Chapter 24: Moonlight and Madness

Moonlight spilled over the ice-covered stone balcony, glazing the entire thing silver and fragile.

I leaned against the iron railing, misting the air with my breath. The Keep lay out before me — an ancient black castle perched on the cliffs like some forgotten horror.

Through the halls, the Court still churned with resentment after tonight's play. I could hear them, their soft sneering mutters, echoing down the hallways. Whispers of my human toy, Kael wrapped so tightly around me.

How long would I last before breaking?

I ought to have been scared. Possibly some of me was.

I was angry though.

Angry with them. Angry with this cursed world. Angry with Kael.

Because regardless of what he'd told me, that he'd keep me safe, he was the one who'd brought me here. He was the one who'd had me tied to him by unseen threads I couldn't see or shed.

The door creaked open behind me.

I didn't need to turn to know he was. His presence hung in the air, charged and thick.

"You're supposed to be in," Kael growled, his voice low and strained.

I clung to the railing more tightly. "I needed air."

There was silence.

"You're drawing attention to yourself," he muttered after a time. "Standing there like that. Exposed."

I swung around to face him directly in the cold moonlight.

"Let them look," We spat, hating how our voice shook. "Let them see the human you keep in bondage to your side like a trophy."

We went dark with We went dark with the threat. "Be careful what you say, Scarlett. "

"Or what?" We laughed a harsh, metallic noise. "You'll make me a prisoner all over again? March me off to your bed like booty you don't even desire?"

Something snapped in his eyes.

He was next to me in two rapid strides, above me, with palms to either side of my head against the railing.

I was gagging, the heart pounding in my throat.

He was that close I could feel the heat off him, sense the distant hum of the metallic flavor of blood that clung to him.

"You don't want me?" he snarled. His voice was raw rage, held in by the thinnest of threads.

I'd had my mouth open to respond — to spit out something biting, something that would scare him off like I wanted him to — but the words jammed in my throat.

Because I could see it.

The truth of it.

Seething in his red eyes.

He wanted me.

Struggled against it.

Loathed it.

But he desired me.

The air between us crackled like a stretched bowstring.

His lips slammed into mine — angry, hard, bruising.

I gasped into him, and he took advantage of the moment, brutalizing the kiss, one hand griming in my hair to jerk my head back.

No sweet thing.

No gentle.

War.

A war of teeth and tongues, of fury and ravenous hunger so intense it could tear me in two.

I pushed at his chest, a useless, futile action. My body betrayed me, curving toward him instead of away.

He snarled, in the back of his throat, the sound harsh and animalistic enough to make my knees turn weak.

His arms wrapped around me, instinctively, holding me tighter, holding me to the flat rigidity of his body.

I could feel it all — the power, the restraint, the age-old hunger he fought so gallantly to repress.

I kissed him back because I couldn't live without him.

I kissed him back like I couldn't live without him.

Moonlight fell upon us both and shadow, two shattered things rending each other in the darkness.

His fangs grazed my bottom lip, and threat and warning blended.

I whined whimpering cry that I didn't know I was capable of making.

Stock still, Kael did stand.

He set me there in one of his breath-scorched moments, and I — somewhere between hell and heaven.

And then he ripped himself loose as if dumped in a tub of ice water.

I staggered, hanging on to the railing for dear life. Chest rising and falling, lips locked, heart crashing like a caged bird against my ribs.

Kael stood a few feet from me, fists into fists at his hips, shaking with rage restrained.

His eyes — Oh God, his eyes — glowed like hot embers, bitter and uncontainable.

"This," he seethed hard and mercilessly, "never had to happen."

The words slapped like a blow.

I winced, arms wrapped up tight around me as if I could contain the unraveling at its point of breakdown.

"Right," I growled, scrubbing at my eyelids to fight off the fury of tears. "Because it's safer just to pretend that all of this is occurring. Safer to pretend you don't care, pretend you don't feel anything."

He whirled around, his face twisted up in pain and fury.

"I don't," he snarled hatefully. "Not for anyone. Not for you."

A lie.

I knew it.

I could tell.

But he would not take it. To force it with sheer will.

"I am not yours," he growled, voice low and threatening. "And you are not mine. Never forget that, little human."

Little human.

As if I was somehow inferior to him. Something to be used.

The words cut deeper than any hurt.

Stunned, I retreated into the shadows of the balcony. "Don't worry," I whispered. "I won't forget."

Kael dangled there for a moment longer, every muscle as taut as wire, his gasps harsh against the stillness of the night.

And then he spun on one heel and disappeared into the Keep, without another word.

Leaving me alone there, standing in the moonlight, shaking with a thousand things I didn't know how to say.

The wind howled at the tower, bitter and unyielding.

And I knew something in deep bone knowledge:

Whatever this was between us — this hunger, this madness — would kill us both.

And perhaps, I needed it too.

To be continued...