🪷🪷 CHAPTER SIX

"Tell me about Elena." I chipped in, picking my nails.

Kael's silver eyes snapped up from the ancient text he'd been pretending to read. We sat across from each other in his private study, the fire crackling between us like a physical barrier.

I'd chosen the chair farthest from his desk on purpose but close enough to work, far enough to breathe.

"What about her?" His voice carried the same careful tone he'd maintained for the past three hours.

"Everything." I tapped my quill against the parchment covered in my notes. "Her family, her motivations, why she chose to destroy you specifically. You said nobody knows her reasons, but someone had to know her well enough to hate you."

"Elena was..." He set down his book with deliberate precision. "Complicated."

"That's not an answer." I blurted out.

"She was beautiful, intelligent, and came from the Silvers bloodline—one of the oldest magical families in the northern territories." His fingers drummed against the desk. "We'd known each other since childhood."

I scribbled the notes, keeping my expression normal despite the jealousy that flared through our bond. Not my emotion, I realized with alarm.

"Her family's political standing?"

"They are respected and wealthy. Elena's father served on my council for fifteen years." Kael's jaw tightened. "He died two months after the massacre. He couldn't live with what his daughter had done."

"Guilt by association or actual complicity?"

"Unknown." The admission clearly frustrated him. "Marcus Silvers seemed genuinely devoted to our people. If he knew about Elena's plans, he hid it well."

I chewed the end of my quill, thinking. "What about siblings? Extended family?"

"Elena had a younger sister. Lydia." Something shifted in his expression. "She disappeared the night of the ritual."

My head snapped up. "Disappeared how?"

"Vanished from her rooms. No sign of struggle, no trace of magic. We assumed she'd fled after witnessing..." He gestured vaguely at himself.

"Or someone took her." The pieces clicked together in my mind. "What if Elena wasn't the mastermind? What if someone was using Lydia as leverage?"

Kael went very still. "You think she was coerced?"

"I think a girl who supposedly loved you enough to agree to mating doesn't just decide to curse you into madness without a damn good reason." I leaned forward, excited by the possibility. "We need to find Lydia."

"She could be dead."

"She could be alive and have answers." I stood, pacing to the window. "Either way, investigating Elena's family background might—"

Heat slammed into me like a physical blow.

It started low in my belly, a sudden pulse of warmth that spread outward with alarming speed. My skin felt too tight, hypersensitive to the brush of my clothes. The scent of cedar and starlight that always clung to Kael became intoxicating, making my mouth water.

"Sena?" His voice sounded strained.

I gripped the window frame, fighting the urge to turn around. Through our bond, I could feel his own arousal rising to match mine, fed by the supernatural call between mates. My body betrayed me completely. My nipples hardening, thighs clenching, breath coming in short gasps.

"This is—" I squeezed my eyes shut. "This is the mating heat."

"Yes." The single word was gravelly, rough with need.

"Make it stop."

"I can't." Footsteps approached behind me. "Sena, look at me."

"No." If I turned around now, if I saw the hunger I could feel burning through our connection, I'd do something stupid. Something I'd regret forever.

"The bond is trying to sync our cycles. Fighting it will only make it worse."

"I don't care." But my voice cracked on the words. The heat was building, becoming impossible to ignore. My hands shook as I pressed my forehead against the cool glass.

"Let me help you."

The offer sent another wave of need crashing through me. I could imagine his hands on my skin, his mouth against my throat, the weight of his body covering mine...

"Get away from me." The words came out as a snarl.

"Sena—"

I spun around, immediately regretting it. Kael stood mere feet away, his silver eyes blazing with barely restrained hunger. His hands were clenched at his sides, muscles rigid with the effort of holding himself back. Even in the firelight, I could see the evidence of his arousal straining against his trousers.

"This is what you wanted, isn't it?" My voice rose with fury and frustrated desire. "This is why you forced the bond. So I'd be reduced to this—this animal need that makes me want to crawl to you begging."

"No." But his voice lacked conviction.

"Liar." I backed toward the door, using anger to cut through the haze of lust. "You're enjoying this. I can feel it through the bond—how much you want me weak and desperate."

"That's not—" He stepped forward, then caught himself. "Sena, you don't understand what this is doing to me either."

"Poor cursed Alpha King." I reached for the door handle with shaking fingers. "Suffering so terribly because the woman you bought won't spread her legs on command."

Pain flashed across his features. "It's not like that."

"Isn't it?" The heat pulsed again, stronger this time, and I bit back a moan. "You want me mindless with need. Grateful for any touch you're willing to give. Well, congratulations—it's working."

I wrenched the door open, desperate to escape before I did something irrevocably stupid.

"Where are you going?"

"To take a very cold bath." I paused in the doorway, not trusting myself to look back. "And tomorrow we continue our research. Professionally, If you can manage to keep your supernatural hormones in check long enough."

"Sena, we should talk about this—"

"We should do a lot of things." I stepped into the corridor, putting a blessed distance between us. "But right now, I need to be anywhere you're not."

I slammed the door behind me and practically ran down the hallway, ignoring the knowing look Thane shot me from his position near the stairs. My skin felt like it was on fire, every nerve ending screaming for touch that I refused to seek.

The cold bath helped marginally. I sat in the stone tub until my teeth chattered, letting the icy water shock some sense back into my overheated system. But even then, I could feel Kael through our bond—his own frustrated arousal, his guilt, his desperate need to come to me and offer comfort I wouldn't accept.

When I finally emerged, shivering and slightly more in control, I found a tray of food outside my door. Simple fare—bread, cheese, tea that smelled like chamomile and lavender. Nothing that would require me to face him again tonight.

The note tucked under the teacup was written in his elegant script:

/We'll research Elena's family tomorrow. Rest well. —K/

I crumpled the note and threw it into the fireplace, watching the parchment curl and blacken. But I kept the tea, grateful for its calming properties even as I cursed myself for being grateful for anything he provided.

The mating heat would get worse before it got better. I knew that much from the magical texts I'd studied over the years. And fighting it would only make the eventual crash more painful.

But I'd endure ice baths and sleepless nights before I'd give him the satisfaction of seeing me break. He might own my life through that cursed bond, but my body—my choices—those were still mine.

Even if every cell in my being was currently screaming otherwise.

I settled into bed with one of the curse texts, determined to lose myself in research. But the words blurred together as my traitorous mind conjured images of silver eyes and skilled hands, of what it might feel like to give in to the heat burning through my veins.

Tomorrow I'd be professional. Clinical. I'd focus on Elena and her family and finding a way to break this curse so I could finally escape.

Tonight, I'd lie here wanting things I couldn't have and hating myself for wanting them.

The mate bond pulsed with shared misery, and for once, I didn't try to block it out. At least we were both suffering equally.

It was a cold comfort, but it was something.