Page 17 of The Syndicate’s Shadow Heiress (Branche de Lune Syndicate #1)
BOUND BEFORE THE FLAME
Kali’s Emotional State: Fractured. She felt marked—touched, known, and violated in a way that somehow wasn’t cruel, but intimate. And worse? Part of her wanted it.
S
he didn’t scream when she woke. Didn’t lash out.
Didn’t even sit up at first. Kali lay still, moonlight carved ghost-thin scars across her sweat-slicked skin, the city humming quietly beyond the glass.
The red sigil still glowed across her collarbone—faint but undeniable. It didn’t hum like a curse.
It pulsed like a second heartbeat. A second heartbeat that wasn't hers but refused to leave.
Astraeus was already losing it.
“You let him touch you through the Veil,” he snarled. “You let him mark you while I slept.”
“I didn’t let him.” Her voice was paper-thin. “It just happened.”
“Thread magic doesn’t just happen. It binds. You opened the door—and he walked through me.”
A knock slammed against her door.
Then Lev entered. Shirtless. Runes on his chest caught the moonlight. Eyes darker than storm glass .
He saw the mark. He froze. The muscle in his jaw ticked once—only once—before he caged it down.
Silence bloomed between them. Heavy. Dense. Dangerous.
“You let him in,” Lev said.
She didn’t deny it. Couldn’t.
“In a dream,” she whispered.
Lev stepped closer. His jaw flexed, but he didn’t speak until he was kneeling before her.
“Did he touch you?”
Yes . The word tasted like iron and surrender on her tongue. Part of her wanted to lie. Say it meant nothing. That it was only magic. But the truth curled behind her teeth like shame—and something darker. Hunger.
His breath hitched. Just a fraction.
“Was it good?”
She met his eyes. “Yes.”
A single blink. A twitch of muscle. Lev didn’t rage. Didn’t roar. He only said—
“I wanted to be your first mark," he said, voice steel wrapped in regret.
The words hit harder than any blade. Kali swallowed, throat raw, tasting regret she had no armor for .
“Lev—”
He reached for her thighs. Hands steady. Worshipful. But not weak. “You’re not mine,” he murmured. “But I’ve always been yours.”
Her throat tightened. Her magic fluttered. Her mind spun for a beat, between guilt and grief, between the red glow of something she hadn’t asked for but had felt down to her bones.
“I won’t fight your bond,” he said. “But next time he touches you—dream or not—I want you thinking about me.”
The sigil flared. Astraeus growled like a storm caught in iron.
“He’s burrowing through your ley lines. Kali—you don’t understand what this means.”
“No,” she murmured. “I do. And we’re done waiting.”
She stood. Power slithering down her spine like a blade being drawn. Her knees threatened to buckle before her magic steadied her, spitefully, reluctantly. It wasn’t strength, It was rage forced into form.
Lev rose with her.
“We find him,” she said.
“And if he comes to you first?”
Her voice didn’t waver.
“Then we finish what he started. One way or another.”
Thorne's POV
He felt her wake.
Felt her breath catch, her magic stutter, the way her name hit the air like a broken spell.
She remembered him.
The sigil thrummed beneath his skin, echoing hers like a thread stretched between dimensions. Not complete. Not sealed. But started. And once begun, Threadweaving did not stop.
Thorne stood in the heart of the Loom, watching the lines shift. Reality bent around her presence like a flame teased by wind.
He saw her in flickers. Her power. Her ache.
And beneath it all, the thing that stirred in the Spiral.
“They moved too fast,” he murmured. “They think they can puppet her with fire and fear.”
But Kali Branche de Lune was not a pawn.
She was the damn board.
He touched the altar of Threads—his altar—and whispered:
“Hold on, shadow queen. I'm coming for you. Awake.”
The words almost cracked as he said them, not because he doubted. But because he wanted her. Not just her power. Her. The girl who fought gods and still tucked lemon candies in her pockets. The woman who didn’t need saving but always deserved it.
And next time?
He wouldn’t wait for her to dream.
He’d come for her awake.