KAELLEN
The sound of the heavy oak door slamming shut echoed in the steam-filled bathroom, a final, percussive note to the symphony of destruction. I didn't move. I stayed submerged in the cooling water of the tub, my back to the room, my gaze fixed on the intricate marble carvings on the opposite wall. The steam that had been a cloak of relaxation was now a suffocating, cloying shroud, carrying the scent of her fury and the coppery tang of blood from our brutal kiss.
My body was a taut bowstring of unreleased energy. The primal, possessive rage that had driven me to kiss Iris, to erase Isolde’s stench from my chambers with the violent claim of my mouth, still hummed under my skin. It was a dark, triumphant roar in my Lycan soul. *Mine.* I had marked her again, not with a bite, but with a kiss of fury and possession that had been more honest, more real, than any political maneuver. I had driven Isolde out. I had reasserted my dominance.
But the man, the king, felt only a cold, hollow ache. The look on Iris’s face as I’d shoved her away… it wasn’t the look of a defeated rival. It was the look of a woman whose heart had been broken. A look of utter, soul-crushing devastation. And I had put it there. My rage, my jealousy, my possessiveness—I had used it like a weapon, and I had shattered the very thing I was, in my own twisted way, trying to protect.
I slammed my fist against the marble edge of the tub, the sharp, jarring pain a welcome distraction from the chaos in my soul. The water sloshed, a small, agitated wave that mirrored the storm inside me. Isolde. Her name was a curse in my mind. I had been a fool. A weak, pathetic fool. I had come back from the Crimson Pass, my body aching, my mind frayed with battle and the lingering terror of the Bond Sickness Iris had suffered. And there she was. A convenient, familiar comfort. A willing body to sink into, to forget the terrifying new reality of my life for a few moments.
I hadn’t bitten her. The mark on her neck was a lie, a clever piece of Fae glamour she’d used to provoke Iris, to push her to the breaking point. But I had let her touch me. I had let her stay. I had allowed the situation to exist, a passive, cowardly betrayal that was, in its own way, worse than an active one. I had let her create the weapon that was now aimed at the heart of my bond-mate.
Pushing myself out of the tub, I snatched a drying cloth from a heated rack, scrubbing it over my skin with rough, impatient strokes. The scent of Isolde’s cloying floral perfume clung to me, a foul residue that made my stomach turn. I had to get it off. I had to scrub her touch, her presence, from my skin before it drove me mad.
I threw on a pair of loose training trousers, my movements sharp and agitated. I needed to find her. I needed to… what? Explain? Apologize? The words were foreign, clumsy things in my mental vocabulary. Kings did not apologize. They commanded. They enforced. And I had just enforced my will in the most brutal way possible. I had proven to her, once and for all, that I was the monster she believed me to be.
The thought was a cold, hard knot in my gut. I stalked out of the bathroom, my bare feet silent on the stone floors. The main chamber was empty, but her presence was a physical force. The air was thick with the scent of her fury—sharp, electric, like ozone after a lightning strike. My eyes fell on the bed. The pillow she had been clutching was now on the floor, and the sheets where she had lain were a tangled, angry mess. She was gone. But I could feel her through the bond, a frantic, chaotic energy on the balcony.
I found her standing at the balustrade, her back to me, her knuckles white where she gripped the cold stone. She was still wearing my shirt, the black cotton a stark, dramatic slash against the pale morning light. Her posture was rigid, a line of pure, unadulterated defiance, but I could feel the tremors running through her, the aftershocks of our violent collision.
"She's gone," I said, my voice a low, rough rasp. I hadn't meant to speak, but the words were torn from me.
She flinched, a slight, almost imperceptible tightening of her shoulders, but she didn't turn around. "Did you kick her out? Or did she leave on her own once she realized her little performance was over?" Her voice was flat, dead, devoid of any of the fire that had been there moments ago. It was worse than her anger. It was the sound of her giving up.
"I banished her," I said, the words feeling heavy, clumsy on my tongue. "From my chambers. From my court. She is not to return."
Finally, she turned. Her face was a pale, beautiful mask of devastation. Her lips were swollen and bruised, a dark, purpling mark that was a testament to my violence. Her eyes, which usually flashed with defiance and intelligence, were now dull, clouded with a pain so profound it felt like a physical blow to my chest.
"Banished?" she repeated, the word laced with a bitter, hollow laugh. "Don't pretend this is about me. This is about your pride. She challenged your authority in front of your new toy, and you had to put her back in her place. Don't dress it up as some grand gesture on my behalf."
"It's not about pride!" I snarled, my own frustration and self-loathing rising up to choke me. "It was a mistake, Iris. All of it. Letting her stay… letting her touch me… it was a stupid, weak mistake. It meant nothing."
"It meant enough for her to think she could get away with it," she shot back, a spark of the old fire returning to her eyes. "It meant enough for you to stand there and let her parade that… that *lie*… in front of me. To let me believe it. To let me feel it through the bond. Do you have any idea what that felt like? To feel your… your *pleasure*… with another woman while I was dying from a sickness you caused?"
The accusation was a lance of ice, straight through my heart. I hadn't even considered that. The Bond Sickness had been a shared agony, but I hadn't realized, in my own selfish, weak moment, that our bond might have transmitted a twisted echo of my encounter with Isolde to Iris. The thought was nauseating.
"No," I said, the word a hoarse, desperate whisper. "Gods, Iris, no. It wasn't like that. It was nothing. It was… a void. An escape. It meant less than nothing."
"An escape?" she scoffed, wiping at a tear that had escaped and traced a path through the grime on her cheek. "You needed an escape from what? From the terrible burden of being bound to me? From the horrific responsibility of having to protect me? From the awful fate of having a woman in your life who actually challenges you instead of just spreading her legs?"
Her words were brutal, ugly, and completely deserved. I took a step toward her, my hands raised in a gesture of surrender I had never made to anyone. "Iris… stop. Please. You're right. All of it. I was weak. I was a coward. I came back from that fight… seeing you like that, from the Bond Sickness… it terrified me. The thought of losing you, the power you have over my soul… it's a weakness I have never had. A vulnerability I don't know how to fight. And I ran. I ran to the one thing in my life that was easy. That was meaningless. It was the worst mistake of my life. Because it hurt you. And for that… I am sorry."
The apology hung in the air between us, a fragile, breakable thing. I had never said those words to anyone. Not since I was a boy, and my father had beaten me for showing weakness. The words felt foreign, terrifying, but they were also true.
She stared at me, her lips slightly parted, her eyes wide with a shock that was slowly being replaced by a dawning, wary comprehension. She saw the truth in my eyes. She saw the crack in my armor, the raw, bleeding wound of my own regret.
"You're… sorry?" she whispered, the words sounding like they were in a language she didn't understand.
"I am," I said, my voice rough with an emotion I couldn't name. "For the hurt. For the humiliation. For the… cruelty of my kiss. For all of it. It was unforgivable."
She didn't say anything for a long moment. She just looked at me, her gaze searching my face, as if trying to find the lie, the catch, the political maneuver. But there was none. It was just me. Stripped bare. A king apologizing to his captive.
"Sorry doesn't fix it," she finally said, her voice quiet but firm. "It doesn't erase the image of her in your bath. It doesn't erase the feeling of your… satisfaction… with her. It doesn't erase the fact that you kissed me like you wanted to kill me."
"I know," I said, my voice heavy with the weight of my own failures. "I know it doesn't." I took another step closer, closing the distance between us until I could see the individual, dark lashes framing her wounded eyes. "But I am done running from this, Iris. From us. This bond… it's not a curse. It's not just a political tool. It's real. What I feel for you… the rage, the possessiveness, the need… it's the realest thing I have ever felt. And I am done pretending it's not."
It was the most honest confession of my life. A raw, terrifying admission that stripped away every layer of my control, every piece of my strategic armor. I was laying myself bare at her feet, giving her the power to destroy me completely.
She just stared at me, her breath caught in her throat. The fire in her eyes was back, but it was different now. It wasn't the fire of anger. It was the fire of a dawning, terrifying, and perhaps, hopeful understanding.
"I don't trust you," she whispered, the words a final, fragile barrier between us.
"I know," I said, my voice soft, a low rumble. "You shouldn't. But I am going to spend every moment of every day trying to give you a reason to."