Kaedan didn’t walk into the bathhouse—he stormed in, a living tempest of rage and bloodlust.
Steam curled around him like smoke from a battlefield. Slaves shrank back instinctively, covering themselves, scrambling against the marble walls. None of them mattered. None of them existed in his vision.
Only Ariaxa did.
And she was in Riven’s arms.
Bleeding. Naked. Trembling against another male’s chest.
Kaedan’s vision went black at the edges.
Riven shifted his stance defensively, though still bowing his head. “My Emperor—she was attacked—”
Kaedan didn’t let him finish.
With a sound half-snarl, half-roar, he ripped Ariaxa out of Riven’s hold, grabbing her by the waist and dragging her against his own body like a stolen treasure.
“Mine.”
The word tore from his throat, feral and raw.
Ariaxa gasped, clinging to his shoulders for balance. “K-Kaedan—!”
Riven didn’t move.
He should have.
Kaedan’s palm hit his chest like a strike of thunder.
Riven flew backward, slamming into the tiled wall with a grunt of pain. Slaves screamed and fled. Water splashed violently from the force. Silence crashed down after.
Kaedan didn’t even look at him.
His entire focus was on the woman shaking in his arms.
He noticed every wound. Every bruise. Every drop of blood.
He shrugged off his cloak and wrapped it around her body—pulling it tight, sealing her inside it like he could trap her heat, her breath, her life.
His fingers trembled.
Ariaxa felt it.
“Kaedan…” she whispered weakly, her voice cracking.
His grip only tightened. Possessive. Terrified.
Without another word, he lifted her fully into his arms—ignoring that she was wet, cold, and slick with blood—and carried her out of the bathhouse in full view of the stunned harem.
Not a single slave dared speak.
Not even Mirel.
Because Kaedan Valtaris had just broken every rule of imperial protocol by taking a slave into his arms like a wife, like a queen, like something far more sacred than the empire’s authority.
And he didn’t care.
***
The door slammed shut behind them with a violent crack.
Kaedan moved like a man in a trance, setting Ariaxa down not on the cold marble floor, but directly onto the silk-covered chaise near the fire.
He tore a blanket off the bed and wrapped it around her shoulders, adding layers to the cloak she still wore.
Then he crouched in front of her.
An emperor kneeling.
Hands shaking.
Eyes burning.
And for the first time Ariaxa could remember… he looked afraid.
But fear was devoured by fury the second he saw the blood staining her skin.
His voice emerged like a blade.
“Where. Are. You. Hurt.”
Ariaxa opened the cloak slightly.
Blood ran down her ribs. A deeper gash leaked across her hip. A bruise darkened on her shoulder.
Kaedan inhaled sharply.
Then his hands were on her—dangerously gentle, almost reverent—pulling the cloak aside, wiping water and blood from her skin with trembling fingertips.
“Who touched you?” he demanded, his voice shaking with contained violence.
“Two slaves,” she whispered. “They had obsidian shards. Riven—he—”
Kaedan slammed his fist against the arm of the chair, making her flinch.
He froze instantly.
His voice dropped to a deadly whisper.
“You bled in his arms.”
She swallowed. “You weren’t there.”
“That is no excuse.” His fingers tightened on her waist before he forced them to relax again. “It should have been me.”
Ariaxa held her breath as he dipped a cloth in warm water and lifted it to her ribs. His touch was so gentle she almost cried.
He cleaned the wound with slow, deliberate strokes, every movement tense.
She whispered, “Why are you so angry?”
His jaw locked.
He leaned closer, his mouth hovering near her ear.
“Because you bled,” he growled, voice low and lethal. “Because you were hurt.”
Her breath hitched.
Then the truth cracked out of him like lightning.
“Because you bled in another man’s arms.”
Ariaxa’s heart stuttered.
His hand slid up to her bare shoulder, thumb gliding over the bruise there. Her body shivered involuntarily under his touch.
He noticed. Oh, he noticed.
His pupils dilated until only a ring of crimson remained.
He traced down her collarbone.
Her throat.
Her ribs.
And every time she gasped, he paused—eyes locking onto hers, breath sharpening, like each sound she made was a hook sinking deeper into him.
“Kaedan…” she whispered.
He exhaled shakily. His voice was barely human anymore.
“You do not understand what it does to me. Seeing another man hold you. Seeing your skin on him. Your blood. Your breath.”
His hand slid to her waist, fingers splaying over her hip.
Her pulse hammered against her throat.
He leaned in, forehead nearly touching her cheek, his lips brushing her skin not quite gently, not quite possessively.
A warning.
A question.
A promise.
“Kaedan,” she whispered again, even softer.
That single breath made him break.
He dragged his lips slowly down her neck.
Not biting.
Not yet.
Just tasting the heat of her skin.
Just breathing her in.
His hands tightened on her waist, pulling her slightly closer. Ariaxa’s own breath tangled, her body going taut beneath his touch.
He hovered at the hollow of her throat.
His voice was barely a whisper, trembling with hunger and fury and desperation all at once.
“Ariaxa…”
She shivered.
His lips ghosted over her pulse.
“I should punish you…” he murmured, breath hot against her skin, “…for letting him touch you.”
Her breath caught in her chest.
His hands slid up her sides, slow, deliberate, claiming.
Then his lips brushed her neck.
Barely there.
A threat.
A plea.
A confession.
“Tell me not to,” he whispered.