Page 64

Chapter Sixty-Three: Bahira

The water temperature is perfect as is the night sky above, silver stars sparkling against an array of black and blue.

“Do you know much about constellations?” Kai asks, the timbre of his voice soothing as I sink a little deeper under the warm water.

“Nothing beyond where they are and their shape. Of all the areas one could study, the layout of the stars is the least interesting to me.”

He chuckles at that, tipping his head back as he leans his elbows against the white stone edge of the hot spring. “Iolana is obsessed with the stars and their alignments. She muses that there are messages hidden within them and we just need to know where to look.”

“That’s insane.”

Amusement graces his face, but it quickly falls with his next words. “I think she’s always looking for signs because of what she’s lost. Not just her sister—my mother—but a child as well.”

“Gods,” I whisper.

The quiet stretches into the night as I study him.

“So, when not gazing at the night sky and presumably causing trouble for the lovely people of Honna, what did young Kai do for fun?” I ask, hoping to shift the mood.

“It might surprise you to learn that I was a bit of a recluse.” His answer makes me snort, drawing his eyes to mine as he laughs. “Growing up at the edge of the island, I spent a lot of time on the beach looking out at the ocean. I loved watching the pods of whales and delphinidae that would swim by.”

“You weren’t afraid a siren would find you and sing you into a trance?”

He shrugs as he leans away from the edge of the spring. “I was stupid then. I didn’t give a shit, and I thought I was invincible either way. And of the two of us, I’m not the one who appeared to fall under the sway of a siren’s song.”

I send a splash of water his way. I hadn’t forgotten what it felt like to be under the siren’s thrall—if that’s truly what happened.

As if it’s an afterthought, he quietly adds, “Then my power began to grow and change .”

“What do you mean?”

“I didn’t shift for the first time until I was nearly twelve, and when I did, I found that I wasn’t limited to one animal.”

I suck in a breath, leaning away from the edge of the rock with wide eyes. “You can shift into multiple animals?” He nods his head as he carefully watches my reaction. “How?”

Kai runs a wet hand through his hair, a few of the dark brown strands breaking free and resting near his temples. “I don’t know. At first, I had no control over which animal I shifted into. Eventually, I learned how to subdue the urge and then how to direct it to a specific animal. I am limited to only animals that I’ve seen.”

I shake my head in disbelief. “You can shift into many animals, and Jahlee can’t shift at all. That seems…”

“Unfortunate,” he supplies.

“Does anyone else know? Besides Jahlee, I assume?”

He smiles, his entire face changing with the expression. There is fondness and contentment there, and I unabashedly observe him, tracing every part of his broad jaw and cheekbones glinting beneath the starlight. “No one else besides the two of you. Because she is nosey, she happened to find me hiding in the jungle as I was practicing switching from one animal to the next.”

I laugh at that as I drop my attention to the water, tracing my fingers over its surface. The urge to share something— anything —with him is too strong to ignore. Just like every time that I’m in his presence, I lose the battle to keep my emotions steady.

“You once asked about my best friend, the one you saw me with on the beach before we left the Mage Kingdom,” I say, and though it isn’t exactly the secret I should tell him, I let the words pour from me anyway. “His name is Daje. Growing up, I was an outcast despite being a princess. I was verbally tormented. Told I was too weak, too lacking. That I wasn’t a worthy mage. That I couldn’t be anything other than a failure. Daje stood up for me, often at his own expense. As we grew older, I could tell that his feelings for me were changing. That they were morphing into something deeper, but like a coward, I didn’t acknowledge them out loud, and neither did he until the night of the Summer Solstice.”

I look up to find Kai’s rapt attention on me, and it makes it a little easier to keep going.

“I’ve always been singularly focused, driven to find answers to problems that plague not only me but my entire kingdom. Daje didn’t— doesn’t —see the value in that. He believes me to be stuck in a cycle, I think, one of self-imposed masochism, but the truth is, I can’t help but be this way. I can’t help but look for the right answers, even if—” I pinch my lips together, forcing down the inadequacy that threatens to come out as tears. “Even if there are none to be found. That night, Daje gave me an ultimatum. He proposed to a woman who hasn’t existed since our childhood, and I am clinging on to a friend who has undoubtedly changed. All this time away has made me realize that perhaps I’ve never had anyone in my life who has been able to accept all of who I am. The good and the bad. The sharp-tongued warrior and the obsessed researcher. The princess who is trying to live up to the title. I wonder if maybe the combination of things that I am is too much for anyone .”

Self-consciously, I avert my gaze again as I offer him a little more vulnerability.

“Here, I’ve been forced to question my desires. My sanity . I find myself wondering what exactly I’m going to return to when my time here is up. And what I’ll miss when I leave.” My hand runs over my chest under the water, my heart aching in a way that makes me draw in a tight breath.

Kai’s attention on me feels like a tattoo of its own, marking me until my bare flesh feels raw from the burn of it. The water ripples as he moves towards me, his hand wrapping around the side of my neck as his thumb pushes under my chin to tilt my head up and force me to meet his gaze. His other hand rests on my hip, his fingertips digging into the skin as he draws me towards him. “Only the weak will find you to be too much. Any male who aims to subdue you is not deserving of the same air that fills your lungs.”

“And what about you?” I ask, my hands tentatively resting on his firm chest. “You wish I was less of a bother.”

“I have no interest in taming you, Bahira.” He leans down until his mouth is angled above my own. “And I am no mere male. I am a king. One who recognizes when there is a queen in his presence.” Before I can respond, his lips collide with my own while his tongue claims mine in hungry sweeps, narrowing my focus so that I don’t dissect his words and the intent behind them too deeply.

My heart ricochets between my ribs, the feel of him in my hands and on my mouth and so near my body ignites every part of me. My need for him is more than wanting to satiate the desire for sex. I want to come undone with him . I want to feel our bodies joining until he’s stripped of every piece of armor he wears for the world and, instead, is bared to me— only to me.

He smiles against my lips, his hands sliding down my slick body to grip my thighs as he lifts me up. My ankles lock behind him, my nails scraping over his shoulders as he carries me out of the hot spring. Our dinner is still spread out over the blanket, and Kai sets me down only long enough to sweep every container to the side. My gaze catches on the dots of neon blue and green glowing on the ceiling of the small cave above us as he wraps an arm around me and lowers my back to the blanket.

Something aches within me when our gazes lock. It demands attention, but I’m too frightened to give the emotion a name. I feel oddly unsure of what to do with my hands, gliding them down his back and then over his shoulders and into his hair. His weight on me is welcome and warm, his body fitting to mine as if it were molded just for me. My equal in every way.

“My undoing,” he rasps, leaning in to kiss and nip my neck and shoulder. All I can do is nod in return because I’m becoming undone too.

He slides into me in one easy thrust, my desire for him unrelenting and hot and terrifying. He’s everywhere—not just within my body but in my head and in my breath and, further still, in my heart. The stupid thing beats harshly, each flutter of it opening a floodgate of emotions that have no business being here as we writhe together. Our breaths become labored, but unlike our previous joining, the eagerness filling the spaces between us is softer. It’s still as desperate, my nails scouring his flesh as his teeth leave an imprint on my own, yet this isn’t just fucking. It’s everything I’ve always been too scared to admit wanting. Everything that’s lacked with the myriad of other partners I’ve had.

“ Bahira ,” he rasps my name out, and it sounds like a reckoning. It feels like one as my climax twists down my spine and lower, every muscle pulling taut when the tension begins to crest. He grips my thigh in his large hand, pushing it out wide as he buries himself in me. His thrusts become deeper and harder , his cock stretching me as my walls clamp down around him. I hold him as I come, breathing his name against his mouth while Kai pulses inside of me, another declaration of my name sworn between us.

My lips tingle though they still search his mouth—content with whatever he’ll give me as our chests heave. It’s that thought, that utterly forlorn and pathetic thought, that tethers me back to reality. The one where I am only a guest in his kingdom and due to return home soon. Where I’m lying to him, keeping him in the dark about what he assumes I can do—what he values me for. That reality punches me in the gut until I feel the air knocked from my lungs. I slowly slide away and sit up, my breathing labored because I know that there is no escaping what I need to do next.

Kai stands beside me, grabbing something from his pack before exiting the cave. I hear the splashing of water, and then he is back at my side, handing me a wet cloth. We clean up in silence, Kai casting glances my way that grow more and more concerned.

“Your silence is deafening,” he finally remarks when we’re partially dressed, him with his trousers on and me in my top and undergarments. “Do you regret this?” He asks the question so earnestly—without judgment—that I have to squeeze my eyes shut.

“No, and I’m fine,” I lie.

His fingers wrap around my jaw, and he forces me to look at him, waiting until my eyes open again before he speaks. “Say that again but make it more believable.” My bottom lip trembles, and the tip of his thumb traces over it. He releases me to tuck my hair behind my ear, his eyes once more holding mine captive. “Do you remember when you asked if I liked your hair on the ship? And I denied it?”

Swallowing, I nod my head.

“I lied. I fucking love it.”

Then Kai leans forward, his lips gently kissing my temple, and it’s too much. I have to hope that he’ll understand. That he feels whatever this is between us as strongly as I do and it will be enough to wash away the betrayal. Waiting until he’s leaned away, I curl my fingers into my palms so that the nails bite into the skin. Bracing myself, I confess, “I don’t have magic.”

He looks at me as if the words I’ve spoken aren’t in a language he understands. Nausea rumbles in my stomach and moves up my torso until it’s burning the back of my throat. He tilts his head to the side in one sharp movement, studying me like he can see through skin and bones as he searches for something that might not be there.

“You are mage.” A statement, not a question.

“I am,” I confirm. “But I do not have magic. It’s why I was treated poorly as a child. I’ve been running experiments to try—”

“You don’t have the ability to wield raw magic?” he interjects, the coldness of his words making me wince. Any optimism I held that he might give me grace vanishes when his upper lip lifts in a snarl. “You lied.”

I don’t try to explain myself; it doesn’t matter. Not as he looks at me like I’m a traitor—a plague within his kingdom, when he had hoped I might be the cure.

“I brought you here so that you could help my people. I let you meet with them, hear their stories, and learn their plights. And for what?” His voice grows louder as it echoes off the cave walls and pierces into my heart. I swear the very ground shakes from his fury.

“The magic of the Continent chose me for a reason. I can still help—”

“It makes sense now. Why that male— Daje —was so insistent that you were the wrong one chosen for the job. He knew, your entire fucking kingdom knew , that you would be worthless to us.”

That word digs under my flesh and deep into my soul, an old wound reopened. Worthless . I know that I have no room to defend myself, no moral high ground on which to stand, but I still snap my teeth at him. “There is no guarantee that mage magic would have been able to do anything. I wasn’t lying when I said that my experiments with expelled magic hadn’t led to quantifiable results! You don’t know for sure that it would have helped at all!”

“I suppose, now I never fucking will!” he barks back, a ring of gold encircling his irises as he stands and roughly grabs his tunic from the ground.

I stand as well, running my hand through my hair and pulling it back from my face. “Kai—”

“Don’t.” He keeps his back to me as he finishes dressing, grabbing his boots and slipping them on. “This is why I couldn’t seem to get you to use your magic. Why you never healed yourself. I thought perhaps you couldn’t access it as strongly here or maybe you only used it on rare occasions, but I—”

His chest heaves as he prepares to throw more verbal daggers. I don’t shield myself from them because I know that I have earned them. Betrayal simmers thickly in the air when he finally turns around, and I watch him seal any cracks in his armor that he permitted me to see.

“You allowed me to give my people false hope. I let you into my kingdom, into my home, into my fucking bed , and you were all too eager to spread your legs to cover up your lies.”

Only by sheer will do I not crumble. “I did not fuck you to hide anything. I am genuinely trying to help you. I care about your people, Kai. About you. ”

He scoffs, but it’s a broken sound. “Like I would ever believe another word from your lips.”

“I’m sorry,” I croak as he walks past me and out of the cave.

He pauses at my words, looking at me over his shoulder with nothing but uncompromising anger. “Not as sorry as I am.” Then he leaves, not bothering to grab the pack he brought with him.

A light breeze scrapes against my face and stings the tears that have yet to fall from my eyes. Like prodding an open wound, Kai knew exactly how to strike me to make sure it hurt. I don’t hate him for it. I hate myself for hoping for a different outcome. How had he burrowed himself so deeply under my skin in a matter of months? Why was I stupid enough to allow it, knowing that it was only ever destined to fail?

But I already know the answers to those questions. I had seen a part of myself in him. I had found someone who didn’t shy away from what— who —I am. Even early on, with all the bickering and taunting, he had never once believed me to be weak. To need saving or a new purpose or to change to fit some idealistic cast.

But it doesn’t matter now. Not when he considers me to be worthless.

I don’t know how long I stand and stare in the direction Kai left, only that, eventually, I wipe the tears away and pack up the food as best as I can. Once I’m fully dressed, I head back towards the palace. Will he force me to go back home early? Do I even want to stay now? Those thoughts swirl around and around, disorienting me so much that I don’t realize I’ve reached the edge of the palace grounds. It isn’t until I hear the screaming, the ominous chorus cleaving through the air, that my attention shifts.

“What the fuck?” I quicken my steps as the screams grow louder, this time joined by a cacophony of roars and chirps and growls. I break into a run, my arms pumping at my sides as I follow the stone pathway through the front gardens. My eyes widen and I skid to a stop when I see the first outline of a shadow past the palace entrance. Tua had said there would be a masquerade party tonight, but these masks aren’t normal ones.

A large male stalks down the hallway on the other side of a glass window, a sword in his grasp, and I watch in shock as he arcs it up into the air before swinging it down and into a female. She slumps against the wall, sliding down until she is motionless on the floor and leaving a trail of red above her. The palace rumbles and shakes with more screams and animal noises, some shifters barreling out of the front door and into the jungle.

I drop our packs to the ground and slide my spear from its loops. My steps are nearly silent against the grass as I sprint towards the male. However, his shifter hearing gives him an early warning, and he spins, the shadows of his mask casting onto the wall behind him. An elongated skull with curling horns protruding from the top covers his entire head except for his glowing golden eyes.

“Hello, Princess,” the rebel says.