Chapter 8: An Offered Blade

KAEL

The door shuts behind her and the atmosphere in my chambers shifts. It grows thicker, charged. I feel her before I even turn… a pull in my blood, a wild, angry strength that is just… Lyra. She's standing there, and I can feel her silver eyes on my back, tracing the scars there, each one a story, a failure, a lesson. I let her look. I let the silence between us grow, a test, the first of many tonight. She's the one who breaks it, of course she is… her voice flat and firm, a shield she thinks can protect her.

"You wanted to see me?"

I turn slowly, making sure she gets a good view of everything that I am, the firelight traveling over old scars and spare muscle. I want her to see the man, not the Alpha… real flesh and blood. In my hand, I hold the dagger, the obsidian wolf carved into the hilt, the steel catching what little light there is. It's a part of my will, my history. I hold it out to her, hilt forward… an offer, an appeal, a confession maybe, a death wish maybe. I don't know anything anymore.

"Take it."

Her eyes go wide for a second, a fleeting glimpse, before they narrow again, wary, searching for the trap, because there's always a trap with me, isn't there? "What is this?" she says, and her voice shakes, just slightly, a fissure in the armor. "One of your games?

"Not a game," I say, my tone even… too even for the storm brewing within me. "A clarification." A wry, small smile pulls at my mouth. "The only trick is the one you play on yourself, convincing yourself you're powerless. This… is a choice."

She reaches out her hand, her fingers shaking, so close to the hilt I can feel their heat. The conflict in her is written in the strained line of her shoulders, the racing beat in her throat. When her fingers finally wrap around the leather, when she feels its firm, honest weight, her eyes return to mine, confused, scared, furious.

"Why?" she whispers, the question wrenched from her, naked and raw. "Why offer me this chance? For your entertainment? To see me crawl?"

"I have not been entertained by the simple things in life in a long while, Lyra," I tell her, and it's the truth… there is nothing simple about her, she's a beautiful mess that I am unable to look away from. "I want to know what you choose. I want to know which wolf in you is stronger."

"What choice?" she snaps, but it's brittle, breaking. "To be murdered by your guards' blades instead of yours? You call this a choice?"

"I call it an opportunity," I say, stepping closer. The space between us disappears, the heat of her reaching me. The blade of the dagger she holds is near, close enough I can almost feel the cold of it on my skin. "You get one free shot. Right here." I tap my chest, just above the heart that's beating too fast for her. "If you strike it, you can take your odds with the men out there. If not… " I let the rest of it hang in the air, dark and implicit enough. "Or, you can lower the knife. Walk through that door, and we let our… arrangement be. As it is."

I meet her wild-eyed stare. "Hate? Or survival? Hate is a good fire, Lyra. It warms you in the darkness. But it burns everything, including the person who uses it. Survival is stone. It lasts." I tilt my head. "So which are you? Fire or stone?"

The tension is so palpable I can smell it… metal and flame. Her arm lifts, the blade aimed at my heart, and I don't move, don't even breathe. I just look at her, let her see what's in my eyes… no lies, no tricks. This is it. And I see everything in her eyes… the ghosts of Ravengarde, the shame in the hall, the clean, burning anger she has for me. Fighting against the instinctual need to live, to survive another day.

A half step forward she moves towards me, tension between us inevitable, something drawing us together like an invisible thread. Then I feel it… the cold tip of the dagger press into my chest. A burning pain, then a surge of warmth as it pierces flesh. I gaze, half hypnotized, as a single black bead of blood wells up around the point… a red pearl on my skin. My life is in her hand, literally, and she could do it. She could thrust it in, kill me, kill this hell for both of us.

And then there's a sound that tears from her… a shattered, strangled sob that rends her asunder… and the knife slips from her hand, clattering on the stone floor, the sound ringing out in the silence. She's crying, tears streaming down her face, and she doesn't even try to hide them.

"I hate you," she whispers, the words heavy with a hatred so deep it's nearly sacred.

I close the gap between us in a stride, my hands rising to cup her face. Her skin is soft and warm under my thumbs as I wipe away her tears. She flinches but doesn't pull back. "I know," I say, my voice rough. "But you chose to live. With me."

Her head jerks up, eyes flashing with fresh, furious betrayal. "You wanted me to fail!" she sobs, her body shaking against me. "You set this up so you could prove you were right! So I'd prove I was a broken toy!"

"No." My voice is rough and low, wild and honest. I bend my head until our foreheads almost touch. "I had to see if you'd defend yourself. If you were powerful enough to have my life in your hand and make a choice… any choice… for yourself." I stand still for a moment, letting it settle in her mind. "And you did. You stood there, had my life in your hand, and you chose to let it keep beating. That's all I had to see."

Her defiance is a crumbling, thinning wall. "This doesn't make me yours." A last, desperate stand.

I lean, my lips a breath from hers. Her breath catches, and her scent… woodsmoke, sweat, and something wild, something uniquely Lyra… fills my senses and annihilates reason. "You already are," I breathe against her lips, the words a final seal, a truth she cannot deny. Whenever you fight against me, whenever you breathe my air, whenever you look at me with that fire in your eyes. You are mine. Even in your hatred."

And I force my mouth down on hers.

This isn't like the first time… then it was punishment, a claim. This is… an inferno. Her nails dig into my shoulders, sharp enough to draw blood. My tongue forces its way past her lips, and I taste her. salt and rage and capitulation. It's a battle and a surrender all at the same time. She nips my lip, sharply, and I groan, grabbing her hips and slamming her into the stone wall behind her. The collision forces a cry from her that I devour. My body pins hers, every rigid line of me against her yielding softness. I can feel her heart pounding against my chest… or maybe it's mine. I don't know. I don't care.

One of my hands fists in her hair, yanking her head back so I can kiss her more fiercely, devour her. And she's not passive… far from it. She fights with me with every ragged breath, her hips bucking against mine in a frantic, savage rhythm. Her teeth scrape against my tongue, and her moan vibrates straight through my bones. It's filthy and sloppy and perfect. It's hate and need and reality all twisted up until there's no way to distinguish one from the other. And I know… with a certainty that scares the hell out of me… that I'm a goner. Completely, hopelessly gone for this wild, broken, incredible little wolf.