Chapter Sixty-Five
ELYSSARA
I should walk away. Should still be furious. But Stars save me—the way this man is willing to break for me cracks me open and rearranges everything inside me.
You tell me.
His words reverberate in my mind, and I feel cornered by the truth. Cornered by his ocean-blue eyes that pin me in place with intensity.
“Why me, Kael?” My words come out desperate, but it’s all I can think to say.
“You’re Elyssara, the Lightborne,” he says simply, seemingly at a loss for words.
“So, I’m just a means to an end? A solution to your problem?” I seethe, composure breaking, and it feels like my heart is ripping apart. “Am I really so easily discarded? Just another life wasted in the name of your throne?” I can’t help the anger that re-surges through me.
“No! For fuck’s sake, El, no!” Kael’s voice is hoarse, his breathing ragged, and he throws his hands up in exasperation.
“Then what, Kael? What am I if not a convenient solution?”
“You’re... the Lightborne and I’m—” He cuts himself off and drags his hand through his hair, frustration winning.
“You’re what, Kael? What the fuck are you?” His throat bobs and his jaw clenches, but he doesn’t answer. And that silence unsettles me more than any answer could.
I want to turn around and walk away. To leave this room right now and never look back. But I can’t help myself. I have to keep pushing him despite feeling as though I’m tearing my own heart from my chest.
“Tell me, Kael. Tell me I’m just a pawn, just another piece on your board. Tell me so I can walk out of this room and pretend none of this meant anything.”
We’re so close, eyes locked in a silent conversation.
“Fine. Just tell me this, Kael. Why are you still here? Because you need me—or because you want me?” My voice softens almost to a whisper, and a single thread holds my heart intact.
He exhales heavily, closing his eyes.
“I came for you because I needed you,” he says, and my lungs threaten to give out. He pauses, breathing ragged, composing himself, “But I’m ready to ruin everything because I want you.”
I’m ready to ruin everything because I want you.
I replay the words again and again, searching them for truth in a haze of lies and illusions. What do I even believe anymore?
Kael closes the distance between us, his hands wrapping around my shoulders tenderly. “Elyssara, I—” He tries to steady himself, but his hands are trembling, “I can’t lose you. I won’t,” he says the words like a promise.
“That’s not your decision, Kael,” I say softly.
“What can I do?” He asks, almost pleading.
My heart hammers in my chest. How many times can my trust be broken before I stop giving it away so freely?
Despite myself, I want to trust him. I want to believe him. And the part of me that knows the weight of keeping secrets from those you love understands. I understand the willingness to sacrifice anything—everything—to preserve a legacy, to keep a promise, to save those we love.
“Tell me everything,” I say, wiping the tears from my cheeks and squaring my shoulders. “What else haven’t you told me?”
He meets my gaze steadily, eyes dark and vulnerable, throat bobbing, as though he’s swallowing down the words he won’t allow himself to say.
He steps back from me, and for a heartbeat, I think he’s walking away, but he reaches for the first clasp of his chest plate and starts to unbuckle it.
WHAT—
“Let me show you,” he says cryptically, seeing my confusion.
Kael unbuckles each clasp slowly, glancing up at me, but my gaze is fixed on his chest plate. With each buckle, more of his sun-kissed golden skin is bared, revealing swirls of black ink in intricate patterns.
I’ve never noticed it before, or rather, I’ve never had a chance to see it before, despite our night in the tent on Skaedor’s mountain.
He reaches the final clasp, unbuckling it with efficiency, letting it drop with a heavy thud.
In the flickering candlelight, inked starkly across his chest, a swirling sea of Stars—constellations spattered across his skin, just like the night sky.
So precise they look like they’ve been etched by the gods themselves.
My breath hitches, and I instinctively reach out to touch it, speechless at the sight before me.
The Lightborne and The Sky must tread as one.
The words return to me instantly, and I whip my gaze to him, shock and surprise defining my features.
“You’re The Sky,” I breathe. “It’s you.”
I allow myself to touch his skin—to trace my fingers over the ink marking his chest—and The Sky faintly illuminates with my physical presence. It recognizes me.
“It’s me, Elyssara,” he confirms, voice gentle, tentative. “I’m the one that’s meant to be with you,” he ventures. “I think it’s why I can sense you.”
Countless emotions slam into me at once—awe, surprise, betrayal, hurt—I don’t know what to do with it all.
My Lightborne marking roars to life, illuminating the room around us in pure, white light.
Without conscious thought, I pull my hands back, gather force, and shove Kael’s chest with every shred of strength I have in my body.
He stumbles back, surprise taking root in his expression, but I shove him again before he regroups.
“You fucking lied to me all this time!” I scream, voice shrill and hoarse with the effort. “You fucking liar!” The words tear out of me.
I pound my fists into his chest, but sobs wrack my body, stealing my strength.
I feel a faint wisp of cool air coiling around my legs, but I don’t care what it is or who is watching.
“I know,” Kael soothes, wrapping his arms around me but not stopping my fists. “I know.”
“I just want,” I say, sobbing and gasping for air, “to be wanted for me.”
Kael holds me, wrapping one of his firm, broad hands around my head and the other rubbing soothing circles on my back, “Elyssara, I want you.” He tilts my head back, locking eyes with me, “I want you, okay? I want you.” I want to believe him, and Stars fucking save me, but I do.
I have no reason to believe him, but I do.
“I hate you,” I whisper, “But I want you, too.”
Then I realize the room is blanketed in darkness, shadows wrapping around us in a protective shield, insulating us from prying eyes and ears and soothing my magic, just as he soothed me.
“I hate that I want you,” I say, staring into his eyes, knowing that his arms are the safest and most dangerous place I’ll ever know.
He looks down at me with primal possession in his eyes, “It was always meant to be me and you, Duskae.” He strokes my hair back from my face, “I meant it when I said it the first time; you’re mine.” Then, his lips are on me.
Possessive, commanding, and seductive, he claims my mouth like he’s breathing after drowning. His tongue sweeps into my mouth, hot and dominant, tasting me, savoring me, devouring me.
I grab his tunic that’s splayed open over his chest, bunching it in my hands.
I push him away just enough to pry his lips from mine.
I can’t want this. I will never trust him.
Never know if there’s not another secret, another layer that he keeps buried inside.
I’ll never know if I’m anything more than a game.
“You lied to me,” I pant, my mind muddled with the scent of him wrapping around me, caressing me, branding me.
He looks at me with carnal lust and something deeper that borders on obsession, “Do you want me to stop, Elyssara?” His hand lightly brushes over my hip, as he flicks his wicked tongue along his lower lip, and my traitorous fucking body goes languid at the sight.
Yes.
“No,” I rasp, desperate to get lost in his touch.
He frames my face with his hands, brushing back the strands that have fallen forward, and possesses my mouth with heat and intensity that turns me molten.
He moves me backward to his bed, cupping my ass with one hand, and cradling my head with the other like I’m something sacred and breakable all at once.
He lowers me down gently and unties my linen trousers and easily slips them over my hips and legs.
“Let me worship you, El,” he says, the words a promise. “Let me show you how much I want you.”
A small moan escapes me, and I fucking hate that he can do this to me.
With slow, seductive precision, Kael removes my tunic and underthings, peeling them from me as if my body is something holy.
He lays me bare before him, his gaze roaming every dip and hollow, before pausing at my pussy.
I am dripping wet for him. Kael drops his head back and exhales deeply, “I fucking love how wet you get for me, El.”
He steps back, eyes still roaming my body, as if committing every inch to memory. “You are fucking perfection.”
I whimper then, barely able to contain my hunger for him. I want him to make me moan, to make me come apart beneath him, to make me forget everything that’s at stake. Everything he’s done.
“Will you let me fuck you like no one has ever fucked you before, Elyssara?” His voice a primal growl.
My pussy is dripping wet, my arousal running down my inner thighs. I give him a small nod.
“I’m going to need to hear you say it, El. Let me fuck you,” he commands.
I let out a huff of frustration, impatience and hunger wearing me down, “Fuck me, Kael,” I rasp the words, desperate for his touch again.
“That’s my girl,” Kael unties the laces of his leathers, the long, hard length of his cock springing free, and I can’t help but moan at the sight.
“Can I taste you first, Duskae?” he asks, arousal thick in his words.
“Yes,” I pant.
Kael drops to his knees at the end of the bed, his sky marking glowing faintly and on show.
He lowers his head between my thighs and licks right up my center until he reaches my clit.
With just the right pressure, he circles my clit, but I’m desperate for more friction.
More of him. I lift my hips, grinding them into his mouth.
He moans, savoring me, “I love it when you fuck my mouth, El.”
He devours me again, groaning in pleasure at the taste of me. Worshipping me.