Page 55 of A Storm in Every Heart (Enchanted Legacies #2)
I’m not sure what I’m supposed to do with this information.
The urge to run courses through me, yet I’m rooted to the spot, unable to move.
I stare at the portrait again, tracing the lines of it with my eyes.
It isn’t just my face—it’s a memory. A whole scene, in astonishing detail: my eyes narrowed, jaw set, and lips curved into a slightly mocking smile.
At first glance, I almost look angry, but the longer I look, the more details emerge.
I look…sad. There’s so much longing in my eyes it’s almost painful.
“Why didn’t you just get it removed?” I ask, finally.
Kastian gives me a tight smile. “You can’t remove an oracle tattoo. Believe me, I asked. It’s like a prophecy. It’s supposed to be permanent.”
“That’s the dumbest damn thing I’ve ever heard. You could have at least gotten it somewhere less… obvious.”
He shrugs. “She said the heart is where prophecy sits best. Besides, I wasn’t thinking straight.”
For a while, neither of us speaks.
I want to ask how he feels about all this; not merely the facts of what happened, but what he really thinks of me.
But I’m not brave enough.
Evidently, Kastian is far braver than I am because he finally turns to me. “What are you thinking?”
I cross my arms over my chest as if to shield myself from his searching eyes. “What do you want me to say, Kastian?”
“I don’t know, just tell me what you’re feeling.”
I bark out a strangled laugh. “As if that’s so easy. You first.”
“I don’t mind the tattoo,” he says firmly. “I know I should, but I don’t. I don’t want to get it removed.”
My heart skips a beat, and I look at him, really look, and for one terrifying second I think I believe him. My chest aches, and I feel stupidly close to tears. “What is your soul-bond going to say when she sees it?”
He shakes his head. “I don’t know. I’m not even sure I care anymore.”
My heart doesn’t just skip—it stutters—and panic grips me. “What the hell do you mean?”
Kastian’s eyes lock on mine. “I mean, maybe I don’t care about finding my bonded mate anymore.”
I laugh, a pitiful half-choke that’s more air than humor. “That’s not possible. Soul-bonds are forever. You should never want anyone else more than your bond.”
“Then why do I want you instead?” he demands almost angrily.
The words hit me like a slap; for a breathless moment, all I can do is gape at him. My heart pounds so loudly it drowns out the sound of the river. “You’re not serious.”
“I’m not?” He raises an eyebrow and steps closer, looming over me. “What about me has ever made you think I’m not 100 percent serious about everything?”
“Oh, I don’t know,” I hiss sarcastically. “Maybe I’m a little confused because a second ago we were talking about how you’d been pining for your missing soul-bond for decades.”
“Yeah, until I met you.”
“Don’t say things like that.”
“Why not?” He asks, incredulous. “It’s true. I want you more than I’ve ever wanted anything. If a soul-bond is stronger than that, then I don’t want it. I’d go insane.”
The word “insane” hits something deep inside me and I flinch, the memory of my father’s fate slamming into me like a rogue wave. Then, even more painfully, I remember what nearly happened to Kastian all those years ago. My heart pounds so loudly it drowns out the sound of the river.
“You’re confused,” I say, shaking my head. I hate the way my voice trembles, so I dig my nails deeper into my palms, grounding myself in pain. “You want me because I’m a siren. Anything you feel—anything you think you feel—for me, it’s just an illusion. None of it is real.”
He jerks back as if I’ve hit him, but I press on, needing him to understand—needing to believe it myself.
“I’ve seen this happen before,” I say, my words tumbling over each other in my haste. “It doesn’t matter how strong-minded you are, or how much you want to fight it. Siren magic always wins.”
“That’s not it,” he says angrily. “I thought it might be at first, but it’s not. Your power doesn’t work on me.”
I bite back a groan. He doesn’t know that it’s already worked on him at least once. He’s not immune just because he resisted it the other night in the dining room. “I can’t have this conversation again. Siren magic works on all men.”
“It doesn’t work on Daemon,” he says, seemingly grasping at straws. “He told me.”
“That’s different.” I close my eyes, feeling immeasurably tired.
“It doesn’t work on Daemon because we’re related.
It has nothing to do with his willpower.
You resisted it the other night, so you probably have a stronger will than most men, but the compulsion still works on you… just, slower, I guess.”
“I don’t believe that.” Kastian steps closer, and there’s a fire burning in his eyes as he grabs my chin and forces me to hold his gaze.
“Odessa, listen to me. I know I should care about the bond, but I don’t.
I should have been obsessed with finding her, but I’m not.
I tried for months to ignore it, but the only person I can think about is you. ”
My legs threaten to collapse, so I dig my heels into the mud and cross my arms tight over my chest, as if I can keep all my insides from spilling out in front of him.
“None of that matters. You don’t get to rewrite the laws of nature just because you feel like it, Kastian.
Ultimately, you have a soul-bond out there somewhere.
I’m just a complication you’re going to regret the second your real bond walks back into your life.
And that’s assuming I don’t accidentally kill you in the meantime. ”
He steps in close, eyes boring into mine, daring me to run. “Go ahead and keep talking, Princess. You won’t convince me to give up on you. Do you really think I would be wasting my time on the most stubborn woman on the damn continent if I wasn’t just as persistent?”
“There’s persistence and then there’s idiocy,” I retort. “You're not hearing me. We're not meant to be together.”
“Who the hell believes anyone is meant to be?” he barks. “Soul bonds aren’t fated, they’re formed over time.”
“So you say, but no one really knows that. It could be fate.”
“You’re honestly saying that you believe it’s fate that I had one traumatic experience a hundred years ago which I can’t even remember, and because of that I’m doomed to never love anyone? I don’t believe that, and I don’t give a fuck about fate. I don’t want it, I only want you.”
His chest heaves with deep breaths, and the words hang in the air between us, heavy and all too final.
My throat and eyes burn, and I stare at the river, at the shifting current, trying to find some kind of answer in the movement of the water.
What is there to say? That he’s right? That I feel the same? That I’ve always felt the same, even on the days I’d rather die than admit it?
Kastian is looking at me like I’m the center of his universe and I want to give in.
I want to think his bond was never real, or maybe it got broken, or maybe—terrifyingly—maybe it was me all along. But I can’t. It’s not safe. Not for me, and definitely not for him.
“Here’s what I find interesting,” Kastian says, his tone softening slightly. “You keep saying that I’m confused. I’m the one with the problem?—”
“Because you are,” I interrupt angrily.
He presses on, refusing to let me derail the point. “You keep insisting I can’t possibly care about you, but you’ve never said you don’t feel the same about me.”
My mouth opens, ready to shoot back a dozen half-baked defenses, but I have nothing. For once, I can’t find a single clever thing to say that wouldn’t sound like a lie.
“What do you want me to say?” I ask again, almost pleading this time.
“Say you don’t want this.” Kastian demands, voice low and tight, a single bead of sweat carving its way down his jaw. “Say you don’t want me, and I swear I’ll leave you alone.”
I stare at him, at the inked memory of myself splayed across his chest, and I can’t do it. I see every jagged line of his longing written across his face. There’s no more mask, no measured calm; he’s laid himself out in front of me, raw and reckless.
I suck in a shaky breath, but it hurts—like inhaling broken glass. “I can’t,” I whisper, the words barely audible. “I can’t say that.”
For a moment, there’s silence. Then, slow as sunrise, a triumphant smile blooms across Kastian’s face. It’s not the cocky half-grin he wears for the world, but something softer and infinitely more dangerous.
He moves in, so close I can see the wildfire in his eyes and feel the heat radiating off his skin. I’m paralyzed, frozen by the realization that all my careful plans have come to nothing because I can’t find a way to lie and say I don’t care about him.
He reaches out, hand trembling, and cups my jaw, his thumb tracing the line of my cheek He leans in and my vision tunnels, my body humming with the inevitability of what’s about to happen. He’s waiting, giving me a final chance to push him away, to lie to him, to run.
But I don’t. I won’t. I’m so tired of running.
Kastian closes the last few inches between us, his lips crashing against mine in a kiss that’s all desperation and defiance, and somehow I’m kissing him back, fierce and hungry. He tastes like salt and summer storms—like every reckless thing I’ve ever craved and never thought I’d have.
The river’s roar fades to nothing, the whole world narrowing down to the press of his mouth, the harsh hitch of his breath, the sound of my own pulse pounding like war drums in my ears.
I’m drowning, and I don’t even care.