35
It’s too late
ZARA
The bath hisses as the herbs meet the scalding hot water, the air thick with the scent of iron and rosemary. I sink into the water, letting its warmth soothe me as the oils and their fragrances cleanse my skin. It’s a temporary relief from the magic gnawing at me, trying to lead me where I fear to go.
Even here, surrounded by steam and candlelight, my magic doesn’t feel right.
Whatever’s coursing through me lingers like a poison, pushing and pulling as it burns through my veins, refusing to settle. I need an antidote and I’d endure any cure, if only to stop the surge of it. It’s not just the magic anymore. It’s the way it wraps around my thoughts, possessing them, consuming them, threatening to drown me.
I close my eyes, trying to breathe through it, but the links in the ebon chain hold firm. Kade’s presence is a force in itselfand I feel him watching me, certain he hasn’t taken his eyes off me. It’s more than that too. I feel us. But something’s shifted, something’s slipped out of alignment.
The bodies in my heavens are moving, and the stars that light my nights have rearranged. I don’t know how to chart my course and I’m lost, sailing under a sky I don’t know without a map to guide me.
My fingers swirl the water and I reach for the edge of the tub, my fingertips grazing the cool stone. It doesn’t ground me and I’m still drifting, still lost in uncertain and unfamiliar tides.
A soft cough sounds like a groan, cutting through the haze of my thoughts. Kade’s presence is a tether, faint and frayed, but unyielding. The atmosphere shifts, thickening with a power that I’m certain I can’t escape. His magic swells until it reaches mine, and the gale inside me becomes less predictable as I’m tossed around on stormy seas.
“You’re quiet, kitten,” he says, his voice a low rumble that reverberates through the room. “This isn’t like you.”
I don’t answer. My throat tightens around any words I try to form, my thoughts too tangled to say anything coherent, anyway.
“I’m drowning. In my magic. In yours. In us.” I open my eyes and watch the ripples move across the water’s surface. “I may as well give up and go under now.”
I glance up at him, and Kade’s storm-dark and searching eyes meet mine. He’s standing at the edge of the room, his shoulders taut, his jaw set. Kade is magnificent, even in the stillness, and I need him to be right now.
“It’s ours, Zara.” He stops, the words catching in his throat and he looks unsure. “You’re not the only one suffering here.”
“Wrong,” I sigh.
“I feel it too.”
His gaze sharpens, the weight of his attention settling fully on me. The bathroom feels smaller now, as if he’s taken up all the oxygen and is all that remains. Kade is inevitable and his soul threatens to shatter something inside mine.
“I don’t want to lose you in this, Zara. But I won’t lose myself, either.”
“Now who’s changing their mind?”
Kade’s expression darkens at my words, and he strides closer to the tub, forcing the air to crackle with tension. It sits heavy, now full of unspoken words and unresolved emotions, while Kade’s hand hovers above the water, a whisper of a touch away from me.
“I’m not changing my mind, Zara.” His voice lowers as he drops his center. “I’m adapting. I’m learning. I cannot let your magic consume me. For your sake, as much as mine.”
I nod and meet his gaze, my eyes mirroring the turmoil dancing through his. The ebon chain wraps around my heart and it pulses in time with its beat, a living thing demanding acknowledgment.
“I will not harm you, but I must protect myself.”
Kade’s hand dips into the water, the ripples from his touch merging with my own. The warmth of his skin against mine sends a shockwave through me, a jolt of unfamiliarity mixed with an undercurrent of uncertainty. We’re bound by something more than magic now, something deeper and more dangerous than either of us dared to imagine. We shouldn’t work, we shouldn’t even tolerate each other, and yet now it feels like we’re meant to be.
“I never wanted to consume you,” I whisper, my words barely audible.
Kade’s jaw clenches, his expression softening slightly ashe battles his inner demons. He’s a nightmare caged in flesh, feral power and careful restraint, and yet here he is, reaching for me as if I’m the one thing that can calm the chaos inside him. He’s fire and freedom, dangerous and uncontrolled, and I’m the forest he’s setting ablaze.
“We are not meant to be broken,” Kade says, determined and resigned, “We are meant to be Gods among mortals, unyielding and unrepentant. But Gods are not kind, Zara. Nor are they fair. We are meant to write the rules, not obey them. We aren't meant to ask permission, to take what we want, knowing no one can stop us.”
His magic hums and mine sings back, for once finding a harmony that feels in perfect balance.
“Warlocks know their power, and witches are wicked for grasping it, but we are neither. We are more. We do not fear the dark, and we do not flinch from it. There is no good or evil, Zara, only power and those too weak to use it.”
