He takes the stairs up to the catwalk two at a time, his movements still fluid despite the exhaustion and pain that must be screaming through his body. He stops in front of me.
He is a wreck, a beautiful, brutal ruin. The cut above his right eye is deeper than I thought, a sluggish well of dark blood that drips onto his cheekbone. His lip is split, swollen and purple. A dark, angry bruise is already forming high on his cheek, and his knuckles are raw, the skin split over the bones. He smells of sweat, blood, and victory. Cassian is the most alive thing I have ever seen.
He doesn't speak. He just looks at me, his chest rising and falling with each ragged breath. The roar of the crowd below is a distant, meaningless hum. The world has shrunk to this small space on a metal catwalk, to the charged air between a broken monster and the girl he broke open.
His control snaps.
It happens so fast I don’t have time to react, to even breathe. One moment he is standing a foot away, a panting, bleeding statue. The next, he surges forward, both hands coming up to frame my face. His bruised, blood-smeared thumbs press against my cheekbones, tilting my head up, capturing my gaze. He closes the distance between us and crashes his mouth down onto mine.
It is not a kiss. It is a collision.
It’s a brutal, desperate, claiming act. His lips are bruised and swollen against mine, and the kiss is rough, punishing. There is no tenderness, no romance. There is only a raw, violent, and overwhelming need. He kisses me like he’s starving, like he’s drowning and I am his only source of air.
And the taste…
It’s the taste of him. The taste of the fight. It’s the coppery, metallic tang of his blood, sharp and hot on my tongue. Cassian is forcing me to taste his violence, to share in his brutal victory. He is marking me, branding me with his pain and his power.
My mind goes completely, blessedly blank. The noise of the crowd, the heat, the smell—it all vanishes. There is only this. The bruising pressure of his mouth, the rough scrape of his stubble against my skin, the iron-rich taste of his blood filling my senses. My hands, which had been clutching his jacket, come up to grip his blood-slick arms, my fingers digging into his tense biceps. I don’t know if I’m trying to push him away or pull him closer.
He groans, a low, guttural sound deep in his chest and the kiss deepens for a searing, endless second before he tears himself away.
He stumbles back a step, his chest heaving, his green eyes blazing with a wild, shocked light. He looks at me, at my mouth, then back to my eyes. He looks as stunned as I feel. Helost control. The untouchable Wraith, the master of chaos, lost control.
“Aria,” he rasps, my name a broken thing, a curse, a prayer.
I stare back at him, my lips tingling, the taste of his blood a ghost on my tongue. I don’t wipe my mouth, I don’t flinch. I just stand there, looking at him, my own reflection visible in the dark, blown-out pupils of his eyes. I have tasted the monster, and I have not turned to dust.
A rough, short laugh escapes him; a sound of pure, bitter disbelief at what he’s just done. He scrubs a bloody hand over his face, smearing the blood. “Yeah,” he breathes, more to himself than to me. “Okay.”
He seems to remember the jacket then. He gently takes it from my nerveless fingers, his bruised knuckles brushing against mine. He doesn’t put it on, he just holds it.
“Let’s go,” he says, his voice low and decisive, the moment of wildness gone, replaced by a grim resolve.
He turns, placing his hand on my back, the familiar gesture feeling entirely different now. It’s no longer just possessive; it’s intimate. He guides me away from the railing, away from the scene of his brutal sermon.
The walk back to the car is silent. He moves with a slight limp I didn't notice before, a subtle hitch in his stride that he tries to hide. The adrenaline is fading, and the pain is setting in.
The car ride is as silent as the first one, but the quality of the silence has changed. Before, it was a tense, anticipatory silence. Now it is the heavy, ringing silence that follows an explosion. It is thick with the taste of blood, and the ghost of a kiss that was not a kiss. I am no longer just a spectator, I am a co-conspirator. I am the keeper of his secret, and he has branded me with it.
I stare out the window, but I don’t see the city lights. I see the flash of his fists, I see the blood on the canvas. I see the moment he looked at me and shattered. I can still taste him.
He doesn’t drive me home. Somehow, I knew he wouldn’t. He drives us deeper into his territory. Into a neighborhood of dark, sleeping warehouses and silent, empty streets before he pulls up in front of a massive, anonymous brick building. An old factory or mill that has been converted into loft apartments. He kills the engine, and the silence that descends is absolute.
He gets out of the car and comes around to my side, opening the door for me. I get out, my legs still feeling unsteady. He leads me to a heavy industrial door, unlocks a series of locks that look far too serious for a residential building, and pushes the door open, gesturing for me to go inside.
I hesitate on the threshold. The fight club was public. This is private. After what just happened on the catwalk, the implications of stepping into his home are terrifyingly clear.
He sees my hesitation. He’s standing close behind me, a solid wall of heat. “Aria,” he says, his voice quiet but firm, leaving no room for argument. “In.”
I step across the threshold from the cold, dark hallway into the even deeper darkness of his apartment. The door closes behind me with a heavy, final-sounding click of the deadbolt.
The trap has sprung, or the sanctuary has been breached.
I am in the monster’s den, and I can still taste his blood on my lips.
Fourteen
Threeyearsago…
