand me. You don’t need to concern yourself over what you can’t fix. I don’t want you to.”
“Amarah—”
“None of this is your fault.” I cut in gently. “It’s mine. I should’ve been more careful. I shouldn’t have been an asshole back in my cell. All of this could’ve been avoided if I—”
“Stop.” His voice is a warning—low, frayed, and dangerous in a way that has nothing to do with violence and everything to do with emotion.
I don’t stop, because as painful as this is, it has to be said. “I should’ve told you to seek out another. My kind hide in the most populated Mundane spaces. You could have found someone else, gone on this weird road trip without me, opened the gate, and gotten to him.”
His chest expands with a long breath, his drenched shirt clinging to every carved line of muscle beneath it. Gods, what I wouldn’t give to see all of him like this without the ache of guilt twisting in my ribs. He’s infuriating and arrogant and impossible… but he’s also perfect.
I wish I were weak enough to take him.
“You heard, then?” he asks.
I nod.
That, more than anything, is why I’m sorry for the bond. Not because he can sense, hear, or feel me. But because it’s made him question himself. Question what he wants. When he already has someone he is literally willing to cross realms for.
How many people would do that? Go into the Beyond for someone they love? Not many… Definitely not for me.
Heat stings my eyes, but I refuse to let my smile fall. I keep it there, steady, even as something in my chest feels like it’s unraveling thread by thread.
“Yes,” he says softly. “I’m asking you to open the gates so that I can go and get the man who left me hundreds of years ago. But that doesn’t take away from—”
“From what, Butcher?”
“Stop calling me that,” he grits out. “You know my name.”
“I do, but I don’t want to fight. I’m hoping that now we’ve both cleared up our very first question for one another, we can move on. Maybe…” I swallow. “Maybe be friends?”
He shakes his head slowly, bewildered. “What is happening?”
“Nothing. Nothing at all…” I step to him and extend my hand out toward him. “Let’s be friends. My name’s—” “Amarah.”
“Gods, that is so strange.”
“—and I’ve learned how to open the gates to help you so you can get him back.”
“You… have?”
I nod. “Thornwyn showed me.”
His gaze drops to my hand, and it isn’t just the look in his eyes that tells me I’ve given and taken too much from him at once. It’s the bond—vibrating, unsettled, like it’s fraying and tightening all at the same time. Gods, I wish it would stop.
He reaches for my hand and takes it.
“I’m…” He hesitates, fingers tightening around mine. I watch his Adam’s apple bob as he swallows. “Not okay with this.”
“Strange name,” I murmur, “but if you’d prefer me to—”
“Just stop.” He drags in a sharp, frustrated breath. “Luce left me, and I thought it was because he was done with me. But now I’m thinking that maybe… maybe that wasn’t it. Maybe he’s in trouble.”
My heart tries to climb up my throat, and I force it back down. Just keep myself steady and stay calm.
“And I’m going to help you get to him,” I say softly. “That was the promise I made to you.”
He tugs me closer and I don’t have time to brace myself; I’m pulled until we’re only inches apart.
My head tilts back to keep him in view, and though I keep my expression perfectly neutral, my skin tingles just from the nearness.
I haven’t felt like this in seven years, and I didn’t think I ever would again.
“Amarah…”
“Yes?” I ask, barely above a whisper.
“You may be the creator of this bond,” he says, voice low and steady.
“But don’t forget I’ve had to live with it every second you have.
I’m not stupid, even if you insist on treating me like I am.
I don’t know what happened to you earlier…
but I’m going to assume you’ve lost your mind being touched by whatever creature that was. ”
A laugh bursts out of me, sharp and unexpected. “That creature is—”
He cuts me off by covering my mouth with his palm. “Stop talking.” As he leans in, I swear I’m the source of the spring’s heat. “I’m going to walk away and go find something to kill. This conversation”—he motions between us—“isn’t done.”
“I can still talk to you like this,” I say through the bond.
His nose twitches, his eyes darken, and though I know he wants the reaction to scare me, it doesn’t. What comes through the bond is… different. Domination. A warning. The kind that says if I don’t submit, I won’t like the consequences.
Except my body very clearly disagrees because I know I would.
“What’re you going to kill, ‘Not Okay With This’?”
His hand tightens around my mouth. “A rat. Then I’m going to cook it, and that’ll be your dinner.”
“Seems like a lot of effort to—”
“If you speak again,” he growls, “I’m going to bend you over and spank you. I’ve done that to my friends, so don’t be a smart ass.”
The entire point of this was to give us space, to let him walk away, though every part of me screams to let him follow through on that threat. But I obey. I have to.
He studies my eyes for a moment, then nods. “Good girl. Now.”
I know he heard the whimper that escaped me. I just know he did, even if he pretends he didn’t.
“I’m going to go get this aggression out—though I’d prefer to handle it another way—but someone is being fucking difficult.” He glares at me as if I’m the problem. “When I come back, you’ll be clothed, and we will continue this conversation.”
I nod, even though I fully intend to avoid that conversation with everything in me.
“Give me a minute. I’m going to go shove Atlas back in his tent.” He leans away, muttering under his breath. “I don’t want to kill my friend for seeing what he shouldn’t.”
The bond makes him possessive and jealous. That’s all. It’s becoming stronger because we’ve been around each other longer. That’s it. He’d not be this way if it weren’t for this damn thing.
I just have to keep telling myself that.
The break will be less painful.
It will be.
I’ll be okay.
“Are we clear?”
“Hmm?” I hum against his palm. Had he said something else?
“You’ll put clothes on before telling him it’s okay to come out, and I’ll be back before breakfast. Do not leave camp. Don’t run, hear me?”
I nod.
I have no intention of running. I’ll just avoid him as much as possible. The three of us will get back on the road, and I know Kayn won’t want to talk about this in front of Atlas. I’ll insist we drive straight to our destination and sleep in intervals.
Yeah… that’s it.
When we get there, I’ll help him retrieve this Luce person. Then I’ll activate the blood bind and make him complete his end of the bargain. Vendra will have to sever the bond then… She’s grown fond of him.
It sounds… horrible.
But necessary.
Kayn doesn’t speak. He stands up straight and slowly removes his hand from my mouth. He doesn’t go far, just lifts a hand and tucks a wet strand of hair behind my ear.
“If I could go back and kill them before they ever touched you, I’d do it, Amarah.”
I bite my bottom lip hard as it starts to tremble.
“I hope you tell me what happened that night… and every second after, until I met you. You don’t deserve to carry what happened by yourself… or to live with the trauma of it alone.”
I don’t know if he notices how violently I’m fighting the tears building in my eyes, but whether he ignores it or turns away of his own accord, I’m grateful all the same.
“You aren’t alone anymore.”
The moment his back is to me, the tears fall. They don’t need a blink or a thought—they just come.
And come.
And come.
Oh… Gods.
Vendra, what am I going to do?
“I’m truly sorry, my child.”