“No.”
She glared up at him with her damp lashes and flushed face. “Nothing you can say will change my mind.”
“I will not allow it.” He puffed out his chest, daring her to cross him.
“Allow? You do not have the right toallowme to do anything.” She poked him squarely in the chest with one finger. “You are not my husband. You are not my brother. And you are most certainly not my keeper. I am quite capable of taking care of myself.”
Kjeld huffed, biting back the urge to smirk. “Says the lady who nearly died in a dragon’s den and slept for seven full days.”
“An unfortunate mishap of circumstances, nothing more.” Caelian adjusted her towel, but all it did was squish her breastshigher into his direct line of sight. “Besides, the loss of blood was beyond my control. Anyway, if you’d excuse me, I’d like to get ready for bed so I can ask?—”
He snared her by the chin, forcing her to look up at him. “I. Said. No.”
Her plush mouth opened, and he tightened his grip until she gasped.
“I will be taking you to Wenfyre.” He bit out the words. “No one else.”
Her fingers curled around his wrist, and though she attempted to yank his hand away, she failed miserably. A testament to his earlier point.
“Why?” Caelian demanded, the sapphire of her eyes darkening with tempered fury. “You don’t care about me. This is all a result of my selfish wishing, you said so yourself. So why do you care if I go to Wenfyre with Lothaire when you’ve made your sentiments toward me painfully clear?”
It was an honest question.
The problem was Kjeld didn’t have a good enough answer. It shouldn’t matter if she went with someone else. She should be allowed to make her own decisions, and he shouldn’t care. At all.
“If you go with him,” he warned, his voice low and menacing, “there will be consequences.”
“I assure you, General Holtstrom, it is nothing I can’t handle.” She spoke with decorum, but there was the slightest waver to her bottom lip and her pulse shuddered. “I’ve paid my fair share of consequences, all for the foolish sake of loving you.”
Were his heart made of stone, then it surely would have crumbled.
Kjeld merely thought Caelian fancied him, or that her feelings were based on the simplistic rules of attraction. He never considered their depth, or that her affection for him wentbeyond the purely physical. In the grand scheme of things, he never pondered her feelings at all. Instead he assumed. Wrongly.
He moved out of her way, and she stepped from the shower, clutching her towel to her chest.
“You love me.” It was a statement of fact, not a question, and he spoke the words as though they were sacred. Invaluable.
No other female had ever declared their love for him before. Relationships were never his strong suit, as most women in Brackroth only wanted one of two things. His prestige or his cock. And nothing worthwhile stemmed from either of those desires.
“Rest assured, I am certain that which I feel for you will fade with time, as all things do.” Caelian’s voice was as calm as the surface of an untouched lake. She braided her wet hair into a messy plait, the sleek strands of silver, pink, lavender, and blue swirling around each other. Looking up, she met his gaze in the reflection of the arching onyx mirror. “Since you seem so insistent upon the matter, I will allow you to escort me to Wenfyre. But from this point on, we are traveling companions. Our acquaintance is based on the circumstances my brother set before us. And I bid you not to speak to me unless absolutely necessary.”
“You’re serious?” Kjeld reared back, stunned by her ruthless dismissal. He scrubbed a hand over his face, confused by her sudden shift in demeanor. “Are we to have no conversations at all, then?”
“You cannot have it both ways. You can’t direct your rage at me, humiliate me completely in front of my peers, then confess all the wicked things you want to do to me. I am not a doll that you can play with at any time of your choosing and then cast aside when you remember you’re supposed to hate me.” Caelian sidled past him and pulled open the door to the bedroom.“You’ve made your wish, Kjeld Holtstrom. Now, let me do all that is left within my power to grant it.”
Closing the door quietly behind her, she left him standing by himself in the bathing suite to process everything that had been said between them.
He didn’t know how long he stayed in there, his hands propped against the gray granite sink, staring at his own reflection, searching for answers he knew he wouldn’t find.
Caelian was wiping her hands of him. She was shutting him out of her life completely. And isn’t that what he wanted? He thought it was, he’d been sure of it. Except now that the freedom he craved was finally within his grasp, uncertainty strangled him like writhing bane. She’d taken all that he was before and somehow transformed him into a more exceptional version of himself. She’d made him stronger. Faster. More keen and more aware. She’d basically turned him into all he’d ever wanted to become in his previous mortal life—minus the fucking ears—and how had he repaid her?
By treating her like she was a thief who’d robbed him of his supposed destiny.
Kjeld gripped the ledge of the granite counter until it cracked, muscles bulging, veins popping.
He wanted to scream.
Fuck!
