"By forcing me to want you?" Disgust cuts through the artificial desire. "That's not winning anything. That's just another form of rape."
Something flickers in his expression—hurt, maybe, or offense. "I would never force you to do anything. The binding creates attraction, yes, but your choices remain your own." His gaze flicks briefly to Elçin's sleeping form. "I could have done far worse than put your guard to sleep."
"My choices?" Rage floods through me, momentarily drowning out the pull. "Kaan and I chose each other! Whatever's between us, broken as it is, at least it's real!"
"Is it?" His voice turns sharp, bouncing off the stone walls. "He chose to let your child die. He chose his obsession with you over an innocent life. Tell me, Nesilhan—is that love? Or is it just another form of possession?"
The words pierce deeper than any blade could. Because part of me—the part that hasn't forgiven, will never forgive—wonders the same thing.
"I can help you," Yasar says, his voice gentling. "The binding doesn't have to be a curse. I can teach you to control it, to use it instead of being used by it." His shadows wrap around me, not threatening but supportive, and gods help me, it feels good. Safe. "You don't have to suffer alone anymore. Because despite what you think, you are alone, Nesilhan. When was the last time someone held you without expecting something in return? When did someone last offer comfort without demanding forgiveness?"
I want to say something cutting, something that will drive him back, but my voice fails. Because he's right. Because I'm so tired of being angry, of being broken, of carrying this grief like armor that only wounds me further.
"Let me help you," he whispers, stepping closer until we're sharing breath, the binding singing between us like a struck crystal, his shadow-fire casting strange patterns across the walls. "That's all I'm asking. Let me show you that the binding doesn't have to be a prison."
The binding roars between us, a living thing that demands satisfaction. It wraps tighter, cutting off thought, reducing me to pure sensation. A voice in my head—my own voice, but distorted by Erlik's magic—whispers that surrender would end the pain. That I could choose this. Maybe if I give in just once, I can prove the binding doesn't own me.
My body moves without permission, swaying closer to him. His warmth radiates through the small space separating us, and those impossible ember-sparks in his shadows dance across my skin without burning.
I should pull away. Should run. Should do anything except what every nerve in my body is screaming for.
But I'm so tired of fighting. So tired of hurting. So tired of being nothing but rage and grief and shattered pieces that won't fit back together. My mother’s voice springs to mind, it was just after my baby sister's funeral. I was small enough to curl into her lap, but old enough to understand death doesn't give second chances. She whispered that some losses shape you forever. She was right. I'm a collection of empty spaces now, my sister, my son, pieces of myself I'll never get back.
Before I can stop myself—before I can think through the consequences—I close the distance between us.
My hands fist in his leathers, pulling him down to my height. His gaze widens with surprise, but he doesn't resist as I press my lips to his.
The kiss detonates through me like lightning striking dry wood. The binding floods me with pleasure so intense it borders on pain, singing through every nerve with artificial euphoria. My traitorous body melts against him, responding to the desire that feels more real than anything I've felt in months.
Yasar freezes for a heartbeat, clearly not expecting this. Then his hands come up to cup my face, gentle where I expected possession, tender where I anticipated triumph. He kisses me back carefully, like I'm something precious that might shatter, and that restraint somehow makes it worse.
Because I can feel his smirk against my lips—not cruel, but satisfied. Victorious. Like watching a plan unfold exactly as designed.
His tongue traces the seam of my lips and I open for him without thought, without choice, a marionette dancing on strings woven into my very soul. He tastes like smoke and honey, like promises I never asked for, like a future I don't want but my body craves with manufactured hunger.
The kiss deepens, and for a horrifying moment, I lean into it. Not because I want to—gods, I don't want to—but because thebinding makes resistance feel like drowning. Like suffocating. Like dying.
One of his hands tangles in my hair while the other splays across my lower back, holding me against him with possessive certainty. His shadows wrap around us both, warm where Kaan's are cold, and those impossible embers dance across my skin without burning, casting eerie light across Elçin's quarters.
For one terrible heartbeat, beneath the artificial pleasure, I feel something worse—actual comfort. Real safety. The binding has given me exactly what it promised: relief from pain, escape from grief, a moment where I'm not broken or alone.
Before I remember it's all a lie.
It's that warmth—that fundamental wrongness—that finally breaks through the haze.
Then Elçin's face flashes through my mind—not this unnatural sleeping mask, but her real face. Loyal. Steadfast. The only one who never left.
And I remember that this man, this cousin who speaks of help and comfort, is working with the demon who orchestrated all our suffering.
My light magic might be weak, but rage has always been my greatest fuel.
The burst of golden power that erupts from me is pure instinct, pure fury. It slams into Yasar with enough force to send him flying backward, his shadows scattering like startled birds as he crashes into Elçin's dresser. The binding screams at the separation, sending agony through every nerve, but I embrace the pain. It's real. It's mine.
"You want to help me?" I snarl, pulling every scrap of remaining power to the surface, golden light illuminating the chamber. "Then stay the fuck away from me."
CHAPTER 9
THE INTERROGATION
