Kaedan didn’t walk Ariaxa back to his chambers.
He stormed.
Every corridor trembled under his boots.
Every torch flared and bowed as if frightened by the fury radiating off him.
Blood—rebel blood—still dripped from his claws as he carried her through the palace like a stolen treasure.
Guards scattered out of his path.
Servants pressed themselves against walls in terror.
Slaves bowed so low their foreheads hit the marble.
And the nobles—those trembling, whispering vipers—peeked from doorways and balconies, shocked into silence.
“The Emperor risked his army for a harem slave,” one whispered.
“He tore rebels apart with his bare hands,” murmured another.
“They say he carried her like a queen,” someone breathed.
But Kaedan didn’t hear them.
Couldn’t.
His entire world was the trembling girl in his arms.
He kicked open the doors to his private chambers.
They slammed into the walls with enough force to shake dust from the ceiling.
“MIREL!” he roared.
The healer appeared almost instantly—she must have been waiting. Her eyes widened when she saw Ariaxa’s scorched neck, her blistered skin, the half-melted collar fused with angry red wounds.
“Goddess—” Mirel rushed to them. “Put her down. Now. Carefully.”
Kaedan didn’t want to let go.
His arms tightened around Ariaxa as if mere distance might kill her.
“Kaedan,” Mirel said gently, “I can’t help her while you’re holding her.”
His jaw clenched. His wings twitched with agitation. But after a moment of violent hesitation, he stepped forward and laid Ariaxa on the massive bed—his bed.
The contrast made her look even smaller.
Even more breakable.
Kaedan stood over her like a shadow carved from fury.
Mirel set to work immediately.
She gathered herbs, salves, enchanted cloth, and bowls of cooling water. Ariaxa whimpered when Mirel touched the collar burns, and Kaedan’s claws shot out with a vicious shnk.
Mirel froze.
“Do not hurt her,” Kaedan growled.
“I’m trying to save her,” Mirel snapped back, voice trembling but stubborn. “Sit. Or leave. But stop hovering like a wolf about to bite.”
Kaedan’s nostrils flared.
Rage burned beneath his skin—rage at Seren, at the rebels, at himself.
But he forced himself to step back.
Just barely.
He sat at the edge of the bed, muscles coiled tight, wings trembling, eyes fixed on Ariaxa like he could keep her alive through will alone.
***
Hours passed.
Mirel worked tirelessly, cooling the collar burns, muttering Sun Magic counter-chants she barely remembered from childhood stories, stabilizing Ariaxa’s breathing.
Kaedan didn’t move.
Not once.
He sat like a statue carved from wrath and fear, hands clenched so tightly the veins stood out like rivers beneath his skin. His eyes never left her face.
But under the fury…
Something raw.
Something terrified.
The Emperor who feared nothing
feared losing her.
Mirel didn’t say it aloud, but she saw it. Everyone did.
When she finished tending the last burn, she placed a gentle hand on Kaedan’s shoulder.
“She’ll wake,” Mirel whispered. “She just needs time.”
Kaedan didn’t blink.
Didn’t breathe.
He just stared.
“Leave us,” he finally murmured.
Mirel hesitated. “Kaedan, she shouldn’t—”
“Leave,” he said, voice quiet but lethal.
The healer swallowed hard and slipped out of the room, closing the door softly behind her.
Silence swallowed the chamber.
Ariaxa lay unconscious, chest rising and falling unevenly. Kaedan leaned forward, elbows on his knees, hands covering his mouth as if holding back a scream.
Minutes passed.
Hours.
Until—
A weak breath.
A tremor of fingers.
A soft, broken whimper.
Kaedan’s head snapped up.
“Ariaxa?”
Her eyelids fluttered.
Confusion clouded her gaze at first—pain, disorientation, fear. Her hand jerked toward her neck instinctively, but she winced and stopped.
Kaedan reached for her—
then stopped himself mid-movement, fingers trembling in the air above her skin.
She looked at him—
—and flinched.
Barely.
But he saw it.
Kaedan froze.
His expression cracked—subtle, but devastating. Like someone had struck him across the face. His shadow loomed behind him, wings drooping.
“Do not fear me,” he growled low, but the words were not a command.
They were a plea.
Ariaxa swallowed, her voice a fragile whisper. “Then stop… giving me reasons to.”
It hit him like a blade.
Kaedan’s arms dropped to his sides.
His breath shuddered.
His wings lowered, not in threat—but in something like shame.
For a long moment, neither spoke.
Ariaxa’s breathing steadied. Kaedan watched each rise and fall of her chest with desperate vigilance.
Finally, she whispered, “You tore through rebels to reach me.”
His voice was dark. “I would have torn through worlds.”
“Why?” she whispered.
He didn’t answer.
Because he couldn’t.
He leaned closer, slowly, like approaching a wounded animal—careful not to touch her, careful not to frighten her, careful in a way the Blood Court had never seen him be.
He lowered his forehead to hers.
A vampire gesture older than empires.
Older than their wars.
Older than either of them.
A gesture of trust.
Of intimacy.
Of unbearable vulnerability.
Ariaxa inhaled sharply at the contact.
Kaedan exhaled shakily, eyes slipping closed.
“Kaedan…” she breathed.
His voice trembled at her ear.
“Ariaxa.”
She felt the faintest quiver run through him.
Like the last piece of him had finally broken free.
He lifted her chin gently with two careful fingers, but did not kiss her, did not touch her wounds, did not claim anything she wasn’t offering.
He just stayed there—
forehead to forehead,
breath mixing with hers,
his rage melting into something raw and consuming.
“From now on…” Kaedan whispered, voice dark and shaking with devotion he didn’t want to admit—
“…no one takes you from me.”