Page 15

FIFTEEN

SELENE

S elene hadn’t seen him since the kiss.

Three days.

Three days of pacing the corners of her room like a restless ghost. Of waiting— hoping —for his knock, his voice, the damn flicker of his shadow under her door.

It didn’t come.

And it shouldn’t have mattered. Gods knew she was glad to have air again. Space. Control.

Except…

She wasn’t glad.

She was pissed.

And worse— hurt.

The way he’d kissed her, like he’d been starved for her, like his soul was clawing through his skin—and then turned cold, walked out like it was nothing?

Like she was nothing?

Selene stared down the corridor leading to the council wing, boots echoing sharp against polished stone. She wore black today. Simple, fitted, marked at the sleeves with House Fenrir’s sigil. Not to claim it. But to wear it like armor.

Let them talk.

Let him look.

If he even dared to.

She reached the main hall and spotted him instantly.

Kael stood near the balcony’s edge, speaking to a grim-faced envoy with storm-grey robes. His posture rigid. His expression unreadable. That same damn armor he wore like a second skin—unshakable, untouchable.

Until he saw her.

Their eyes met and the air changed. His voice faltered.

The envoy noticed. Said something. Kael didn’t reply.

Selene didn’t wait for him to come to her. She stormed straight across the floor.

He met her halfway, tension bristling in every inch of him.

“You’ve healed,” he said quietly.

“And you’ve vanished,” she shot back.

“Selene—”

“No.” She stabbed a finger toward his chest. “You don’t get to do that. You don’t get to kiss me like you meant it and then disappear like I was some fucking mistake.”

His jaw flexed.

“You think I haven’t been angry too?” she hissed. “You think I haven’t been pacing that damn room, wondering why I still feel you under my skin?”

He grabbed her wrist, not hard, not cruel. Just firm .

“Don’t do this here,” he said low. “Not where they can see.”

“Then where, Kael?” she snapped. “Because the moment I let you close, you push me back like you regret everything. ”

Something wild flickered in his eyes.

“I don’t regret it,” he said.

“You left,” she said, voice raw.

“Because I wanted more,” he growled. “And I shouldn’t.”

Her heart slammed against her ribs. “Then like I said before, stop pretending you don’t.”

He moved.

One second they were standing in the hall. The next, he was dragging her through the side corridor—empty, cold, tucked behind thick stone walls where no guards lingered. He shoved open a heavy oak door and pulled her inside.

The storage chamber. Half-forgotten. Shadowed and lined with carved shelves.

The door slammed shut.

Then silence.

Breath. Fire. Need.

Kael looked at her like she was breaking him.

Then he crossed the distance—and kissed her .

This time it wasn’t desperate. It was devastating.

His hands fisted in her cloak, ripping it loose. Her fingers tangled in his shirt, pulling him down. Their mouths crashed again and again—tongue, teeth, heat. No restraint. No fear.

Selene shoved him against the shelf. He spun her into it. His hands gripped her thighs, lifting her—gods, she wrapped around him like instinct, like need .

She gasped as he pressed against her, growled when his mouth found the skin at her throat.

“I hate you for making me want this,” she whispered.

“Then hate me,” he growled. “But don’t stop.”

She didn’t.

Kael’s fingers hooked into the neckline of her tunic.

Fabric ripped. Selene bit his lip, tasting copper as she clawed at the buckles of his armor.

Metal clattered—his breastplate skidding across the floor.

Every scrape of skin against leather, every hitched breath, echoed off the shelves around them.

He dragged her hips against his, the hard line of his belt digging into her stomach. She shoved him backward, hands fumbling at the laces of his trousers. “You want more?” Her voice a blade’s edge. “Then quit hesitating .”

He barked a laugh, low and jagged. His palm closed over her throat, not squeezing, just holding. A threat. A promise. “Careful.”

“Or what?” She bit his thumb, teeth grazing the callus. “You’ll regret me harder?”

His growl vibrated against her collarbone as he tore her leggings down her thighs. Cool air hit her skin. Then his heat. His mouth sealed over her breast, teeth scraping. She arched, nails raking his shoulders.

When he lifted her, the impact against the groaning shelf sent a constellation of glass vials chiming.

Cold iron dug into her spine as an inkpot shattered—acrid bergamot and iron-gall stinging the air, wetness spreading like a bloodstain across stone.

Kael’s grip on her thighs was all unforgiving muscle, his knee driving her legs apart until the stretch burned.

No preamble. No tenderness. Just the brutal claim of his cock splitting her open, a blade forged in the exact shape of her hunger.

She gasped at the size of him—the obscene fullness, the way her body clenched around his girth as if trying to both devour and expel him.

His growl against her throat was pure animal triumph, hips pistoning to bury himself deeper.

Every thrust dragged a broken noise from her lips, her heel digging into the flare of his hip to pull him closer still.

“Is that all?” she taunted through gritted teeth, even as her opening fluttered around him, wet and desperate.

He answered by sheathing himself to the hilt, the hot slap of skin echoing off the trembling shelves.

His free hand tangled in her hair, yanking her head back to expose the frantic pulse beneath her jaw.

She tasted violence on his tongue when he kissed her—a clash of teeth and shared breath, the ink-stained air thick with the musk of their joining.

“Still hate me?” he demanded, thrusts sharp enough to knock a gasp from her lungs.

“ Yes. ” She dragged her tongue up the scar splitting his eyebrow. Felt him shudder. “But hate’s not what this is.”

His forehead pressed to hers, sweat-damp and furious.

She laughed, broken, breathless—as the shelf’s edge bit into her spine with every drive of his hips.

His rhythm stuttered, a moment’s surrender that tasted like victory.

Then his hand slid between them, thumb circling where their bodies joined.

The slick friction tore a sound from her throat—half curse, half benediction.

Her head snapped back, skull cracking against warped wood.

Pain flared white behind her eyelids, mingling with the dark pleasure coiling low in her belly.

His smirk was feral when she blinked up at him through waterlogged lashes.

She choked on the moan before it could become his name, teeth sinking into her lower lip until copper bloomed.

"Fucking look at me," he growled, dirt-caked nails breaking skin as he hitched her leg higher.

The renewed pace was punishing—the brutal cadence of swords clashing, hearth embers scattering across stone.

Her vision splintered, sparks of silver and crimson fracturing consciousness into glittering shards.

Oxygen became a forgotten concept. The world narrowed to the drag of him inside her, the hot burst of his breath branding her neck, the splintered shelf groaning its requiem beneath them—symphony of ruin written in sweat and split oak.

When she came, it wasn’t a crest—it was an avalanche. Teeth in his shoulder, a scream smothered against his skin. He followed, a ragged curse against her temple, hips jerking as he spilled into her.

Silence.

Then the rustle of their breathing. The slow drip of ink from the shattered jar. His hands stayed locked on her hips, hers tangled in the crumpled remains of his shirt.

She shoved him back. He let her, hands falling to his sides as her boots hit the floor. Her leggings slithered around her ankles. His trousers hung low on his hips, scarred abdomen heaving.

And she knew, in the stretch of silence between them, that they were more than lost.

They were fucked.

He stepped back further.

Like it hurt.

Her fingers slipped away from him, cold.

“Don’t say it was a mistake,” she said softly.

Kael didn’t speak. He just looked at her with his bright blue eyes, like he wanted to say more, on the verge of coming undone all over again. But instead, he took a sharp breath, nodded and just left.

And Selene, alone in that shadowed room, pulled her tunic back into place and leaned against the wall—jaw clenched, eyes burning.

Because she didn’t regret a damn thing.

But it felt like she’d just carved herself open for someone who still didn’t know how to bleed.