Page 19

DOMINIC

T he tavern’s door had barely swung shut behind them when heh ad grabbed her hand. Not a commanding tug, not some flustered show for the lingering patrons behind them, just a quiet touch, fingers sliding through hers. Even if she had pulled away earlier that day. This time, she didn’t.

Dominic was still floating off the high of watching her own the stage like it owed her a debt and she’d come to collect in high notes and sultry confidence. Every syllable she sang had wrapped around his ribs and squeezed. He wasn’t made for poetry, but damn if she didn’t make him want to try.

So when she stopped just outside the flickering porch lantern and turned to face him—moonlight silvering her curls, the wind tugging at the hem of her jacket, he didn’t think twice. Didn’t hesitate.

He kissed her.

It wasn’t a question. It wasn’t even a plan. It was a magnetism, an inevitability that had been pulling him in since the day the bond flared to life and turned his world into a minefield of emotion and proximity.

Her lips were warm. Soft. Real. And for a heartbeat, she kissed him back. But then she pulled away. Slow. Gentle. But sure. Like peeling off a dream before it became too vivid to bear.

He stayed close, his hand cradling the curve of her jaw. “Lillith…”

Her eyes didn’t meet his. They stayed on his chest, then past his shoulder, then anywhere but him.

“Don’t,” she whispered.

“Don’t what?”

“Don’t make this something it’s not.”

The air between them snapped. Magic always did when they got too close emotionally—it had a way of amplifying everything they wouldn’t say aloud. But this felt sharper. Final.

His throat tightened. “You can’t even look at me.”

“That’s not true.”

He dropped his hand. “Feels true.”

They walked in silence for a while. The kind that pressed against his chest and reminded him of the forest after a predator moved through—still, yes, but not calm.

Back at the cottage, the porch light buzzed as they climbed the steps. She fumbled with the lock longer than she needed to. Her fingers were shaking.

Dominic crossed his arms, leaned against the railing, and finally said what had been boiling under his skin since her lips left his.

“You know,” he said slowly, voice rough, “I’ve been rejected before.”

She paused. The key slipped from her grip.

“Not by women,” he clarified. “Not until now, anyway. But by people I trusted. My pride. My blood.”

Lillith turned, stiff. “Dom…”

He pushed off the railing. “They said I was too wild. Too much. That the bond I had with someone in our pride was unnatural. Forced. Like I didn’t know the difference between choice and compulsion. And that’s what made me want to protect them so wrong.”

She flinched.

“They tried to break us apart. Hurt her to get to me. It worked.”

“Dominic—”

“I’m not telling you this for sympathy,” he snapped. “I’m telling you because when you pull away like that, when you act like this thing between us is some kind of trick or trap… it feels like that again.”

Her mouth opened. Closed.

He ran a hand through his hair, pacing the porch like the lion prowled just beneath his skin. “I’ve been patient. I’ve been trying. Hell, I’ve been—" he huffed. “I’ve been soft. For you. And maybe that was my mistake.”

Her spine straightened. “You think trying to protect me is a mistake?”

“No,” he said, quieter now. “But trying to be with someone who refuses to see it as anything but a curse? Yeah. That might be.”

The words hung heavy in the night air.

She looked at him finally. “I’m scared,” she said, voice cracking. “And I know that’s not fair. But I have spent my whole damn life building walls because I had to. Because if I didn’t, I’d get consumed. By expectations. By people who wanted to own pieces of me.”

He nodded slowly, jaw tight. “I’m not asking for pieces. I’m asking for a chance.”

“And what if I break it?”

“Then break it!” His voice rose, cutting through the dark. “But don’t stand there and pretend it doesn’t matter. Don’t stand there and treat me like a temporary fix while you wait for someone safer.”

She flinched again. “You’re not temporary.”

“Then act like it.”

The silence that followed was colder than the wind rolling in off the trees. Lillith’s eyes shimmered, but she didn’t cry. She didn’t run.

She just said, “I need space.”

He laughed—sharp and bitter. “That’s rich, considering we can’t even be more than thirty feet apart.”

She turned then, went inside without slamming the door but might as well have.

Dominic stared up at the stars, hands clenched at his sides.

“You’re killin’ me, fae,” he whispered to the night.

He didn’t follow her right away.

He needed a second to remember who he was without her storm clouding his every breath. Because even an alpha can only chase something for so long before he wonders if he’s the fool for trying.

And if this—whatever it was—was going to survive, maybe it was time she stopped running. Maybe it was time she chose him back. Or let him go. But either way, he wasn’t going to keep playing the villain in her story.

Not when all he ever wanted since he really had gotten to know her, since this tether, was to be her choice. Not her curse.