Page 36 of Fractured Devotion (Tainted Souls #1)

The sunlight creeps in through the edge of the blinds as I wake to the faint creak of the couch from the living room, where Kade is still asleep.

His breathing is steady, distant yet grounding, like the faint hum of something too large to name, his arm slung over the edge of the couch like a soldier half in battle. I don’t move right away.

I sit in that moment, warm and suspended, as if the weight of the previous day might not crash down again. But it does. In silence, I rise, dress, and gently nudge him awake.

We step out into the chill morning together, walking side by side with a silence that isn’t heavy, just necessary. When we reach the building that houses his apartment, tucked between a grocery store and an old bookstore, he pauses.

“You should see my place,” he says. “Just in case you ever need… something.”

I hesitate, then nod. He lets me in.

The interior surprises me. It’s sparse and neat, but lived in. A stark contrast to the sterile chaos I’ve let define my own spaces.

I don’t ask questions, and he doesn’t offer answers. We exist in mutual discretion.

After a long minute, I thank him and leave, slipping down the corridor and back toward the clinic.

By the time I reach the clinic, the day has already begun to stretch its arms. Mara glances up at me in the hallway, her eyes wide but unreadable. Alec corners me before lunch, his eyes sharp.

“You know Harper didn’t jump,” he says.

I don’t respond. I just look at him.

The day crawls, staff whisper, and shadows stretch.

And when I finally return to the clinic’s upper floor and the hall that leads to my backup apartment, the stillness there feels heavier than it should.

I unlock the door, step inside, and shut it behind me like sealing myself inside a tomb. The air is cold.

My clothes still hang neatly in the wardrobe, and my notes remain stacked precisely where I left them. It’s as if this space waited for me to fall apart.

I sit on the edge of the bed, pressing my palms into the mattress. I can still hear the echo of Kade’s voice from yesterday, when he promised not to let them get to me. I wonder if he truly meant that.

I try to breathe. I try to make the silence behave.

But Harper’s face won’t leave me. The look in her eyes before everything unraveled, and the way she moved, like she was holding a secret that might eat her alive.

And then, worse, my mind flips without warning.

I’m six again.

I’m back in that too-blue bedroom with the peeling wallpaper.

My mother is singing a lullaby from the kitchen, and I’m in the closet with my knees pulled to my chest. The closet door is cracked just enough for me to see the shadows dance on the floor.

Then a scream and a crash. Her perfume. And the scent of blood.

And also, the man’s voice, thick and too calm, when he says, “You made me do it.”

I jolt out of it, my breath shuddering, my chest burning.

I can’t stay here.

I grab my coat, don’t bother with my bag, and walk straight out. My heels strike the tiles too hard, and my steps echo down the stairwell. I don’t care. I just need air. I need to be somewhere that isn’t this—the ghost of who I used to be and everything I wish I could forget.

I don’t know what I’m doing when I knock on Kade’s door.

Three soft taps.

There’s silence.

Then the lock clicks.

He’s still dressed in his shirt from the clinic, with the sleeves rolled up to the elbow and the top buttons undone.

His expression barely shifts, like he’d already pictured me standing here.

He doesn’t look at me like a man sizing up a choice but like a scientist observing something volatile and committing every detail to memory.

“Celeste,” he says. Just that. No question, no surprise.

“I don’t want to be alone,” I whisper.

He studies me for a moment longer, then steps aside.

Inside, it smells like something expensive and clean. Like sandalwood, ink, and pressed linen. The lights are low.

I stop in the center of his living room, my fingers tightening around the cuff of my sleeve.

“Is this where you pretend to be normal?” I ask softly.

Kade moves to stand just behind me, close but not touching. “No. This is where I stop pretending entirely.”

My spine tingles.

When I turn, I do it slowly. Meeting his gaze is like stepping into cold water. I should flinch, should retreat, but I don’t.

Something breaks in his eyes. But not like glass. Like restraint.

He takes my wrist gently, bringing it between us and brushing his thumb across the place where my pulse beats like a warning. I feel it everywhere. Heat, blood, and the want of him in my lungs.

“Are you sure?” he murmurs, his voice low. “Because I won’t stop if we start.”

I swallow hard and reply, “I don’t want you to stop.”

His breath catches just a fraction. Then he pulls me closer.

This kiss is nothing like the one on the couch. This one bites.

It’s a collision of mouths, teeth, fingers that don’t ask for permission, and skin that answers with tremors.

He backs me toward the wall, his lips pressed to my throat, his hands already undoing the buttons of my shirt, slow but without pause. I gasp, not from fear, but from the intensity of it. His name slips from my lips in a breath I don’t recognize as mine.

He pins my wrists above my head with one hand, his other roaming over bare skin as if learning a language only he understands. My back arches involuntarily, and he doesn’t smile. He just watches me break.

“You want control,” he whispers into my ear, his teeth grazing my lobe. “But you ache to be undone.”

I don’t answer.

Because he’s right.

And because I’m already gone.

Kade’s mouth trails fire along my collarbone, his breath hot and uneven as he presses his weight against me, not to trap but to claim.

My fingers clench reflexively in his hair, my nails grazing his scalp, a feral need uncoiling inside me.

This is not about love. This is about surrendering to something deeper, darker, and more inevitable than reason.

He releases my wrists slowly, letting his hands skim down my arms, then lower, pulling my shirt completely off before lowering his own body until we match height, eye to eye, breath to breath. I tremble under the pressure of his stare. It doesn’t just look at me. It peels me open.

Kade drops to his knees as he takes off my pants without much effort, so smoothly as if he’s done it a thousand times.

I freeze.

It’s not because I want him to stop, but because it feels like worship. Like he’s offering something.

His palms slide over my thighs, parting them as his mouth presses against the inside of my knee.

Then higher. The anticipation coils inside me so tightly that I forget to breathe.

He kisses the seam of my underwear, and my hips twitch forward involuntarily.

I expect him to laugh, to tease, but he doesn’t. He just watches, ravenous and reverent.

“You smell like fear,” he murmurs, his voice hushed and thick. “But it turns you on.”

I don’t deny it.

He tears the fabric aside with his teeth, not roughly, but with the finality of a man erasing options. His tongue moves with expert control, careful and precise, teasing me until I bite my bottom lip hard enough to draw blood.

My legs start to shake.

He pins them with his hands, forcing me to stay open while he devours me like a secret he’s been aching to unearth. I cry out, a sharp, broken sound, one I don’t recognize but can’t stop.

“Say it,” he growls against my pussy. “Say you like being touched.”

“Yes,” I gasp. “I like it.”

He chuckles, cruel and soft, before dragging his mouth back up my body. He removes my bra and cups my breast in his palm, using his fingers to play with my nipples and making me moan shamelessly as he claims the second nipple with his mouth.

His tongue flicks over my nipple, then bites gently, pulling a sound from me that’s almost a sob. He lifts me in one smooth motion, carrying me into his bedroom and laying me down on sheets that smell like dark soap and sweat.

I watch him undress slowly, methodically, as if offering me a striptease made of shadows and sharp edges. His cock is already hard, thick, and veined. My mouth waters at the sight of him. He notices.

“Next time, you can explore with your mouth,” he promises darkly. “Tonight, I need to feel you clench around me first.”

He grabs a tie from the closet and binds my wrists above my head. The silk tie bites into my wrists, a delicious restraint that anchors me to the headboard.

Kade’s hands are deft, knotting the fabric with a precision that speaks of practice, of control. It’s tight and unyielding, but the smooth slide of silk against my skin is a caress in itself, a promise of what’s to come.

My arms stretch above me, leaving me exposed and vulnerable, my chest rising and falling with shallow breaths as I watch him. His eyes, dark and molten, drink me in, and I feel the weight of his gaze like a physical touch, stripping me bare long before his hands do.

He stands at the foot of the bed, completely naked, the hard planes of his chest catching the dim glow of the bedside lamp. The air between us crackles, heavy with unspoken commands.

My pulse races, a wild thing caged in my ribs, as he climbs onto the bed, his movements slow and predatory. He doesn’t touch me yet, but the anticipation is a torment all its own, my body aching for the moment he’ll break the distance between us.

“Celeste,” he murmurs, my name a growl in his throat. The sound sends a shiver straight to my core. “You’re mine tonight. Every gasp, every tremble. Do you understand?”

I nod, my throat too tight to speak, but he shakes his head, a faint smirk curling his lips. “Words, my sweet. I want to hear you.”

“Yes,” I whisper, my voice trembling with need. “I’m yours.”