Chapter 25: Her Blood, His Curse

The night loomed darker than it ought to have, thick with the promise of the storm that had not yet arrived.

I stood outside Kael's private quarters — not by choice, but at his insistence. His will was not to be defied. Not that anything in my life was to be decided here.

The snapping flames cast black shadows against stone walls, and the room is nearer, more intimate, as if night itself was moving in on me.

I had known him before I knew him — that familiar pull of cold and flame, darkness and something frightfully alive.

Kael emerged out of the shadows like a dream taking shape.

And his eyes — not their usual deep red. Glowing, wild, and crazy, in front of me.

Something was wrong.

Seriously, seriously off.

"Come on," he snarled, voice raw, like on fingernail-hang-on tight.

My entire fight-or-flight syndrome was shrieking in my brain to get out. But I was smarter. Running away would make it worse.

So I stayed on, my heart pounding throbbingly in the cage of my ribs, and crept in, gingerly, tentatively, as one creeps in on a wounded animal.

He did not rush to greet me first when I came to him. He simply stood, towering over me, gasping, opening and closing his fists on his sides.

My jaw hung open to speak — to object to what in the name of all that is holy was happening — but he reached me before I did.

Space had glimmered for a moment; then his arms were locked around my shoulders in a stern hold.

He held me and a rough growl, and groan of agony escaped him.

"I must." He swallowed poison to him. "I must drink."

Fear was swelling in my breast. He wasn't ordering; he was ordering.

"I didn't mean it," he growled out. "I tried —"

And a shudder passed through him too, and his hands closed hard around my flesh.

Tried to get himself in hand, I thought.

Tried to hold himself back at arm's length.

There was something broken in him, though.

And now there wasn't any acting anymore.

I relaxed my head against my spine, my throat open to him before I realized what I'd done.

Kael growled, and a shiver that went the length of the very marrow in my bones, and in the blink of an instant, his lips were against mine.

His fangs sank deep into my flesh with a burning, blinding bite that left me struggling for air.

And what came next?

Gods preserve me, what happened next was worse.

For it was not as it had been — cold, calculated, controlled.

This time he sucked from me like a starving man, as if his hunger was going to feed on my blood itself.

My knees gave beneath me and he steadied me, holding me to him while he fed.

Every suck at his lips convulsed me through, quivering head to heels, rolling heat hard and deep in my belly, thrilling nerves to burn with fire.

I ought to have been frightened.

I was frightened.

Of him.

Of this.

Of the fatal body reactions to his need, his hands, his kiss.

My hand crept up his back, encircling him helplessly as a thread of stifled, torn sound was wrenched from my belly.

Kael's gasp against my skin sent me stumbling.

And then it did.

The air between us changed — became thick — as if the universe itself were bending under some unbearable burden.

The fire flared high, shrieking with wild cracklings. The darkness capered and danced like living things.

Kael's body writhed in mine, and a harsh, tortured snarl was ripped from his lips.

He ripped his mouth from my throat in a rending yank, his body jerking away from mine as if burned.

I braced against the nearest wall, shivering and numb, my fist still tight around the new agony that thudded at the back of my throat.

Kael doubled over, arms wrapped over his head. His whole body convulsed and a gagging snarl ripped from him — something animal.

"Kael?" I gasped, horror unspooling.

His head jerked up.

And for one desperate moment, I didn't know him.

His eyes blazed white-hot, all the red bleeding from them. His skin glowed, cracking into thin, lacy fissures down his arms as if whatever was inside him wanted to break free.

Magic.

Untouched, uncontrolled magic.

And mine.

"Leave me alone," he snarled, gritting his teeth. "Scarlett — go."

But I couldn't.

I stood frozen, unable to move, as Kael fell to the ground, fists thudding against the stone in a fury that would have broken it.

"I can't—"

He wheezed. "Your blood—"

He didn't speak another word.

Hadn't had to.

For I'd witnessed this now.

My blood was doing this.

Wasn't merely keeping him alive —

Was transforming him. Seizing on something locked inside him that was meant to remain trapped.

A curse.

Perhaps his curse.

Perhaps mine.

The storm at the windows finally burst open, thunder that boomed so it shook them.

Kael's magic spilled out in a wave, books and furniture and everything that wasn't bolted to the floor rising.

I sprang up my arms reflexively, but the wave passed over me without touching me.

Shielded.

Even here — even when he was unbegging himself — he was protecting me.

He sucked a jagged breath in and glared up at me, the shattered, wild animal in his eyes shattering mine.

"I said I was," he growled, voice raspy. "You were a mistake."

I was crying blind. I shook my head wildly, incredulous.

"You're not a mistake," I wailed wildly. "We're not a mistake."

Kael laughed — a harsh, vile laugh.

"SPEAK it to the gods," he growled. "SPEAK it to the horror you're making of me."

The fire spat and hissed low again, the magic writhing — not gone, but. Bound, just.

He was kneeling, gasping, his body jerking.

And all I could do.

I leaned over the devastated room to him, knelt, and reached out my hand.

He winced as if my hand would finish what the blood had begun.

But I did not let him go.

I grasped his face in trembling hands, hauling him forward to look at me.

"You're still you, Kael," I said to him. "Whatever this is, whatever my blood is doing — you're stronger than that."

His lips curled into a burning smile.

"You don't know," he breathed. "You have no idea of what you've unleashed."

Perhaps not.

But I wasn't afraid of him.

I wasn't going to flee.

Because in all the darkness, all the madness, at the core of me, deep in my chest, I knew the truth:

Kael was no longer my abductor.

He was my curse.

And I was his.

To be continued…