Page 42

I studied her, searching for deception and finding none. “If the pathways were real, would you have gone?”

A conflicted expression crossed her face. “I have reasons to leave this place that you couldn’t possibly understand,” she said. “But I’m not foolish enough to walk blindly into a trap, even to escape you.”

“Reasons?” I laughed bitterly. “You think I want to sacrifice you?”

“I think you’ll do whatever your father demands,” she shot back. “Just like you always have. Power over love, wasn’t that your choice five years ago?”

The truth of it burned through me. The shadow spirits amplified the pain, turning it into rage.

“You know nothing of my choices,” I hissed, and closed my hand around her throat—not squeezing, just holding. “Nothing of what I’ve sacrificed.”

“Then enlighten me,” she challenged. “Tell me what was worth destroying me for.”

I stared at her, the shadow spirits loosening my tongue.

“You,” I admitted, the word torn from somewhere deep and raw. “It was always you, Ada. My father would have destroyed you if I hadn’t left. The ritual would have happened five years ago, with no chance of an alternative.”

Confusion flickered across her face. “What are you saying?”

“I’m saying I left to protect you,” I growled. “I staged that scene, broke your heart, made you hate me so you would stay away. So you would be safe from what I was becoming.”

She shook her head in disbelief. “You’re lying.”

“Am I?” I released her throat to grab her shoulders. “Why do you think my father cast a memory spell on me? Because he knew I would never willingly harm you. Because my feelings for you were a liability he couldn’t afford.”

Tears welled in her eyes. “Stop it,” she whispered. “Stop playing with me like this.”

“You think this is a game?” I demanded, my voice breaking. “You think I wanted any of this? To bind you to me knowing I might have to sacrifice you? To feel this”—I pressed her hand to my chest where the constant pain resided—“every fucking day since our binding?”

The admission hung between us, raw and undeniable. Her eyes searched mine for deception, finding only tortured truth.

“You’re drunk,” she repeated, but her voice had softened. “You don’t know what you’re saying.”

“I know exactly what I’m saying,” I insisted, my hands gentle on her shoulders. I wanted her in my bed tonight; the potent desire surged through my shadows. “Tell me you feel nothing,” I challenged, my lips hovering just above hers. “Tell me you don’t want this as badly as I do.”

Her breath hitched, but she didn’t move. “I hate you,” she whispered, but the words lacked conviction.

I sensed the lie through our bond, and it was exhilarating. The heat from her body did something to my stone-cold heart—it melted it.

“That’s not an answer.”

I traced her lower lip with my thumb, and she shuddered. I smiled, knowing how to make her body play my tune. I had never forgotten.

“Do you want me, Ada? Despite everything?”

Instead of answering, she surged forward like she was possessed, her body colliding with mine while her mouth crashed into my lips in a kiss that tasted of desperation and five years of buried fury.

This wasn't tenderness—this was warfare, a battle fought with lips and teeth and tongues.

Her teeth sank into my lower lip with vicious intent, hard enough to draw copper-sweet blood that she licked away with the savage satisfaction of a predator claiming her kill.

The metallic taste should have shocked me, should have made me pull away, but instead it ignited something primal and hungry that had been clawing at my chest for years.

I shoved her back into the stone wall with a force that sent her gasping, the sound half pleasure, half pain while I lifted her effortlessly, grabbing her ass cheeks, digging my fingers into her flesh.

Her legs wrapped around my waist with desperate urgency, clinging to me even though she hated herself for needing me.

My hands moved with violent impatience, tearing at her dress as if the fabric itself had wronged me.

The delicate silk gave way with satisfying rips that echoed in the charged air between us.

She wasn’t gentler—her nails raked down my back through my shirt like she wanted to mark me, to make me bleed the way she had bled for years.

She fought with the buttons of my shirt, her movements frantic and desperate, as if she could tear away the barriers between us through sheer force of will.

“I hate you,” she gasped when I moved my mouth to her throat, biting hard enough to mark.

“Show me,” I challenged her. Sliding one hand beneath her torn dress, dragging my fingers over her soaking slit, and I groaned with satisfaction. “Show me how much you hate me, Ada.”

She moaned as I slid my fingers inside her, my cock soaked with pre-cum. Fuck, she was so wet for me, so ready to take my cock.

“I hate that I want you,” she admitted, her voice breaking. “I hate that no one else has ever made me feel this way.”

The admission sent a surge of primal satisfaction through me. “No one else ever will,” I promised darkly, carrying her to the bed.

“Prove it,” she demanded, her chest heaving with each breath. “Show me I’m yours.”

I stripped slowly, deliberately, watching her eyes darken with hunger. Each piece of clothing fell away. The firelight danced across my skin, casting shadows that seemed to pulse with my heartbeat. My mouth was on hers again, kissing and probing, then devouring like I’d been starved for five years.

“Last chance to run,” I warned, my voice rough with barely contained desire. “Because once I start touching you, once I claim every inch of you, I won’t stop until you’re completely mine—until you’re trembling and crying my name.”

Her response was to reach for me with deliberate intent, her fingers wrapping around my shaft with a confidence that hitched my breath. She stroked me with firm, measured movements, her touch both reverent and demanding.

"I'm not running anymore," she whispered into my lips, her voice heavy with want. "Not from this. Not from you. Not tonight."

I captured her lips in a searing kiss, then lowered my head to her breasts, taking her nipple between my teeth and sucking it hard.

Ada's body writhed beneath mine while I bit the left nipple until she cried out.

The surging heat filled my chest while I licked her skin, then swirled my tongue around the right nipple before drawing it in.

She gripped my hair tightly, and I pulled away, panting.

My cock throbbed painfully, so I positioned myself between her thighs, her heat pressed to me.

Then I entered her in one powerful, claiming thrust that drew a sharp cry from her lips—a sound of pleasure and surrender that I swallowed hungrily.

Our magics erupted at the intimate contact, light and shadow surging together in explosive waves that sent crackling energy across our skin.

The room blazed with alternating patterns of molten gold and midnight black, our combined power painting the walls in an otherworldly display of passion made manifest.

Her nails dug into my shoulders as she arched beneath me, her light magic sparking against my shadow in ways that left us both gasping with the intensity of our connection.

“Fuck,” I growled close to her mouth, fighting for control when her body clenched around mine.

She was wet, slick, and perfect, exactly as I remembered.

“Don’t talk,” she interrupted, and wrapped her legs around my waist. “Just fuck me.”

I obeyed, setting a punishing rhythm that had her gasping with each thrust. I moved inside her hard and fast; savage heat slipped through my veins like lava.

Her nails dug crescents into my shoulders, her body arching to meet mine with equal force.

This wasn’t lovemaking—it was a battle for dominance.

I flipped her onto her stomach without warning, entering her again from behind. I fist my hand in her hair, pulling her head back to expose her throat to my teeth.

“Is this what you want?” I demanded, my lips pressed to her ear. “So my cock can fill your tight cunt?”

“Yes,” she admitted. I pushed back against myself. “Gods, yes.”

The confession broke something open inside me. I turned her in my arms, needing suddenly to see her face, to watch her come apart beneath me.

“I’ve missed you,” I confessed, the words escaping before I could stop them. “Every fucking day, Ada.”

Tears spilled from her eyes. “Hakan,” she pleaded, voice breaking. “Just fuck me like you used to, please me like you have in the past.”

I took her mouth again, pouring five years of longing into the kiss while our bodies moved together with increasing urgency.

I kept sliding my cock in and out, fucking her until she begged me to stop, and reminding her that my old self had never left her.

The pain in my chest eased for the first time since our binding.

“Hakan, please,” she moaned.

I drove into her harder, knowing she was close and I was almost there with her.

I focused on fucking her, pounding as deep as I could reach at this angle.

My breath ceased in my lungs. My release approached.

Her breasts bounced and swayed, her eyes widening when each of my thrusts hit just right, her hair spread out around the pillow.

My heart pounded to a different beat as her dark eyes fixed on me.

Her release took us both by surprise—her light magic exploded around us, triggering my climax, shadows erupting from my skin to mingle with her light in a dazzling display that shattered the windows. Ada’s moans and cries become whimpers and gasps.

“So fucking beautiful,” I panted, and pressed down again, and forcing a subtle shift in an angle allowed me to prolong her release for a few more moments, before I collapsed on top of her.

For long moments afterward, we lay tangled together in the darkness, her heartbeat a frantic rhythm against my chest.

Finally, she touched my face with unexpected gentleness.

“This changes nothing,” she whispered, though the tremor in her voice suggested otherwise. “I still can’t trust you.”

I caught her hand, pressing a kiss to her palm. “I know,” I replied simply. “But it’s a start.”

When I held her in the darkness, one thought blazed through me, fierce and undeniable:

I could not let my father have her. The decision crystallized in my mind, absolute and unshakeable.

No matter the cost, Ada would survive the ritual.

Even if I did not. The irony wasn’t lost on me—that after everything, after choosing power over love five years ago, I now found myself willing to sacrifice that power to save her.