Chapter 15: Chains of Control

I didn't realize chains were bound to me.

Not on body, not—not manacles on arms, or whip into flesh.

But there.

Hidden.

Weighted.

Binding me to him.

Kael.

Prince of nothing but freezing and scarlet rage.

The following day, once the note had been slipped beneath my door, the palace revolved around me like a slumbering giant awakened. Double guards in each corridor. Servants looked at me with concerned stares. Even the air felt heavier, harder to breathe.

And at the heart of it—Kael.

Always near.

Always watching.

But never near enough.

He left me by myself in the west wing now, past the court, past the gardens, past anything that could let me breathe myself.

It was stifling.

And worse, it was on purpose.

I stood by the arched window of my new confinement—a decadent suite of rooms that taunted me with their beauty—and scowled at him across the courtyard, speaking to one of his generals.

Even from a distance, I could sense the tug between us.

The unwanted collar that kept my heart captive to him.

I detested it.

Detested him.

And yet. When he looked at me, as if he sensed me, a spark of something wild and ravenous danced in his eyes.

Possession.

Need.

But never love.

Never.

He shifted away without recognition, and the invisible chains tightened around my ribcage so that I was hardly able to stand.

That evening, Kael summoned me.

Not asked.

Summoned.

His name stung my pride, but I responded.

For here, there was no choice.

Only living.

I discovered him in the throne room—a place where I had been denied upon arrival.

The room was huge and cold, ceilings disappeared into darkness. Red as blood, banners hung along walls like tattered veins. And there, on the far side, on the blackened seat of vampires, lay Kael.

He did not stir when I approached.

Did not even flinch.

Glares outright at me with those red eyes that had haunted my dreams and waking mind.

"You have no unrestricted entry to the palace anymore," he told me, voice as chilling as a death warrant. "You are in the west wing unless escorted."

I stand immobile, fists balled at my sides.

"I haven't done anything wrong."

"You're mine," Kael snarled. "I decide where you go. Who do you speak to? What you see."

Mine.

The word pounded through me, crashing into every last bit of obstinacy I had.

"I'm not a toy," I hissed, words trembling with fury. "I'm not something you keep in gold."

Something flared in his eyes.

Not regret.

Not regret.

Something darker.

Something hotter.

He stood before me, every step towards me heavy with contained violence.

When he closed the inches between us, the energy between us pounded so vigorously it sent my knees buckling.

"You don't understand," Kael breathed his mouth against my cheek.

"You are not a toy."

He took a step forward, and my heart pounded in my chest.

"You are my weakness. And that is so much worse."

I stared at him, flabbergasted.

Before I could speak, he turned his back to me and strode towards the throne.

"As long as you draw breath," Kael snarled without looking at me, "you'll be under my protection. For your safety. And mine."

A bitter, humorless laugh tore from my chest.

"Your protection?" I spat. "Or your pride?"

He bristled.

The air between us was a living thing, stretched taut.

Finally, he growled, voice low and raspy, "Go."

Dismissed. As an afterthought. As though I hadn't just had my soul laid wide open before him.

I wheeled around on my heel and walked away without even glancing back.

But his presence hung over me like a ghost, closing tighter and tighter with every step.

Days went by.

One more torturous than the previous one.

Kael's command was stronger, but so was the tension between us.

He would appear at inappropriate times—stealthy glances at me during training exercises, at meals, and even in the dead of night when he believed I was sleeping.

I remember catching him just outside my bedroom door, hand pressed against the wood.

Never knocked.

Never entered.

Just stood. Silent. Haunted.

And left.

It would have been easier if he were brutal.

If he beat me, starved me, hurt me.

But Kael's brutality was more, much worse, atrocious.

He took care of me—I could feel it in his resentful glance, in the way he grimaced when other people were too severe with me, in the smoldering envy that erupted whenever some other man looked at me.

But he would not permit himself to feel.

It was drowning in slow water.

And day by day, I went down deeper.

One afternoon

When the sun crested over the distant mountains, Kael had me in the training courtyard.

I'd been practicing with one of the female guards, my slick sweat-slick skin, my trembling muscles.

Kael shooed the guard away with a sweep of his hand and walked across the sun-baked courtyard to me.

I didn't step back, my pounding heart.

"You're not strong enough," he snarled.

I wiped the sweat from my forehead. "I'm getting better."

"Not nearly," he snarled.

He struck without warning.

I barely had time to think—his hand around my wrist, turning me around until the back of my head struck his chest.

I growled and fought, kicking out.

Kael only clamped down tighter, his warm breath in the ear.

"Fight me," he growled.

I fought.

Struggled with every last bit of strength.

Kicking, elbowing him in the ribs, baring teeth like some savage beast.

And Kael took it all.

Until at last, he turned me around, my wrists pinned to the courtyard wall above my head.

We gasped.

Too close.

Too deadly.

His red eyes snapped down into mine, and for a selfish, reckless moment, I expected him to kiss me.

Kael growled instead, his voice rough:

"If they come for you."

There was a silence in which words pained him.

"If they touch you, they die."

"Who?" I panted, seized by the ferocity in his eyes.

"Everybody," Kael had said to me.

And then he'd left, leaving me like I'd hurt him.

Not one word, he went and left me unsteadily, lost, and hurting with pain.

That night,

I lay in bed, tracing the pale blue bruises on my wrists where he'd held me captive.

Not hard enough to cause harm.

Hard enough to bruise.

Hard enough to remind me:

I wasn't free.

I was his weakness.

And he hated me for it nearly as much as I hated myself for needing him to set me free—to stay that way.

Because the truth was becoming harder and harder to deny.

I did not merely hate Kael.

I needed him.

And that need would be the real chain that I could never shed.