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Mark looked to William for confirmation. William’s slow nod was all he needed. It was like their sire bond was so strong it compelled him to listen on command. The sight stoked the heat in my chest, but I forced it down again. Rolling his shoulders back, he met my gaze. “Like I’ve always said. I did this for you. I met William a few years ago… maybe two, exactly. I was combing every corner of the internet, trying to figure out what that man was. Lord Draco.” His eyes glazed slightly, lost in the memory. “He said he was coming to take you on your nineteenth birthday. Your mother and I… we were fixated on that number. When you were younger, it felt so far away. But when you hit your teens, it started feeling too real.” His hands slipped into his pockets, head tilting. “I kept hitting dead ends. It was one lead after another, nothing. Then I found this forum. Some post asking, ‘Would you like super speed? The chance to live forever?’ I thought it was a scam. But when I met him…” Mark’s voice dropped, almost reverent. “The way his body moved. It felt oddly familiar. Almost like the man from that night when you arrived. And I just wanted to protect you from him when he came back.” His hands emerged, a finger lifting. A flame sparked to life at its tip. “This,” he said, “was a happy accident. And when William brought me here… he showed me the truth about this place. The rot beneath all its beauty. I saw the way they treat their own people. I saw Draco.” His gaze cut to mine, heavy with accusation. “Cruel. Ruthless. Striking down anyone the King pointed to. And I remembered the night you arrived. He wanted to drag you back. I was furious. Even more so when they actually came for you. No protection. No real guidance. That was supposed to be me.” He shrugged, as if the weight of it had never sat on his chest. “So I stayed. Learned. Made myself strong enough to stand against them when the time came. Strong enough to keep you safe… even from yourself.”
“And when did you tell him about me?” I asked.
Another shrug, careless, detached. “That was an easy choice to make when you sided with that demon. What son of mine would betray me like that?” His voice sharpened, spitting venom with every word. “And that bitch of a mother of yours. She trapped me like I was some dog. What are secrets, anyway, when I’m not even the father you choose to tell them to?” His eyes slid to Kleitos, lips curling into a snarl.
The words landed like a blade to the chest, carving hate deeper than rage could reach. My heart slammed against my ribs, breath searing in my lungs. I didn’t even get the chance to respond before William’s voice sliced through the air, forcing my eyes to lock on his. “How about I let you leave with a warning from my slice of the Kingdom,” he said, winking.
That was it. The icing on the cake. My last straw. The line that snapped every thread of restraint I had left. Launching forward with no thought, no consequence, I let the inevitable collision of hate meet opportunity.
Tonight, William would bend his knee to me. He was no self-righteous king.
TAINTED| CHAPTER 38
Ashes, Ashes, We All Fall Down
Alexander’s POV
I moved faster than my mind could process, but three things were instantly clear. I was chasing William through his makeshift home, and he darted away like the coward he was. His goons were behind me on the defensive, grabbing for the trailing fabric of my cloak, and Mark, to the left of me, still on the stage, unleashing hell in my wake, bursts of destruction cutting a precise, deadly path in front of me, keeping William just out of my reach.
Shooting a hand forward, I dispersed some of the flames, but it only drove Mark to hurl out more lethal bursts, forcing the distance wider. The dirty carpet ignited beneath my boots. Even as my bursts of oxygen snuffed the fire, the stink lingered. It burned through the plastic, searing into the air. Tar clung thick to the leather of my boots.
The moment Mark began his assault, Kleitos tore through the remaining guards that flanked the bottom of the stage. Hate radiated off him even from here. His eyes narrowed to lethal slits, the mark on his face glowing so intensely it flooded the dim room with light. It wasn’t a show. It was a deadly purpose as his Naemira surged forward, manifesting like a shadow behind his skull.
Bomani shifted, fur ripping through his skin as bones cracked and stretched. His true form towered, a foaming muzzle bared at the enemy. With a guttural snarl, he lunged into the fray, stalking and tearing through the guards that had flanked me. Bones crunched. Screams tore the air. Bomani’s teeth clamped into shoulders while his claws shredded backs. I didn’t look back, but I heard limbs hit the ground. The men swarmed him, dragging at his tail, kicking at his skull, desperate to pry him free of their comrade. It only seemed to excite him.
Kleitos’ Naemira stalked forward, full and solid now, while Kleitos himself bore down on Mark. Mark’s fire flared from all angles, his control slipping as my bursts of air kept quenching his flames. Rage made him reckless. He circled me, fire weaving tighter and tighter, trying to trap me, tire me, burn me down. Kleitos advanced on Mark in silence, his fist crashing into Mark’s face with brutal ease. No magic. No Naemira. Just raw, unrelenting force.
For the first time, Mark’s flames faltered. The circling blaze loosened, and in that heartbeat I slipped free, air bursting from my palms, carving a cool, safe path through the fire.
William slipped from sight in the chaos. I knew he couldn’t run far. The house itself had become his cage. Flames swallowed the pillars, tongues of fire licking up walls, devouring the very supports holding the place together. Even the hallways burned, doorframes glowing like molten brands.
If I tried to put it out, I’d likely only feed it. Oxygen would make the inferno roar higher, hungrier.
Scanning the collapsing madness, I searched between falling beams and panels of charred wood. I felt like a predator in the dark, eyes sharp, instincts taut. Every muscle in me was alive, charged. Yet beneath the fire in my veins, a stillness coiled tight in my chest. A knot of anticipation, wound and waiting. The kind that whispers only one promise: the reward is close.
“Where are you, William?” I asked, voice cutting through the commotion as my boots scraped across the floor. Panels crunched, splintering underfoot. The room wasn’t big enough for him to hide. Not from me. My gaze swept the firelit haze, ears tuned to separate it all: the shrieks of men being torn apart by Bomani, Kleitos’s measured, lethal steps, the hungry crackle of flame devouring the house. Beneath it all, I searched for the stillness. The predator is waiting in silence.
Mark stood on the stage, hands blazing, streams of molten ribbons, blue and red. It sliced through the smoke like starlight. Kleitos darted through them, but not easily. The sight set something sour burning in my chest. Mark wasn’t just fighting me. He was fighting Kleitos, fighting everything and everyone around him. In that moment, all I could think, he was trying to destroy someone who truly cared for me. He had to go.
Through the storm of fire, I could read his body. His strength was bleeding out with every breath. Mark’s lungs heaved and were ragged. Sweat poured in sheets down his face, his temples bulging with strain. Every new burst of flame drained him more, even as he forced himself to burn hotter, brighter, deadlier.
That’s when it struck me. William had convinced him he was the strongest. That he was the only one worth anything. Because of that illusion, the others had been dismissed before the battle even began. They were weak. All of them. And now the weakest of all was proving it with every desperate swing. The thought almost made me laugh.
Mark hurled one final blast toward Kleitos, but before it could land, I summoned the storm inside me. A violent current of air surged from my chest, slamming into him like a hurricane. The force lifted him off his feet, blasting him sideways into the flaming stage wall. His skull cracked against the wood with a sickening snap, and his body went limp.
It was the opening Kleitos needed. His Naemira closed in, circling like wolves around fallen prey.
The stage cracked beneath their weight, sending all three plunging into the floor below. Dust, smoke, and flames roared upward, swallowing the platform in a deep, shifting shadow. My feet darted forward, ready to dive in after them, but then I caught it. A flicker of gold glinting through the smoke.
Fear.
I could feel it bleeding into the air, rippling outward like sonar. His heartbeat stuttered, three times faster than it should have, guiding me through the blaze. My steps slowed to a deliberate stalk, each stride measured as I let him draw me closer.
The embers around me cast me in shadow and flickers of orange as I approached him, almost as if the flames themselves crowned me their ruler. My every word rolled out heavy, not as a boy chasing his enemy, but as the rightful king standing in judgment.
“William,” I called, my voice twisting into a low cackle. My boots crunched over broken wood and ash, homing in on the ragged sound of his breathing.
“William,” I repeated, softer this time, almost coaxing. “The first rule of being a king is the one thing I've learned. You never back down from a fight.” Rounding a corner where the fire burned hottest, an orange light spilled over a couch not yet claimed by the flames. And I knew. He was there.
