But then, his hands, which had held still with the precision of someone battling himself, finally move. One cradles my face, slow, hesitant, as if he isn’t sure he’s allowed to touch me. The other wraps around my shoulder.
And then, with a deep, relieved sigh, Kaelzar exhales into me. Hislips part, slow, tentative, like he’s tasting freedom for the first time.
A jolt shoots through me, unraveling at the bottom of my stomach.
His lips move against mine. Slow, like he’s memorizing the sensation, savoring it.
“I take it back,” he growls into my mouth, voice wrecked.
“What?” I whisper back, already breathless.
“What I said after the first challenge. About not being yours.” His voice lowers, threaded with a rasp that feels like it reaches through me.
His hand slides to the back of my neck, fingers curling just enough to unravel something vital inside me. My eyes flutter shut, breath stalling.
“Iamyours, Trouble,” he says, rough and unsteady. “Say it again,” he demands against my lips. “Say it like you did in the temple. Word for word.”
And I do. Not because I’m told, but because I want to. Because the words pulse in me like a heartbeat.
“You’re mine,” I repeat as heat blooms in my cheeks. “So only I decide what you do with your mouth.”
His breath hitches, a sound caught between a growl and a sigh.
“Now tell me,” he says, low and reverent. “What do you want me to do with my mouth?”
Control begins to fray, followed by restraint, then reason, unraveling inside me in slow, silken threads. It’s like a freer, fiercer self I never dared to meet has taken control and now she wears my skin.
“Do with it as you please.”
His mouth crashes against mine again, hungrier now. His fingers tangle in my hair, pulling me closer when the ache at my side makes me gasp.
The raw sound seems to snap Kaelzar back to himself. He jerks away, eyes darting to the blood soaking through the bandage at my side. The stitches must have torn open.
“You shouldn’t have done that,” Kaelzar growls, pushing off the bed.
His face twists in horror and regret. The sight makes my chest ache. Did he really hate my touch that much?
Humiliation and anger clash inside me. I push back until my spine hits the wooden headboard.
“What were you thinking?” he growls.
I grit my teeth. “I was thinking how much laundry you’ll have to do after bleeding all over my sheets.” My hand presses against my damp bandage. “Though helping you only ever seems to make me bleed.”
The words leave a bitter taste.
His furious gaze shifts, locking on my hair. That’s when I remember what this kiss truly meant.
My hands tremble as I pull a few strands forward. I don’t have to search long. A deep red bleeds through another too-thick lock, swallowing the white. But even as the color spreads, I can’t stop noticing how much it seems to botherhim. As if all the shame it carries belongs to him, not me.
“You just started winning people’s hearts,” he says, voice rising. “And you do this to yourself? Waste yourself on me?”
I stare at him, too stunned to form words.
He starts pacing, one hand dragging over his mouth. The gesture looks unthinking, but all I can see is that he’s wiping away the taste of me.
Suddenly, he stops pacing. In two strides he’s in front of me, towering over where I sit on the bed. His hands close around my shoulders, firm but shaking, and his eyes lock onto mine, burning so intensely I have to fight the urge to look away. “There can’t be anything between us,” he says, voice breaking. “Do you understand?”
Hearing these words feels like my own Decay magic reaching for my heart and withering it from the inside. I didn’t ask for anything from him. I didn’t even mean the kiss that way. Did I? It was just to help him. It meant nothing. Ithadto mean nothing.
