For a moment after the words left his mouth, the room felt too small to hold them.
“If anything happens to you, I will burn this empire to the ground.”
They hung there between them, heavy and dangerous, like a spell neither of them knew how to undo.
Kaedan seemed to realize it first.
His eyes widened, not with softness, but with horror at his own honesty. His hand dropped from her cheek as if her skin had scorched him. He took one step back, then another, ripping space between them as though distance alone could pull the words back into his throat.
“Forget that,” he muttered, voice rough. “Forget I said it.”
Ariaxa’s chest ached. “I can’t.”
“You will,” he snapped, turning away, fingers clawing through his hair. “You will, or I will make sure you never—”
He cut himself off, jaw locking, shoulders tightening. She watched the tension ripple down his spine. He looked like a man who had just seen his reflection for the first time and hated what he saw.
He moved further from her, toward the center of the room, toward the door, toward anything that was not her.
Every step felt like a door closing.
Something inside Ariaxa panicked.
She did not think. She did not plan. Her hand simply lifted, fingers trembling, reaching for him.
“Kaedan.”
The sound of his name in her voice stopped him.
He turned just as her fingers brushed the back of his wrist.
The touch was light, hesitant, almost a question.
His reaction was not.
He moved back to her with a speed that stole her breath, not as a cold executioner, not as a ruler reclaiming property, but as a starving man who had just been offered food. His hand snapped around her waist, dragging her flush against him in one fluid, hungry motion.
She gasped, her palms landing on his chest. His heartbeat thundered beneath her fingers, too fast, too strong, as though his body was trying to outrun itself.
“Careful,” he breathed, the word ghosting against her mouth. “Do you have any idea what you do when you reach for me?”
“Apparently,” she whispered, “I make you reckless.”
His hand tightened at her waist, fingers splayed over the curve of her hip. His other hand slammed into the wall beside her head, forearm braced there as he caged her in. Not trapping. Not this time. Anchoring.
He dipped his head toward her neck.
She felt his breath before anything else. Hot. Shuddering. Drawn in slow, deep pulls, as if he had been holding it for days and finally allowed himself to breathe.
His lips hovered at the sensitive skin beneath her ear. Fangs grazed close, not quite touching, but the threat of them made every nerve in her body flare awake.
“Kaedan,” she whispered, her voice breaking.
“You smell like fear,” he murmured, inhaling again. “And something else I do not have a word for.”
His thumb stroked a slow line along her hipbone, not with the detached precision he used on other bodies in his court, but with a trembling care that betrayed him. His hand was not steady. He was not steady.
“Tell me to stop,” he said.
She swallowed. “Do you want me to?”
His laugh was soft and pained against her throat. “No.”
His nose skimmed along her skin, up toward her jaw, then back down. He wasn’t kissing. He wasn’t biting. He was hovering at the edge of both, like a man testing the strength of his own restraint.
“Then why ask?” she whispered.
“Because,” he murmured, “if I do not give you the choice, I become the monster you insist you no longer see.”
Her fingers curled into his shirt. “I never said I was safe with you.”
“You are not,” he said instantly.
“Then why do I feel…” She struggled for the word, cheeks flushing. “Not safe. But… seen.”
His body shuddered against hers.
“Do not say things like that,” he whispered, voice shredded. “Not when I have you pressed against a wall and my self-control is hanging by threads.”
Her lips parted. “What are you afraid you’ll do?”
He lifted his head just enough to look into her eyes. Whatever he felt was laid bare there—hunger, yes, but something far more dangerous than that. Want. Not of the body alone.
“Everything,” he said.
Her heart hammered.
His hand slid higher on her side, spanning her ribs. His thumb stroked just beneath the bandages near her collar, a soft, reverent touch that contradicted the way he’d pinned her. Her body arched slightly into the contact before she could stop it.
His pupils dilated.
“Do not look at me like that,” he muttered.
“Like what?” she breathed.
“Like I am not beyond saving,” he whispered. “Like I am something you could choose.”
Her throat worked. “What if I don’t know what I’m choosing?”
He lowered his forehead to hers briefly, eyes fluttering shut, their breaths tangling in the small space between them. The contact stole the ground from beneath her feet more thoroughly than any shove ever had.
“That,” he said, “is why I should walk away.”
He did not move.
“Then why are you still here?” she asked.
His lips hovered a breath from hers. She could feel the tremor in him, the war between taking and holding back.
“Because when you reached for me,” he said softly, “you made it worse.”
“How?”
“You made me hope,” he answered.
The word cut through her like light.
“Kaedan…”
He looked at her mouth again.
The moment sharpened, knife-edge thin.
Every inch of their bodies pressed flush. His hand at her waist pulled her closer. Her fingers climbed from his chest to the side of his neck, the heat of his skin startling beneath her palm. She felt his pulse there, racing.
He leaned in.
If she tilted her chin up even a fraction, their lips would meet. The thought flashed through her, dangerous, electric, intoxicating.
Her body forgot to breathe.
His did not.
He dragged in one more breath—and froze.
His hand spasmed against her hip.
His eyes snapped shut and, with a raw sound that was almost a growl of self-hatred, he tore himself away from her as if ripped by invisible chains.
“No.”
Her hand slipped from his neck, fingers closing on air.
He took two staggering steps back, then three more, until his shoulders hit the opposite wall. For a heartbeat he just stood there, head tipped back, staring at the ceiling like he was begging it for strength.
“Not like this,” he rasped.
Ariaxa’s lungs burned. “Like what?”
“Not against a wall,” he said, voice low, controlled only by force. “Not when I am half-mad and you are half-afraid.”
“I’m not—”
He laughed once, sharp. “Liar.”
She flinched.
His gaze softened for only a moment. “You are allowed to be afraid,” he murmured. “But I will not take you while you are.”
The words struck deeper than any touch.
“Kaedan,” she whispered, “you have taken everything else from me.”
“Yes,” he said. “And still I am greedy enough to want more.”
His eyes found hers, dark and burning with a craving he could not disguise.
“That is precisely why I cannot,” he said, “not when I want you.”
The last four words sounded ripped out of him.
He pushed off the wall and strode toward the door, every line of his body rigid, as though if he stayed one second longer, his resolve would snap.
Her heart lurched.
“Kaedan,” she called softly.
His hand hit the doorframe.
He did not turn.
But he froze there, back to her, jaw clenched, shoulders tense, his whole body trembling like a bow drawn too tight.
He stood on the threshold, hovering between leaving and giving in, between restraint and ruin.
He did not move.
He did not look back.
He just stayed there—breathing hard, shaking, every muscle coiled with the possibility that he might turn around, cross the room, and come back to her and ruin everything.