IRIS
I woke slowly, drifting up through layers of profound exhaustion into a state of groggy confusion. The first thing I was aware of was comfort. I was enveloped in a warmth that was both foreign and deeply familiar, a cocoon of soft fabric and a scent that was like coming home to a place I'd never been. It was the scent of pine and midnight rain, the clean, masculine aroma of Kaelen, but it was stronger now, richer, mingled with the sweet, floral scent of my own skin. The second thing I was aware of was the absence of pain. The fire in my veins, the blinding agony of the Bond Sickness, was gone. In its place was a pleasant, heavy lassitude, the deep-seated weariness that follows a long-fought fever.
I blinked my eyes open. The grey, pre-dawn light of the chambers filtered through the windows, casting the room in soft, ethereal shadows. I was in the bed. The big, imposing bed that belonged to him. And I was wearing his shirt. The black training shirt, soft from wear and smelling so powerfully of him that it was like an anchor in the confusing sea of my memories. I remembered the fever, the agonizing pain, his desperate hands on my skin, the horrifying, shameful burn of my own desire. I remembered his rejection, his guttural snarl of denial as he’d pulled away. The memory was a fresh, sharp humiliation.
But then, I remembered something else. A dream, or maybe not a dream. A gentle touch on my cheek, brushing away my hair. A feeling of profound safety, of being watched over. The phantom sensation of that touch lingered on my skin, a soft, warm echo that made my heart ache with a confusing mix of longing and dread. Had he come back? Had I imagined it?
I pushed myself up, the heavy cotton of the shirt falling around my thighs. The bed beside me was empty, but the indentation on the pillow was still warm, and the sheets were rumpled as if someone had been sitting there. He had been here. He had watched me sleep. The knowledge sent a shiver through me, a complex mix of vulnerability and a strange, terrifying flicker of pleasure. He hadn’t just left me to suffer. He had stayed.
Swinging my legs over the side of the bed, my feet met the cold stone floor. I felt… different. The bond was still there, a low, steady hum in the back of my mind, but it was no longer a source of pain or frantic anxiety. It was a quiet, settled presence, a connection that felt less like a chain and more like… a second heartbeat. It was a disorienting, and frankly, horrifying, development.
I found my discarded smallclothes and the leather trousers I’d worn the day before and quickly dressed, needing the armor of my own clothes, even if they were his. The shirt, however, I left on. It felt like a shield, a claim of my own in this strange new territory. I was about to go in search of coffee, or something, anything to clear my head, when the sound of running water from the adjoining bath stopped the thought in its tracks.
The bathroom door was ajar, a plume of steam escaping into the main chamber. My heart gave a nervous little thump. He was in there. Awake. And I was wearing his shirt. The thought sent a jolt of self-consciousness through me, quickly followed by a surge of defiance. This was my room, too, for however long I was trapped here. I wouldn’t be cowed in my own space.
I pushed open the door.
The bath was a vision of opulent luxury, a large sunken tub of white marble carved with Lycan runes, steam rising from its surface like a misty specter. And in the tub, leaning back with his eyes closed, was Kaelen. Water lapped at his chest, the droplets tracing paths through the dark hair there and down the hard, sculpted planes of his abdomen. He was magnificent, a vision of raw, primal power, even in a state of relaxation. His face, free of its usual hard mask, looked younger, more vulnerable, the sharp line of his jaw softened in the steam.
Before I could decide whether to retreat or pretend I hadn't seen a thing, another figure emerged from behind a carved marble screen near the tub. Isolde.
She was wrapped in a silk robe the color of emeralds, a garment that clung to her curves and left little to the imagination. Her blonde hair was piled loosely on top of her head, a few artful tendrils escaping to curl around her face and neck. She looked… radiant. Triumphant. And as she moved toward the tub, she turned her head, and my eyes locked on the side of her neck, just above the collar of her robe.
There, on her pale skin, was a fresh bite mark.
It was a stark, violent purple-red, a perfect impression of fangs that was still angry and new. It wasn’t the old, faded mark I’d seen on her in the Council Hall. This was fresh. This was last night. While I was writhing in agony from the Bond Sickness, while he was out fighting a battle and then, apparently, finding comfort in his ex-lover’s arms.
The world didn’t just stop. It shattered.
The quiet, settled warmth in my chest turned to ice. The fragile sense of peace I’d woken with evaporated, replaced by a cold, black wave of fury so absolute it was terrifying. The bond, which had been a steady, gentle hum, screamed. It was a psychic shriek of pure, unadulterated betrayal. It was a physical pain, a sharp, stabbing sensation right under my breastbone, so intense it made me gasp.
My gasp drew their attention. Kaelen’s eyes snapped open, his silver gaze immediately finding mine. Isolde turned, a slow, deliberate smile spreading across her beautiful, venomous lips. She had planned this. She had wanted me to see.
"Iris," Kaelen said, his voice a low growl of warning. He started to rise from the water, but Isolde placed a delicate, restraining hand on his shoulder.
"Now, now, my king," she murmured, her voice a silken purr. "Don't be modest on my account." She turned her full attention to me, her amber eyes gleaming with malicious triumph. "I was just helping Kaelen… relax. After the stress of the Crimson Pass. He was so… tense."
My gaze was locked on the bite mark. It was a brand. A claim. A public, brutal declaration that I was just a temporary inconvenience. That I meant nothing. That his promises, his momentary lapses into something that felt like caring, were all lies. Everything Ronan had said, every fragile hope I had started to nurture, was a joke. A cruel, pathetic joke.
"You were helping him relax?" I heard myself say, my voice sounding distant, unnaturally calm. It was the cold, dead calm of a winter lake before it freezes solid. "Is that what we're calling it now?"
"Iris, don't," Kaelen warned again, his voice harder now. He had fully risen from the tub, water streaming from his powerful body, his expression a thundercloud of fury. But he wasn't looking at Isolde. He was looking at me, his silver eyes filled with a desperate, pleading look that only fueled my rage. He was caught. And he knew it.
"Oh, don't be angry, little witch," Isolde cooed, taking a step toward me. She tilted her head, exposing the mark, a deliberate, obscene gesture. "A Lycan king has needs. Great… powerful… needs. You can't possibly expect to satisfy them all. You're just a political bond. A duty. I am his pleasure. His choice."
The word *choice* was the final blow. The ice in my veins cracked, and the fury that was unleashed was a wildfire. It burned away the pain, the humiliation, the fear. All that was left was a pure, incandescent rage.
I didn't think. I didn't plan. I moved.
I crossed the marble floor in three strides, my bare feet silent. Kaelen started toward me, his hands outstretched, his mouth open to command, to stop me. He was too late.
I grabbed Isolde. My hands fisted in the front of her ridiculously expensive silk robe, and I slammed her back against the marble wall. The impact was a solid, satisfying thud that knocked the air from her lungs in a surprised gasp. Her triumph vanished, replaced by a flash of genuine fear in her amber eyes.
"You listen to me, you manipulative Fae bitch," I snarled, my voice a low, guttural sound I barely recognized as my own. My face was inches from hers, and I could feel the chaotic, uncontrolled magic crackling at my fingertips, eager to be unleashed. "You think you can waltz in here and play your games? You think you can mark what's mine?"
The words *what's mine* hung in the air, a shocking, possessive claim that stunned us both. But I was too far gone to care.
"He was mine before he was ever yours," she hissed, trying to regain her composure, her Fae glamour wavering under the raw force of my fury. "He will be mine long after you are a forgotten memory."
"We'll see about that," I bit out, my magic surging, a wild, chaotic storm that made the steam in the room shiver and coalesce.
"IRIS!"
Kaelen's voice was a roar of command. He was on me in a second, his hands clamping down on my shoulders like iron bands. He didn't pull me away gently. He wrenched me back from Isolde, spinning me around to face him. His face was a mask of cold, absolute fury, his silver eyes burning with a terrifying light. He wasn't just angry; he was enraged. At me.
"Have you lost your mind?" he growled, his voice a low, dangerous rumble that vibrated through my entire body. "You dare attack her in my stronghold? In my sight?"
The injustice of it, the sheer, blinding hypocrisy, was the final spark. My rage, which had been focused on Isolde, redirected onto him with the force of a volcanic eruption.
"Me?" I screamed, my voice cracking with a fury so intense it was a physical pain. "I'm not the one who was f*cking my ex-lover while my bond-mate was dying from Bond Sickness! I'm not the one who left me alone, in agony, to come back here and stick your d*ck in the first available hole!"
The slap of my words was as loud as a physical blow. Isolde let out a shocked, delighted gasp from behind him. Kaelen flinched, a visible, involuntary recoil. His eyes widened, the fury in them momentarily replaced by a stunned disbelief. He hadn't expected this. He hadn't expected me to fight back with words, to tear into him with the raw, ugly truth of his betrayal.
"That's not what happened," he said, his voice a low, harsh rasp, but the denial was weak, unconvincing even to his own ears. I could feel it through the bond—a chaotic storm of his own guilt, his shock, and a primal, possessive anger that was now entirely focused on me.
"Don't you dare lie to me," I snarled, my hands coming up to shove against his chest. He was like a statue, unmovable. "Don't you dare stand there and lie to my face after I saw that… that *mark* on her neck! After I felt… I felt everything!"
The last words were a broken sob, a crack in the dam of my fury. The pain, the humiliation, the soul-crushing betrayal, finally broke through. I wasn't just angry. I was devastated. He had promised me, in his own brutal, twisted way, that he wouldn't let anything happen to me. He had made me feel, for a few fleeting moments, like I might be more than a pawn. And it had all been a lie.
My shove had done nothing, but my words had finally shattered something in him. His control, his anger, it all fractured. The raw, tormented man I had glimpsed before was back, but this time he was not just vulnerable; he was cornered. Trapped by his own actions and my devastating reaction.
"She was here when I got back," he bit out, the words torn from him. "She was… waiting. It was a mistake. A stupid, f*cking mistake. It meant nothing."
"It meant enough for you to bite her!" I screamed, my voice raw. "It meant enough for you to… to…"
I couldn't finish. The words caught in my throat, choked by a sob of pure, agonized pain. I was falling apart, shattering into a million pieces in front of him, in front of her.
And then, he did the only thing he could do to stop the words, to stop the pain, to reclaim the control that was slipping through his fingers like sand.
He kissed me.
It wasn't a kiss of passion or desire. It was a kiss of violence. Of possession. Of pure, unadulterated fury. His mouth crashed down on mine, his teeth clashing against my lips, a brutal, punishing kiss that was meant to hurt, to dominate, to silence. One of his hands fisted in my hair, holding my head in place, his other arm banding around my waist and lifting me off my feet, crushing my body against his hard, wet one.
I should have fought. I should have bitten, clawed, done anything to get away. But the fury in me was a mirror to his. The pain, the betrayal, it all coalesced into a single, desperate need to hurt him back. I kissed him back with equal violence, my hands fisting in his wet hair, my nails scraping against his scalp. It wasn't a kiss of lovers; it was a battle. A brutal, desperate fight for dominance waged with lips and teeth and tongues.
The world narrowed to this. To the taste of him, the scent of steam and his skin, the punishing pressure of his mouth on mine. It was ugly and brutal and, damn my soul, it was intoxicating. The bond, which had been screaming with my pain, now roared with a primal, triumphant energy. It was a dark, violent symphony of rage and possession, and it was the most honest thing we had ever shared.
I could hear Isolde's shocked gasp from the background, a distant, insignificant sound. All that mattered was this. This brutal, agonizing, and desperately needed connection. He was claiming me. Not with a gentle bite, but with a violent kiss, erasing the other mark, the other woman, with the force of his own possession.
He pulled back as suddenly as he had started, shoving me away from him. I stumbled back, my hand flying to my bruised, swollen lips. They were wet, and when I touched them, I tasted the metallic tang of blood. His or mine, I didn't know. He stood there, breathing heavily, his chest heaving, his silver eyes burning with a dark, dangerous light. A drop of blood trickled from the corner of his mouth.
We stared at each other, the air between us thick with the steam, the scent of our fury, and the ghost of a kiss that had been more of a war than a caress. I was shaking, my body a taut wire of pain and a lingering, shameful arousal that was as horrifying as it was undeniable.
"Get out," he growled, his voice a low, rough rasp, his gaze not on me, but on Isolde, who stood frozen by the wall, her face a mask of disbelief and fury. "Get the f*ck out of my sight."
Isolde, for the first time, looked truly afraid. The mask of the triumphant lover was gone, replaced by the cold, hard reality of a woman who had pushed a king too far. Without another word, she gathered her robe around her and fled, leaving us alone in the steam-filled, shattered silence of the bath.
He turned his burning silver gaze back to me. The fight in his eyes was gone, replaced by a cold, hard despair. "And you," he said, his voice flat, devoid of all emotion. "Get dressed. Get out of my sight."
He didn't wait for a reply. He turned his back on me, walked to the tub, and sank back into the water, his posture one of utter defeat. I stood there for a moment longer, my body trembling, my lips throbbing, my heart a broken, aching mess in my chest. I had won. I had driven her away. But in the process, I had shattered whatever fragile, terrifying thing had been starting to grow between us. And I had never felt more alone.