Chapter Four: Draven Territory

Liana

POV

Draven Castle felt like a mouth closing around me.

Stone. Cold air. The weight of his power pressing from every wall. Kael barely spoke during the journey. The moment we crossed into his territory, something in him went quieter and more dangerous. His silence wasn’t calm, it was the kind of silence that came right before something broke.

My room was in the family wing.

His was directly across the hall.

No thin walls. No father. No one left to interrupt. Just the bond pacing between us like an animal that had finally been locked in the same cage as its prey.

I lasted forty minutes.

Forty minutes of staring at the stone walls, at the door that faced his, at the bandage on my arm that still smelled faintly of my own blood and the power that wouldn’t fully settle. The bond didn’t care that I was exhausted. It pulled, steady, relentless, toward the room across the hall like it had already decided the argument was over.

I hated how much of me agreed.

This wasn’t the estate. There was no father down the stairs. No familiar hallway to retreat into. Only Kael’s territory, Kael’s rules, and the knowledge that every enemy who had scented my awakening would eventually look here first. He had brought me somewhere safer. He had also brought me somewhere I could no longer hide from what the bond had done to both of us.

I stood up before I could talk myself out of it.

If he wanted distance, he could say it to my face.

I crossed the hall and knocked.

Then I crossed the hall and knocked.

Kael opened the door like he had been standing on the other side of it the entire time. His eyes were already dark. His shoulders rigid with the effort of holding himself in check.

“You shouldn’t be here,” he said.

“You brought me here.”

“To keep you alive.”

“And to keep your hands off me?” I stepped closer. “How’s that working so far?”

His hand braced against the doorframe hard enough that the wood creaked. A muscle jumped in his jaw. I could smell it on him, the want, the fury, the self-hatred all tangled together so tightly they were the same thing.

“Liana. Go back to your room.”

“No.”

“I’m warning you.”

“You’ve been warning me for days.” I held his gaze. “I’m still here.”

For a second he didn’t move. Then his hand shot out, gripped the front of my shirt, and dragged me inside. The door slammed shut behind us. In the next breath he had me backed against the wall, His body didn’t touch mine fully, but the heat of him did. It rolled off his skin in waves, mixed with the sharp scent of restraint starting to fail. I could feel the fine tremor in the hand locked around my wrist. He wasn’t steady. He was holding himself together by force alone.

“You think I haven’t imagined this?” he said, voice low and strained. “You in my territory. No one left to interrupt. Nothing stopping me from taking what the bond has been screaming for since the clearing.” His forehead dropped against mine again, harder this time. “I have thought about it every hour since we arrived. Thought about putting you on your knees. Thought about fucking the defiance out of you until you stop pushing and just take it.”

My breath caught. The honesty in his voice was uglier and more arousing than anything soft could have been. The bond surged hard between us,

one hand locked around my wrist, the other braced beside my head. His body caged mine without quite touching. He was breathing hard. So was I.

“You keep pushing,” he said, voice low and rough. “You keep standing in front of me like you don’t understand what I want to do to you.”

“I understand.”

“No. You don’t.” His forehead dropped against mine. His breath was uneven. “If I stop holding back, I won’t be careful. I won’t stop at kissing you. I will take you apart. I will fuck you like I’ve been starving for it, and I will hate myself the entire time I do it.”

My pulse slammed between my legs so hard it hurt. “Then stop holding back.”

A broken sound left his chest. His grip on my wrist tightened hard enough to bruise. He stayed there, forehead against mine, shaking with the effort of not closing the last inch.

“You have no idea what you’re asking for,” he said.

“I’m asking for you to stop pretending this isn’t already destroying both of us.”

His free hand gripped my hip, fingers digging in. For a long moment he just breathed against my mouth, fighting himself so visibly it was almost painful to watch. Then something in him tore.

He kissed me like a man who had already lost.

Kael

POV

I had told myself I could manage it.

That once she was behind my walls I could rebuild the distance. I had been lying. Having her in my territory only made the bond more vicious. My wolf considered this his ground, and her presence on it a claim already half-made.

When she knocked, I should have ignored it.

Instead I dragged her inside.

The second the door shut, the last of my restraint started tearing. I backed her into the wall hard enough that her breath left her in a rush. Her scent flooded my lungs. Newly shifted. Still carrying residual power. Already wet. I could smell it. My cock was so hard it hurt.

“You keep coming closer,” I said, voice wrecked. “You keep pushing. You don’t understand what happens if I stop.”

“Then stop.”

I dropped my forehead against hers, shaking with the effort of not taking her mouth.

“If I take you, I won’t be gentle,” I said. “I will claim what the bond has been screaming for. And once I do, there is no version of this where I let you go.”

Her hands fisted in my shirt. “I’m not asking you to be gentle.”

That was the last clean thought I had.

I kissed her like I hated how much I needed it.

Fuck this is happening, my best friend daughter