I didn’t fight him.
I welcomed him.
I gave in to this building inferno and allowed the heat to swallow us whole. There were no more chilling touches or icy kisses, just a wave of dark intensity underlined in intrinsicneed.
“Kayla,” he breathed, his lips traveling across my jaw to my neck. He buried his nose in my hair, inhaling deeply. “This feels like a dream.”
“It’s not.”
“I know,” he whispered. “But I want to pretend it is. I want to erase everything. Start over. Embrace the bond the way a mate should.”
The admission was warm against my ear, his body taut above mine.
His lips whispered along my jaw to my throat, his kisses light and reverent and making my toes curl. “It would be so easy,” he continued, his breath hot against my skin. “Lose ourselves just for a moment, forget our past, and indulge in our connection.”
“So you can use me again?” I asked, my voice raspier than before. “Refuel your spirit, heal yourself, and abandon me when you’re done?”
He stilled against me, then his head slowly came up, his golden irises burnt around the edges and darkened with black specks. “That’s not how a mating bond works, Kayla. It’s about rejuvenating our spirits and embracing the energy thriving between us. If we indulge in our connection, it strengthens both of us, not just me.”
His brow furrowed as his gaze went to my mouth and then returned to my eyes.
“Your presence distracted me from when I thought this was a dream. I’ve grown so used to feeling weak that I didn’t even realize I was recovering from a life-threatening injury. That’s how impactful our strained bond is on my soul, Kayla. But that’s my punishment to bear, not yours. So if you say no, I will respect your decision. I’ll never use you again.”
The veracity of his tone settled between us, his expression telling me he meant every word.
If I rejected him, refused to help him heal, he would accept it.
And then what? Would he die? Would he wither away to nothing?
He was wingless, weak, and barely recovering from a holy blade to the chest. This was a dream come true for me.
Yet I wasn’t enjoying this at all.
It resembled a nightmare more than a fantasy. Because I could feel his pain through our bond, could see it radiating from his gaze.
He studied me for a moment longer, then rolled off of me. It wasn’t a graceful movement. And he jolted when his bare back hit the mattress, his eyes falling closed on a grimace.
“I don’t blame you for hating me, Kayla,” he added. “I can’t change what I did to you. And I would never change it. But that doesn’t mean I’ve enjoyed the outcome. The balance is, orwas, at peace. However, the cost was… high.”
“They keep saying you’re weak,” I said slowly. “Because of our bond. But I don’t feel weak. Or I didn’t. However, now I can sense you…”
He nodded. “That’s why your father kept you in Hell. It protected you from feeling the deterioration of my spirit. It also ensured that I didn’t reach out to you again. He wanted me to suffer for what I’d done to you. But he also wanted to protect you.”
He’d mentioned something like that before, that my father hadn’t only wanted to hurt Ezra, but he’d also been trying to keep me safe.
Now that I could sense Ezra’s pain, I started to question a lot of what I thought I knew.
Is Ezra right? Was my father trying to save me from feeling Ezra’s pain?
My father was a complicated Archdemon, always playing games and trying to teach through unconventional methods.
He had never really hurt me, though.
He’d actually hurt others who had taken the lessons too far.
However, he’d done it in a way that had made me feel bad because it’d been my failure to fight them that had led to their punishments.
Or maybe that had just been residual guilt I’d put on myself for my poor performance.
