Page 124 of Alchemised

W HEN H ELENA WOKE, SHE FOUND HERSELF IN a large bed, in a large room, and through the windows, the Novis Mountains were arrayed around them, gilded by a golden sunrise.

She was tangled in juniper-scented sheets and wrapped up in Kaine’s arms, and she had no memory of how she’d gotten there.

She glanced around the room again. From the angle of the city, she could tell she was on the West Island. Probably one of the towers so immense they often disappeared into the clouds.

She’d always imagined Kaine on an estate or in one of the old houses in the city. Why would he be somewhere like this?

He lay, arms wrapped possessively around her as though he were keeping her from being stolen, features relaxed in sleep. She studied him.

What had she done?

Kaine Ferron was a dragon, like his family before him. Possessive to the point of self-annihilation. Isolated and deadly, and now he held her in his arms as if she were his. The temptation to give in, to let him have her, and to love him for it terrified her.

Her need to love people and her desperate longing for them to love her back—she had given that up, locked it away and buried it, giving its place to the coldness of logic, realism, and the necessary choices of war. This could only lead to ruin.

She had to be gone before he woke.

She tried to slip away as she had before, but this time his eyes snapped open. He pulled her back immediately but then caught sight of her terrified expression.

His eyes flickered, and he let go.

She went still.

The fear and anger that he’d inspired a year earlier had all but disappeared.

The danger was still there, cast in sharper relief now that she had seen how lethal he was.

Yet somehow knowing it made her less frightened.

Now she knew how much he was holding back.

Despite everything he’d achieved, this was Kaine Ferron using restraint.

“This was a mistake,” she said. “I shouldn’t have come here.”

His throat dipped as he looked away.

“Don’t worry,” he said quietly. “This won’t complicate anything for you. You wanted someone to be with, and I was available. I know it didn’t mean anything.”

Helena’s breath caught, and she swallowed. He wasn’t just someone. To her, he was—

That was the mistake of it, what she was so scared of.

Before she could even begin to invent a lie, something must have shown in her face. Her eyes always betrayed her.

Because his expression was withdrawn, and then, in an instant, triumph flashed across his face and he reached for her again. Hunger and heat splintered the air like lightning.

Before she could bolt, he pulled her back to him and his lips found hers, and all her fears and guilt and resolution became lost to her. All she could think of was how much she wanted to be there, being touched by him. He was fire, and she was already consumed.

“You’re mine,” he said against her lips, his fingers sliding along her throat, tangling in her hair, holding her fast as he dragged her nearer.

It was not like the previous night. It wasn’t comfort. It was claiming.

His mouth was hot on her lips, his teeth nipping possessively along her jaw and her throat, over her shoulders.

She tangled her fingers in his hair, arching into his touch.

She tried not to cry from how desperately she wanted him, and how grateful she was that she didn’t have to ask.

He pulled her closer, arms entwined around her as he aligned himself and sank into her with a sharp thrust, his breath burning along her neck.

He was exacting. Determined to prove to her that this was where she belonged, to ensure that she could never deny what he made her feel.

She could feel his resonance along her nerves. He made no effort to hide the way he attuned himself to her, overwhelming her with sensation and pleasure all at once.

In the moment his control slipped and his expression was laid bare again, there was no more heartbreak; he was possessive and triumphant.

He pulled her close, crushing her to his chest. “You’re mine. You swore yourself to me. Now and after the war. I’m going to take care of you. I’m not going to let anyone hurt you. You don’t have to be lonely. Because you’re mine.”

Helena knew she should go, but she had lost herself there.

She was locked in the dangerous embrace of Kaine Ferron, and it felt like home.

She slept in his arms, nearly dead to the world, waking only briefly when his fingers trailed along her shoulder. She looked up, found him watching her, his eyes dark.

She arched into his touch and dropped a kiss over his heart. He picked up her hand, and she felt his resonance in her fingers as she fell asleep.

When she woke again, it was nearly evening, and the mountains had turned purple with dusk, gilded a burnished red as Sol began his descent.

Kaine was dressed, but he was just sitting beside her, watching her sleep, her fingers laced in his, as if there was nothing else to do.

“How are you here?” she asked, dazed with exhaustion. She some how felt more tired than she ever had before, as if her body had finally remembered how to sleep and now intended to recover all the years of deprivation.

He raised an eyebrow. “I live here. Did you think my primary residence was the Outpost panic room?”

She shook her head, rolling onto her back. Her hands didn’t hurt at all anymore. “No, but how are you able to spend a whole day in bed with me? Aren’t you a general or something? Don’t you have meetings, or crimes to commit?”

Rather than answer, he leaned over her until she was stretched out beneath him. His longer arms pinned her hands above her head, and he kissed her.

“I’m off duty,” he finally said when she was breathless. “A concept I fear no one has ever acquainted you with.”

She rolled her eyes. “But why do you live here? I thought old families had property.”

He let go then and sat up, looking out at the view. “My mother was tortured at our country estate, and all the staff murdered. We moved to the city residence, and that’s where she died. I wanted somewhere else to go, away from it all.”

Helena sat up.

“I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have asked, I just never imagined you high like this,” she said, reaching up and resting a hand on his cheek. He dropped his head against her palm and closed his eyes for a moment, the strands of his hair falling across her fingertips.

Then he abruptly lifted his head. “Well, it’s mostly practical. Amaris flies better from the roof. She’s better at it now, but it used to be hard for her to get airborne.”

“Amaris?” Helena repeated slowly.

“The chimaera. You saw her last night.”

She blinked at him, a memory of an impossibly enormous, winged wolf resurfacing. “I thought … I’d hallucinated.”

He gave her a look. “I told you I was getting a chimaera.”

“Well, yes, but I assumed it was something—smaller, and you never mentioned it again. I assumed it had died.”

He shrugged. “Well, she was small at first. About the size of a foal when she arrived.”

“What is she?”

“Bennet isn’t forthcoming about such things. A lot of Northern wolf and some kind of destrier. I don’t know where he got the wings, though.”

“And she’s—tame?”

He shook his head. “No. Just fond of me, but you should meet her. I meant to introduce you, but the moment never seemed right. Come on.”

Helena didn’t move, not wanting to go anywhere yet. Everything was so different between them now. The tension and wariness finally absent.

She’d never known him outside of that context, even as children.

Secreted away from the rest of the world, she felt that she could finally see him for his own sake, rather than only through the lens of the Eternal Flame’s interests.

Glancing around the impersonal rooms, she could see them for what they were, a place to exist. There was not a single item of personal significance. Temporary. Uncommitted.

“When did you realise that I didn’t know you were supposed to die?” she asked rather than stand.

He released a long breath. “The first time you arrived on the Outpost. I could tell by the way you looked, you thought it really was forever.”

Her throat tightened.

He looked away. “It was—funny at first. I kept waiting for you to catch on.”

Heat spread across the back of her neck.

“I thought that when I pointed out that you should’ve known about my punishment, you’d realise it was a setup, but you didn’t.

Then I assumed that it would have been explained to you by that evening or the next day, but you just kept coming back.

I figured there must be something else they wanted, but it was clear by then they weren’t going to tell you.

I almost did, a few times, but—” He sighed.

“—I suppose I enjoyed the way you wanted to save me.”

She nodded slowly, fingers running along the seam of the linen sheet.

“Crowther talked so much about the long term and making sure you didn’t lose interest, and how I had to keep it secret, that no one could know.

I thought they trusted me.” She was quiet for a moment.

“Ilva told me just before the solstice. You probably realised.”

She took his silence for confirmation.

There was a pause as she remembered something. “Kaine, I don’t think your father’s dead.”

Kaine looked at her sharply. “What?”

“When we rescued Luc, there was a lich. He told Sebastian that he was Atreus. He was guarding the door to the room Luc was in.”

“No,” Kaine said, his voice shaking. “No. He died. If he were still alive, he would have come back. For my mother.”

His pupils had shrunken into sharp points of black, the denial stark.

“He was a lich,” she said as gently as she could. “Would he have wanted her to see him like that?”

He started to speak several times as if to protest but then stopped. “What happened?”

“Soren and Sebastian killed him. He was between us and Luc. We didn’t have time to find the talisman, though. You didn’t know he was Undying?”