Chapter 23
Kaden
Dropping to the log, I kick my feet out, staring at the small raging fire in front of me. Shoulders dropping, my jaw unhinges, calm descending as I pop my knuckles and listen to the hissing flames. Inside my skull, my beast roars, more alert, awake than it’s been in years.
My eyes dart across the clearing, to the reason why. The woman eases next to her witch friend, both sharing a tense conversation. It’s because of her that my beast has been harder to control. I just wish I knew why.
I need to figure it out. Otherwise, it’ll ruin my plans.
“Still feeling beastly?” Fee asks, sitting cross from me, our brother missing.
“Fuck off, Fee,” I curse, throwing my boot at her head. She easily ducks it, lips twisting into a mean smile. I’m in no mood for one of her teasing fits.
“Touchy.”
“You would be too if you dealt with what I did,” I say darkly.
She has no idea what I go through every day just to stay me.
Every day, my control has to be perfect—I have to be perfect. Every step planned, every risk calculated and avoided. It takes intense mental strength to keep my beast caged.
One small mishap and I revert—into what our ancestors became before I learned to leash it.
She doesn’t understand the toll it takes, how some days I wake up in physical pain from wanting blood that I lock myself away in my chambers. How terrified I am of failing—her, Reid, my people. But how could she? She was born second. It’s a curse only I know.
I throw the other boot. “Or having to talk down your siblings from stabbing you. Did you really pull your sword on me?”
“You wouldn’t have died.” She shrugs. “We both know the beast wouldn’t have let me kill you. But we needed a way to break through its control and reach you. All that blood was doing something to you.”
Glaring, I ignore the beast roaring in my head. He wrestles in his chains, and my fangs elongate as if he controls them.
Silently, I exhale, pushing the beast away.
I wish it was only the blood that triggered me.
“Which brings me to my next point.” She stabs her sword into the air, as if to poke me. “You don’t lose control like that. Especially in battle. Especially when your life is in danger. What in Seti’s Hell happened to you?”
My sister is astute. She knows blood wouldn’t be the real reason my control would falter.
Something is different.
My eyes drift from my sister back to the woman with cold blue eyes and bloody fingers I want to watch work. Heads bent toward the Witch, they smile with each other, whatever slight from earlier gone. They share food and I see the slight crack of a smile.
Growling, I shift, pulling away. I don’t like seeing her with another male—and I liked it even less when his scent surrounded her. It fucking boils me from the inside knowing he is marking her.
The monster growls, as if agreeing, pulling at his mental chains. He’s never been this unsettled before—and never over a female.
If I’m going to charm her, get her for my father, I’ll need to find a way to better control him. He can’t think we own the woman—that would have devastating consequences.
Ruthlessly, I shove down my need to have the blood summoner and focus on my sister.
“Kade?”
“It’s nothing.” I sigh, looking over again. Serafina follows my line of sight and curses, kicking a rock at me.
“Are you fucking kidding me?”
“It’s nothing, Fee,” I assure. “She’s nothing.”
“The fuck it is,” she hisses. “Your beast tries to take control right when you’re trying to charm some blood wielding woman, and you think it’s nothing?
” She scoffs. “You’re supposed to bed her and bring her back to father, Kade.
How is this supposed to work? Especially when you turn into a drooling beast and kill her first? ”
I glare, hating the insinuation. “I will not lose control.”
“Right, and how happy will father be when you finally snap and destroy the entire continent before he gets his prize?”
“Happy he won’t have to conquer much, then, won’t he?”
“Fuck you.”
We stare at each other, mirrored eyes hot with irritation and anger.
Although I’m the more stubborn of us, used to getting my way, I break first, jaw cracking. Fee’s not wrong.
My plan rests on charming her and stealing her away for my father. I can’t do that if my beast is in control. I can’t finish my plans if I revert.
I’ve kept my beast leashed and tame for years, until one look from her big blue eyes, and a quip from those ruby lips has me falling to my knees, my beast ready to rip bodies apart for her. It wants to claim her, destroy the world to have her, and fuck, if the urge to give in isn’t intoxicating.
What the fuck is wrong with me?
“You’re right.” The words startle my sister and I sigh, tired. “I’ll work on it. Handle the trigger. I’ll do better.”
Max is my trigger and the only safe way to handle it, is by staying away from her. But I can’t. Not if I want this to work.
“You must,” she warns, face carefully neutral. “If you don’t control it—” she trails off, eyes worried.
She won’t voice her fear. The very real one that ends with me giving into the curse and her being forced to end me in order to save others.
There’s not many people my sister loves unconditionally—only myself and Reid. But she’ll kill me to protect him.
I would never make her choose. I’ll end my life before I harm either of them.
There’s a pause, a lull in conversation as the volunteers further back buzz with talks and activity. The area has been cleaned, the beasts removed but the men are scared.
They thought this raid would be easy. They’re learning that we were telling the truth.
Above all the rest, my ears sharpen on a sultry laugh that flows over the deep masculine voices and my beast purrs, entranced.
Fucking Bel’s fiery balls.
I’m a damn goner.
“Something’s wrong, Kade.” Fee sighs, arching to stretch. She drops into the mud, uncaring if she ruins another pair of leathers. “Your beast has never been this uncontrollable. What happened at the creek?”
Dropping my head back, I look into the black leaves overhead. No stars shine back, the forest too overgrown to allow it.
What did happen at the creek?
A kinship, one born of two beings seeing the darkness and instead of cowering, we smiled. Because the dark isn’t something to fear, but enjoy.
How do I explain that the need to touch the blood summoner threw out all caution, all restraint? How do I explain that need to have her body close to mine, that the sound of her voice was enough to make me abandon this plan and whisk her away to a kingdom, far away, and start over?
How do I explain this intrinsic need to claim her so that she can never escape me?
Fee wouldn’t understand any of that. So I don’t tell her.
“Nothing.” I lie. “Two Skrulls attacked and I handled them.”
“And the blood summoner?” Her laugh breaks through the crowd again and I bite my cheek, to keep from going to her and laying my claim on her.
The way she would beg for me…
“She helped. Nothing more.”
Fee raises a brow, disbelieving me. It’s annoying having a sister who knows my tells.
“I’m probably overtaxed. We didn’t rest before the journey to Griffin’s court and spent more time hunting his halls than sleeping. I’m testy, Fee. That’s all.” I shrug, and the tension flees her face, as she nods.
Fee might know my tells but she trusts me. She trusts I won’t lie to her. Even when I am.
Reid drops down beside me, balancing two glasses of wine and a plate of charred meat. Sniffing it, I frown, stomach rolling. It’s burnt Skrull.
Handing me a glass, he gives the other to Fee, smiling wide. “So, what are you two fighting about?”
“Nothing,” we say in unison as he laughs, resting an arm over the log, completely as ease. As if we didn’t just survive a battle.
It’s not the first time that I admire his resilience.
“Where have you been?” He’s still covered in debris, leathers torn. A paw got him in the attack, but he’s fully healed.
“Sending a note to father.” At my raised brow, he holds up his hands. “He sent us a hawk and I replied as if I were you.”
I glance to the blood summoner, listening to him explain.
Knowing how her magic reacts, I can better see the toll it causes her. The tiredness on her face, the way she winces with noises, she’s drained from the ordeal earlier. How does her companion not notice it?
Or is he like every other Witch? Only concerned with the white and black, and never the grey of the world?
“What did he want?”
“What do you think?” He snorts. “He wanted to know if we found anything.”
“And what did you tell him?”
“I had to tell him something, Kade,” Reid explains. “His letter were getting persistent. He doesn’t know what, just that we found a weapon and we were in the processing of procuring it.”
Nodding, I sip the wine. “Good. By his next letter, we should be able to tell him we’re on our way home.”