Page 23

Sunlight creeps through the window, chasing away the last tendrils of sleep. Stretching, I reach for the familiar warmth beside me, but my fingers find only cool sheets and empty space.

Kiaran is gone.

I sit up, straining to hear over the distant crash of waves. The fortress is still, devoid of any movement. I slip from the bed and pull on my coat and boots, bracing against the ever-present chill.

Venturing into the great hall, my footsteps reverberate off the obsidian walls. In the guttering torchlight, shadows flicker and dance across the dark surfaces.

“MacKay?” I call out, but my voice rebounds unanswered.

I grasp for the foreign magic coiled inside me. It writhes in response, sparks skittering along my nerve endings. Gritting my teeth, I surrender to the burn and drag it to the surface.

Find him.

The world tilts, shadows bleeding into impossible edges. But there, at the centre of it all, a thread of Kiaran’s power permeating through the tower.

I follow it through the twisting corridors, a labyrinth of gleaming obsidian leading me deeper into its dark heart. Finally, I see a shaft of light spilling through an archway up ahead.

Blinking against the sudden brightness, I pause at the threshold. Beyond, a meadow unfurls in a whisper of swaying grasses and wildflowers scattered across the ground—amethyst and ivory petals glimmering under a swollen moon. Another pocket realm.

And standing in the field, etched in darkness, is Kiaran.

He stands with his back to me, a wild creature momentarily at rest. The severe lines of him are achingly familiar—all broad shoulders and coiled grace, tension thrumming through every angle. Untouchable as cut glass.

Kiaran is brushing a fae horse, its lean muscles rippling beneath a dappled coat that catches the moonlight. I watch his long fingers card through the lustrous mane with a rare, unguarded tenderness.

He stiffens, registering my presence. “Let me guess,” he says, voice flat and cold as a blade. “You tracked me.”

I wade through the grasses. The air smells of loam and green, growing things. A jarring contrast to the decay slowly devouring the world beyond. In this place he’s created, things still live. Grow. A speck of stubborn, untamed wilderness.

Fitting, for the most untameable creature I’ve ever met.

“You’re not as elusive as you think,” I say, stopping beside him to trace the rigid lines of his profile with my gaze. “That brooding darkness you exude is quite distinctive.”

Kiaran’s hands go still on the brush, fingers tightening. “What do you want, Kameron?”

“Oh, I don’t know. Some tea, perhaps? A few pastries? And, of course, your lovely company.” I reach out to stroke the horse’s silken flank, marvelling at the play of moonlight along its dappled coat. “I enjoy being around you, even when you’re in a mood.”

This close, he blazes like a dark star—power leashed but thrumming beneath his skin.

A caged predator. I feel the weight of his stare on me, a palpable caress lingering on my tangled hair before dipping to the pale column of my throat.

Right where he bit me, only yesterday. The mark is gone, wiped away like it never happened, but my body remembers the pierce of fangs, the pull of lips and tongue.

The pleasure of it.

Heat pools low in my belly, but I force myself to meet his gaze. Peel back the mask and see the naked hunger cutting raw and deep.

A glint in the grass draws my attention—a saddle, the leather tooled with swirling silver thorns.

“Going somewhere?” I ask lightly, focusing on the horse as I reach for its muzzle. Playing for time. Clinging to these last few seconds of fragile peace.

“To prepare. For the fool’s errand you insist we embark on.”

“No.” I almost laugh at the half-truth. “You were going to feed.”

Kiaran is brutally honest, even now. Especially now. “I’m no use to anyone half-feral with hunger. Least of all you.”

And there it is, the truth laid bare. An ugly, festering thing between us. I think of his victims—all those glassy, fevered stares and wasted bodies. Suffering and ecstasy, tangled up in each other until they’re indistinguishable.

Kiaran is like that. Being with him is a study in contrasts. Pleasure and pain bleeding together until I can’t tell them apart.

Perhaps that’s why I find myself stepping closer, drawn in by the banked heat simmering beneath his skin, the way his eyes dip to my parted lips—a darker shade of desire. But I know this dance well. I came here prepared with weapon of my own.

Tipping my head back, I expose the line of my throat. I know his tells. His pupils flare and consume the violet, blown wide and ravenous.

“So do it, then. Take what you need. From me.”

I hear his sharp inhale, watch his nostrils flare as he scents me. Feel the pressure building in the infinitesimal space between us.

For a second, I think he might surrender. Give in to the impulses shuddering through him and sink those fangs into my jugular. Drink me down like he did yesterday morning, gorge himself while grinding into me.

I brace for the pierce of pain, the rush of heat. The fall.

But Kiaran wrenches himself away, a low snarl tearing from his throat. “I’d sooner starve.”

Ah. And there’s my opening. I drive my blade in and twist. “Perfect. We can waste away together, you out of misplaced obstinance and me from the Cailleach’s magic devouring me alive.

When the delirium of hunger inevitably sets in, perhaps you’ll be more amenable to reason.

We can revisit the conversation when we’re both too weak to stand. ”

“I’m not feeding from my dying consort,” he snarls.

My heart stumbles, then rights itself. “You just called me your consort.”

Kiaran advances on me. “Get. Inside. Now.”

But I can’t stop, not now that I’ve drawn blood. If I let up for a moment, I’ll lose this chance. Maybe my last one. “Not yet. I need you to help me find Sorcha. Her ancestor was the Morrigan’s consort. It’s her blood that’s the key to finding the Book—”

The temperature plummets, his expression going cold and remote. “Then, by all means,” he hisses, “bleed her dry. Disembowel her, flay the skin from her bones. I’ll even supply the knives. But she stays exactly where I left her.”

Dread curls low in my gut. “Where is she, Kiaran? Where did you put her?”

“Where she’ll keep. Until this world burns to ash around her.”

The pressure of his power bears down like a stone on my chest, the charged air raising every hair on my body. My volatile magic rears up in response, a crackle of electricity skating over my skin. The scent of petrichor floods my nose, cloying and thick.

If either of us makes a wrong move, the other will break.

“Don’t,” I rasp, fighting against the force clamping onto my lungs. “Please. I don’t want to hurt you.”

“You already have,” he says softly. “In every way that matters.”

As abruptly as it descended, the suffocating weight of our combined power dissipates. The night wind stings my cheeks, cold and unforgiving as it leaches the fever from my blood.

Kiaran retreats, always keeping that careful distance. “We’ll speak of Sorcha later.” His jaw tics, a minute tell, belying his fraying control. “I have preparations to make.”

He turns away. Dismissing me.

Lunging forward, I snag his sleeve. “Wait. How many?”

Kiaran goes rigid. As if he could deny this ugliness blooming between us if he doesn’t give it voice. Doesn’t lend it weight. But I can’t grant him that mercy. Not now.

“How many,” I ask again, each word as precise as a dagger between the ribs, “are you asking me to overlook? To justify as necessary? One? Five?” Silence.

A jagged, awful laugh drags from my throat. “More than that, then. A dozen? A score? Shall I let you drain an entire village dry? Will that finally sate the craving?”

He turns to face me. Meets my gaze, his own a depthless abyss. No masks, no armour. Just an endless void.

“Does it matter?” he asks, his honesty its own sort of cruelty.

“You need that Book to live. Which means I need every shred of power I can steal. So if slaking my hunger on ten, twenty, a hundred humans and fae is what it takes, I’ll do it.

I’ll drain cities. Raze armies. Reduce this whole rotting realm to a charnel field if that’s the price.

To save you.” A ragged breath. “Don’t ask me to watch you die again. Not a third time.”

Something in my chest cracks open. I catch his face between my palms before he can turn away. He’s cold, so cold. But his eyes—

Galaxies could drown in those eyes.

Something shatters behind his gaze. Some final tether snapping. His hands close on my wrists, not to throw me off, but to anchor himself. As if I’m the only thing keeping him from breaking apart.

“Do you know,” he breathes, “what I can’t stop imagining?

How it feels when I’m inside you. My fangs buried in your throat, your body against mine.

” A shudder wracks through him, his eyes squeezing shut.

“I want to gorge myself on you, feed until I’m drunk on your blood.

Feel the rush flood my veins as you come apart for me. ”

His words slam into me. Call up tactile flashes of memory—the sting of fangs parting flesh, the burst of release. Devastation and ecstasy.

“You’re dying, Kameron.” His eyes bore into mine, dark and fierce. “Don’t you understand? Every second I spend with you, every touch, every damned breath—it’s killing you faster. And I still want you so much I can barely think straight.”

I lace my fingers through his hair, holding tight. “When the time comes, take it from me. Just me. No one else pays the price for my life.”

Another shudder ripples through him, his eyes slamming shut. But when he drags them open again, I glimpse resolve shining through the cracks. Fragile, but real.

“I need you to promise me something,” Kiaran says. “Before I let this go any further. Before I take you to Sorcha. If I become someone you don’t recognise on the other side of this, don’t let me hurt you. Leave me behind. Kill me if you have to.”

I jerk away from him. “You want me to be your executioner? Able to kill you with a clear conscience if needed?”

“You’re a Falconer. It’s what you were born to do.”

The words land like a slap. “I don’t give a damn,” I say, eyes stinging. I blink hard, refusing to let him see. “If you think I’d put you down like an animal—”

“To save two worlds from crumbling to ruin?” Kiaran crowds into my space. This close, I can feel the barely leashed tremors racing through him. The wild thrumming of his pulse.

He looks down at me, gaze fathomless and ancient. Stripped raw. “Yes,” he says, soft and relentless. “I do.”

“And if our places were reversed?” I touch his face; he flinches like I’ve branded him. “If it were my life weighed against the realms, would you leave me to rot?”

His eyes shutter. “That’s different.”

“How? Because I’m mortal, or because you think you love me more than I love you?”

Kiaran’s harsh exhale ruffles my hair. He takes my hands. Twines our fingers until we’re palm to palm, every point of contact a fire held to skin. I can feel the scar of my mark on him, the one I’d hoped would glow with our bond again one day.

“I need you to live, Kameron. The realms aren’t worth saving to me if you don’t.”

Live , his eyes say. For me.

At my stricken silence, he grips my hands hard enough to grind bone. “ Promise me .”

I stare up at him, at this beautiful wreckage of a male. At the splintering fault lines threatening to rupture wide open.

And I do the only thing I can. I lie through my teeth.

“I promise.”