Ariaxa didn’t wait.
Didn’t breathe.
Didn’t think.
The moment the throne room doors slammed behind Kaedan, she stormed after him down the obsidian corridor, the echoes of Riven’s punishment still ringing inside her skull. Her footsteps were quick and sharp, the fury inside her hotter than the Sunfire her people once wielded.
“Kaedan!” she shouted.
He didn’t stop.
She chased him deeper, past shadowed alcoves, past braziers burning blue, until he reached the war hall — and only when the doors shut behind them with a thunderclap did he turn.
His eyes were black pits of emotion — anger, jealousy, something more unstable than either.
Ariaxa spat, “How could you do that to him?”
Kaedan tilted his head slightly, his jaw ticking once. “You stormed after your Emperor to defend another man?” His voice was calm. Too calm. “An interesting choice.”
“You punished him for protecting me,” she snapped. “For saving me in the baths.”
Kaedan’s stare burned. “I punished him for kissing you.”
“He kissed me because you—”
“—Because,” Kaedan cut in, voice dropping dangerously low, “he put his mouth on what is mine.”
Ariaxa didn’t think.
Her hand moved first.
SLAP.
The sound cracked through the war hall like lightning splitting stone.
Kaedan’s head jerked to the side, hair falling across his cheek.
Silence swallowed the room.
Ariaxa realized she’d just hit the Emperor of Vharon.
Hard.
Her heart pounded so viciously she felt it in her fingertips. Her breath trembled. Her palm stung.
Kaedan slowly, slowly, turned his head back toward her.
His eyes were fathomless.
He didn’t move.
Didn’t speak.
For one terrifying heartbeat, Ariaxa thought he would rip her throat out.
Instead, when her hand lifted for another strike—more fear than intention—his fingers shot up and caught her wrist mid-air.
The grip was steel.
Cold.
Possessive.
He yanked her forward, slamming her back against the wall with a thud that shook her bones. His body pressed to hers, caging her between muscle and stone. The collision stole her breath, her sanity, her ability to stand without his hold.
Their faces were inches apart.
“Keep testing me,” he hissed, breath hot against her lips.
Her pulse exploded.
She pushed against his chest, but he only pinned her harder — not hurting, but making it very clear that her strength meant nothing against his. His thigh slid between hers as he shifted her wrists above her head, holding both with one hand.
Her legs trembled traitorously.
“Let go,” she whispered, voice cracking.
“Tell me to,” Kaedan growled back. His forehead pressed to hers, hot and fevered. “Beg me to let you go. Or beg me to stay.”
The air between them sparked, thick enough to choke on. His scent — smoke, dark cedar, blood-warm velvet — wrapped around her, dizzying.
Ariaxa felt every inch of him:
the hard line of his chest,
the heat radiating through his clothes,
the tremor in his fingers as he forced himself not to touch her more.
Her breath came sharp and shallow.
“This is wrong,” she whispered, even as her body betrayed her, arching subtly into his hold.
Kaedan’s jaw clenched so tightly she could hear it. “I know.”
His thumb traced a line along her wrist — slow, tormenting, almost reverent. “You make me lose control,” he murmured, each word breaking apart in his throat. “You tear the ground out from under me.”
“You’re hurting everyone around you,” Ariaxa said, voice trembling. “Riven. The harem. Me.”
“You care for him?” Kaedan’s voice dropped to a feral quiet. “More than you care for your Emperor?”
“I care,” she breathed, “that you are destroying the only people still loyal to you.”
His breath shook. “I punished him because I wanted to punish you.”
The confession stunned her.
Kaedan saw it — and his eyes darkened with something rawer than lust, deeper than fury.
“I cannot stand the thought of another man touching you,” he said hoarsely. “I cannot think. I cannot breathe. I cannot—”
“Kaedan…” she whispered.
He cut her off, voice rough. “Do you understand what that does to me?”
Her knees weakened, the wall cold against her back.
“You’re obsessed,” she whispered.
His lips brushed her ear, barely a graze. “With you? Yes.”
Her breath stuttered.
He crushed her tighter against the wall, the heat of his thigh pushing between hers. Her thighs squeezed involuntarily around him, her panic and desire colliding until she couldn’t tell where one ended and the other began.
“I can smell your heartbeat,” he whispered. “I can feel exactly what you’re feeling.”
Her body was betraying her again — heat rushing through her, breath catching, thighs tightening.
“Stop,” she gasped.
“Tell me to stop,” Kaedan growled, voice cracking. “Tell me to pull away. Tell me you want nothing to do with me.”
She couldn’t.
Not with his breath ghosting her lips.
Not with her pulse drumming against him.
Not with his thigh pressed where she couldn’t ignore him.
Her silence enraged him.
Destroyed him.
He slammed his fist into the wall beside her head, stone cracking beneath his knuckles. A dusting of rubble fell between them.
Ariaxa jumped.
Kaedan squeezed his eyes shut and ripped himself away from her like tearing off his own skin.
He staggered back a step, chest heaving, fingers trembling violently.
“I cannot touch you,” he rasped, voice hoarse, “when I am like this.”
Ariaxa stared at him. At the wildness. The restraint. The hunger. The fury. All braided into one impossible, dangerous man.
Her voice barely carried.
“Then change.”
Kaedan froze.
Absolutely froze.
As if she’d driven a blade straight into his heart.
He looked at her like she had just shattered the entire world under her heel — and he didn’t know whether he wanted to kneel before her or tear the palace apart.
That was the moment the war between them truly began.