Private Tales The Loved and Lost Club

The rain lashed at Cullen’s face as he flew, soaked through and gripping the reins tighter than necessary. The healer had promised to come, had assured him with calm certainty that she would be right behind him, but Cullen had never flown Meala so fast as he did now, and the healer had fallen behind.

He hated leaving her, hated how her voice trembled beneath the weight of pain, how she looked at him like he’d carved the wounds himself. He didn’t know what else to do. Couldn’t sit there and watch her fall apart, not when his presence seemed to only make it worse. At least now he had something to offer her, reassurance that a healer was on the way. That she could go home and rest, that she wouldn't need to look at him again.

Cullen’s brows furrowed the moment the outpost came into view. There were more dragons than there should be. A surge of unease twisted in his chest at the sound of Kalyss’ panic.

He landed hard, boots slipping slightly in the mud as he leapt off his dragon, drawing his weapons as he sprinted to the tent.

The canvas of the tent loomed up, dimly lit from within, flickering shapes casting shadows against the walls. Cullen shoved the flap aside and froze.

Fedyr was hunched over Nadya’s cot, and Nadya looked.. Gods, she looked wrong. Too still. Too pale.

No.

“What happened?!” Cullen’s voice cracked, harsh with disbelief, his chest heaving as he strode inside. “What the fuck happened, I was gone for an hour!”

Cullen was already shoving Fedyr aside and sliding onto his knees beside her. His hand hovered, unsure where to touch, afraid to cause more damage, and so it settled on her clammy face, "Hey. Nad - wake up. Wake the fuck up.“

Cullen looked down at her. Her breath was shallow. Her face was streaked with tears that hadn't even dried. His heart pounded in his chest, thudding loudly in his ears in pure terror.

“I know you can hear me - you need to open your eyes.” His voice was lower now, hoarse. “Don’t you fucking dare leave after everything. You don’t get to just—”

He faltered, eyes burning. “You don’t get to go before we’ve fixed it.”

Cullen had been barely holding himself together, his hands still trembling with the memory of her going still beneath them, but the moment Faye arrived, everything shifted.

He backed off when told, watching as the blade flashed and the tent split open to welcome something far older, far stranger than anything the battlefield had to offer. The blind creature moved with reverence, its nostrils flaring as it breathed against Nadya’s battered form. The purring, almost melodic rumble filled the tent, setting Cullen’s heart to a new rhythm, softer and slower.

Magic bloomed. Not wild, chaotic flame, but something warm and deliberate. Living.

He caught Nadya stirring, saw colour bloom back to her cheeks, and Cullen nearly sagged with the sheer weight of relief.

He was already moving by the time Faye barked at them, slipping back into place without needing to be asked twice. He lifted Nadya as if she were made of the finest porcelain, his eyes never leaving her face. Her head lolled slightly toward his shoulder, and his breath caught again.

Still here.

Still breathing.

He didn't even flinch when her soaked undershirt was cut away. He kept his gaze locked above her collarbone, jaw clenched, throat tight. The moment Faye finished, he laid her back down with care most people wouldn’t think him capable of, the weight of her settling into the cot as if the tent itself could finally exhale.

Cullen’s hand followed, trailing his knuckles lightly over her now-warmed skin of her cheek and trailing to her throat, feeling the slow, steady pulse that hadn’t been there before.

“Thank you,” he rumbled low, his dark eyes lifting to Faye, meeting her sharp gaze, then leaned in and pressed a grateful kiss to her cheek. “Once again. I owe you more than I can say.”

He sank back to his knees, settling beside Nadya once more. The tent felt smaller now, quieter. Softer. He watched the way her chest rose and fell with new steadiness, and only then did he let out the breath he’d been holding since the moment he’d left her.

Fedyr’s words reached him from the tent’s entrance. Cullen didn’t even turn to look, nor did he move.

“I don’t give a fuck where I’m needed,” he said quietly. His voice wasn’t loud, but it was unshakable. “I’m not leaving her again.”

He shifted slightly, resting his arm on the cot, gaze fixed on Nadya’s face.

“Not until she wakes up.”

Cullen stood in the doorway, silent for a heartbeat too long.

The sweet bread in his hands was still warm, its honeyed scent drifting through the air between them. His damp hair clung to his face and the nape of his neck, he wore fresh clothes, loose black linen shirt and breeches, comfortable when his posture was anything but. Rigid, coiled, uncertain.

He held his breath as his eyes settled on her, assessing her, reassuring himself that she was awake. Safe. It was like staring at something once thought lost to the dark and found again in a place so familiar it didn’t feel real.

Her eyes, though tired, were open. She was alright.

He cleared his throat as gently as he could, voice lower and more unsure than anyone would ever associate with the battle-hardened man.

“Can I come in?” he asked, almost sheepishly. “Stass thought you might be hungry.” He glanced down at the plate in his hands, then added with a quiet huff of a laugh, “Kat’s already made me eat three..”

He paused, then rubbed at the back of his neck, eyes dropping for a moment. “They also insisted I bathe.. Apparently I smelled like a swamp rat that'd crawled up a dead jarlax' arse and died there."

His mouth quirked, a weak attempt at levity, but behind his eyes the relief was raw, genuine and palpable. The last kernel of fear that had lived in his chest, even as she breathed beside him, finally loosened its hold.

He didn’t step in. Not yet. He stood there waiting, arms lightly tensed with the plate held between them like an offering. Awaiting her verdict, whether she'd send him away, or let him in to face the impossible chasm that had grown between them.

Cullen crossed the threshold the moment she allowed it. His steps were slow, careful, as though any sudden movement might shatter the fragile moment between them. The corner of his mouth twitched in something like relief when she spoke of Katerina.

“Mh.. She’s dangerously good,” he murmured in agreement, easing into the chair beside her bed with the reverence of a man kneeling before an altar. “And I’ve learned my lesson. Never praise a Caliar girl’s baking unless you’re prepared to eat it for the next decade or two.”

He placed the plate gently on her nightstand as he watched her try to sit up, and something behind his eyes winced, as if her pain mirrored in him. He would have helped, he desperately wanted to, but knew her pride would sting more than any ache in her muscles. So he waited, hands clasped loosely, body leaning forward like he was preparing to catch her if she so much as swayed too far.

And then her voice broke, and he watched her unravel in front of him. Not the strong dragon rider, not the Commander of iron will, not the shield between Thanasis and chaos, but the woman. His Nadya.

Tears ran freely down her cheeks, and he reached for her hand without thought or hesitation. Calloused fingers folded over hers with a tenderness that belied the strength they carried.

“Don’t,” he said softly. It wasn’t a reprimand. It was a plea. "I know.."

His voice wavered like the flicker of flame about to be extinguished. “We don't need to talk about it.. I thought I lost you and I couldn't...”

He shook his head, throat working as if it physically hurt to contain the emotion. A breath escaped him, ragged and low, and he lifted her hand to his lips, pressing a kiss to her knuckles with all the gentleness of a man begging forgiveness he wasn’t sure he deserved.

He looked up, grey eyes meeting hers, stormy and unguarded. “You don’t need to be sorry, Nadya. You just need to be here.”

Cullen couldn’t sit still, not when her sobs hit him like a blade between the ribs.

The moment she crumpled behind her hand, trying to shield him from her grief, something in him gave way. The chair scraped back just a little as he stood, and then he was beside her, the mattress dipping under his weight as he sat gently on the edge of the bed.

He didn’t ask. He didn’t need permission.

His arms wrapped around her carefully but firmly, pulling her against his chest like he could anchor her there and hold her together with his embrace alone. She smelled like the storm, something uniquely Nadya, something familiar enough to make his throat burn.

A kiss, soft, steady, was pressed into her hair, and his cheek rested against her crown. “Hey,” he whispered, one hand slowly stroking her back, the other curled protectively around her shoulders. “I’m here, aren’t I?” he reminded her, his voice was low and warm.

“We can work through it. All of it.” He held her tighter, chest rising and falling in slow, controlled breaths, because one of them needed to be steady.

“I’m just relieved that you’re alright,” he murmured into her hair. “That you’re here. That I get to hold you.” His fingers gently curled in the fabric of her sleeve. "I can't claim to understand... but we can get through this."

His arms didn’t loosen, not even slightly, as her body shook with the weight of everything she’d carried alone for far too long. The silence between them wasn’t empty. It was a lifeline, a balm, the space she needed to unravel.

But the moment she spoke Ilir’s name, spoke what he had done to her, Cullen went utterly still. A dangerous, breathless stillness.

He didn’t interrupt. He let her speak. But beneath the steady rhythm of his hand on her back, the tension grew taut as a bowstring. Rage rippled just beneath his skin, quiet and simmering like a blade sheathed in trembling restraint. She wouldn’t feel it in his grip, he held her as gently as ever, but it lived in the way his breath caught, in the stilling of his thumb, in the sudden, hard swallow that bobbed in his throat.

That bastard. That fucking coward. Ilir had made a habit of hurting women, hadn’t he? Lording his power over people he thought couldn’t fight back. Sadly, Cullen had been deprived of harm by Ilir's own hands, it'd been his men he'd ordered to have him beaten and dragged to a cell.

Cullen had tried to scrub it all from his mind, to accept his fate and leave it in the past, but now? Ilir had marked himself.

He held Nadya tighter as he felt the tremors ripple through her. A protective, steadying warmth wrapped around her like a shield. When her voice faltered, when the pain in her words threatened to pull her under again, Cullen shifted slightly. He leaned back just enough to tilt her chin gently with his hand, guiding her face up to his.

His eyes burned. That deep storm in them had returned, but this time it wasn’t sorrow, it was fury. White-hot and glinting, barely contained behind the tremble of his jaw as he clenched it. He tried to soften it, to shield her from it. But it was there.

Still, his voice was calm. Low. Controlled. Protective. “Stay away from Ilir,” he said, firm and final, like it was law. “What’s done is done. He will get his comeuppance.”

His thumb brushed her cheek gently. “You don’t need to worry about any of that anymore. That’s not yours to carry.”

He drew in a slow breath through his nose, as if reigning himself back in from a cliff edge.

“I’m sorry,” he said, softer now, voice thick with guilt. “I dragged you into all of this. I should have known better. Should have been there. I never meant for you to get caught in the middle.”

He pressed another kiss to her forehead, fierce and lingering. “I should have protected you.”

Cullen’s brow furrowed, the crease between his eyes deepening as she spoke of her plans. Of blood, and revenge, and what sounded dangerously close to walking back into Ilir’s jaws willingly. His arms tightened around her, not to restrain, but to hold her firmly in place, to make sure she heard him.

His head shook slowly, his voice barely above a whisper but threaded with an aching plea.
“No, Nadya. Stay far away from it. From him. Please.”

There was fear beneath the words, fear that he rarely showed. But she knew it. She always had. “Ilir’s done enough damage already.” His jaw clenched again, his voice quiet but laced with anguish. “He’s dangerous. I don’t care how careful you are, he doesn’t fight fair. He doesn’t lose fair. And he’d rather ruin you than let you win.”

He paused, letting the weight of that settle before his gaze found hers again.

When she spoke of her jealousy, something in him shifted. His expression, so steeped in that quiet storm, softened, his eyes dimming, lips parting like he might speak but didn’t know how. The silence lingered between them like a held breath.

“I’ve always loved you, Nadya,” he frowned, his thumb tenderly brushed her cheek again. “I hope you know that. You’re the only one who’s ever been there for me, regardless of… everything.”

His brow furrowed as though something in him buckled under the weight of his own words.

“I just never thought…” He trailed off, swallowing hard. His throat worked around the words, but they didn’t come. He cleared it, tried again.

“I don’t know what I was thinking. With Eira. It was a terrible idea from the start. I just—” His hand curled gently in the fabric at her back, grounding himself with her nearness. “For a while, I forgot who I was.." He let out a bitter breath, barely a laugh.

“But I’m no good to anyone, Nad. Especially not anyone with a name or a title to uphold.” His head shook slowly. “Everything I touch turns to ash.”

Cullen's heart pounded violently against his ribs the moment she said the words.

I want you, Cullen. I cannot go back to being just your friend...

His breath hitched.

“Nad—” he started, voice tight with the strain of all the things he wasn’t supposed to feel. But then her lips brushed his, and the rest of the world fell silent.

The hesitation in his chest burned away, consumed in the fire of that kiss. His body moved before his thoughts could catch up. A low, guttural sound rumbled from him as his fingers tangled into the thick strands of her hair at the nape of her neck, gripping like she might vanish if he didn’t hold her there. His other hand found her hip, holding her steady as if the ground itself had begun to quake.

And maybe it had. Maybe he had.

He melted into her kiss like it was the first real thing he’d felt in months, like he’d been starved and suddenly fed, parched and finally tasting the sweetest rain. Her taste was fury and longing, forgiveness and fire, and gods help him, he wanted more.

But then his mind slammed into his chest like a wall. What was he doing? His lips stilled, his breath catching between them, ragged and harsh.

He broke the kiss. His forehead rested against hers for a beat, his eyes closed tight. He was still breathing her in like she was the only air left, but he wasn’t kissing her anymore.

“Nadya…” he said again, softer this time. Like the word alone could break him. His eyes opened, and for a moment they roamed her face with a raw kind of desperation, as if he was seeing her for the first time.

“Stop.” He said it gently, his voice trembling. “I can’t…”

His hand at her hip trembled as it slowly withdrew.

“I can’t lose you,” he murmured, his frown deepening, his voice rough with emotion. “And if I let this happen… If I give in now, I'll only drag you down with me. I'll only fuck this up..” he swallowed thickly, shaking his head. “That would break me, Nad..”

He pulled back just enough to look her fully in the eyes, his own dark and stormy, holding her gaze like it was the only thing anchoring him.

"I’ve already ruined so much.” His hand cupped her cheek gently. “You’re the best thing in my life.. I won't ruin you too."

“Please don’t do this.”

His voice was raw, barely above a whisper, but it cut through the quiet like a blade. He didn’t move, afraid even a breath in her direction might shatter her the rest of the way.

“Nadya, please.”

His hands were clenched in his lap, the tension in his fingers a poor substitute for the way she’d just held him. His chest heaved with the weight of what he’d just thrown away, but he forced himself to stay still as she turned from him.

“You think I don’t want you...” he rasped. “What the fuck is there not to want?”

He let out a breath, shaky, broken. “But if I let myself have this, have you.. I will ruin it. I will ruin us. And I can’t…” His throat worked around the words. “You are all I fucking have and I've almost lost that one too many times already. If I lose you, I don't come back from that.”

His eyes lifted to her back. “Right now, I still have you. Maybe not, in that way, but I have you. I know you. You look at me like I’m worth something, even when I’m not. Even when I don’t believe it. You still… see me.”

Silence. Just his ragged breaths and the distance between them.

“I know I’m hurting you, and I fucking hate it. I know I’m the coward here. But fuck Nadya, I’d rather have your anger than your absence. I’m not strong like you, Nad. You survive pain. I cause it. You deserve so, so much fucking better than that."

Something in his chest cracked when she stood and moved away from him. The moment she tore from the bed and crossed the room, Cullen felt it, the part of him that still believed he had time, still believed he could keep her at arm’s length without breaking both of them, splintered like rotted wood. He reached for her. Not physically. Just reached. And then froze.

She turned, and every word she spoke scraped against old wounds that had never fully healed. The sound of his last name from her lips.. Cullen flinched. His hands balled into fists. That name was a curse. It was chains. It was a collar and leash.

“So that’s it?” His voice was rough, disbelieving. “If I don’t give myself to you, you’ll hate me? You’ll walk out of my life forever?” His breath hitched. “A fucking ultimatum, Nadya?”

The pain that had simmered beneath his skin for so long boiled over. Grief, rage, yearning, all of it twisted into something feral as he stood and took a step toward her.

He had been about to say more. About his father. About how nothing in his life had ever been his. How this city owned him now just as much as his father once had, how it stole every choice, every dream, every ounce of peace he could've had.

They had taken the only thing he'd ever wanted. Eira was the only thing he'd ever chosen for himself... But, had he? Or had he been just a passing fancy. A rough little fantasy for a noble girl to have her fun with before she moved on to something far better..

Because he couldn't have happiness. Because he didn’t deserve it. His jaw clenched. Fury sparked behind his eyes.

“Of all fucking people…” he snarled under his breath.

Cullen closed the distance in a few long strides, seizing her roughly. His hand gripped the crook of her neck, shoving her back against the cold stone wall with a dull thud. His body crashed into hers with trembling restraint, his breath hot and furious as it ghosted against her ear.

“Is this what you want?” he growled. “To control me?” His voice was venom. A shield for the part of him that was breaking.

“I’m just a Marked One, remember? A lesser. A fucking slave.” His hips ground into hers, the fury in him coiled tight as he hooked her thigh around his waist. His lips brushed against hers, taunting, aching, threatening. He held her gaze, those storm-lit eyes that always saw too much, and didn’t look away.

“I’m at your fucking service — My Lady,” he seethed, the title like ash on his tongue.

His voice dropped, bitter and hollow. “You want me to fuck you, Nadya? Say the word. I’ll give you what you want. I’ll ruin you.”

Cullen’s entire body thrummed with tension. With fury, with grief, with the unspeakable ache that came from being so seen and so misunderstood all at once.

Her words were blades. Each one cut deeper than the last.

Still in love with Eira.
Wanting to be played by her.
Not the Lady he’d kneel for.

He should’ve known she would fight like this. Nadya could wield words as well as she could wield weapons. She didn’t slit throats, she slipped beneath your ribs and carved out what mattered most.

And he let her. Because part of him believed he deserved it.

His fist rose like it had a will of its own and smashed into the stone beside her head with a thunderous crack. The wall trembled.

He didn’t open his eyes. His head bowed forward, resting near her shoulder, trembling with restraint. Breath heaving. His heart pounded against his ribs like it was trying to break free.

The words came hoarse. Low. Barely controlled.

“…I thought I knew you.” A pause. His voice broke with rage. “Clearly, I don’t.”

He swallowed the burn at the back of his throat. “I didn’t realise how fucking cruel you could be…”

When his eyes finally opened, they were darker than she’d ever seen them. Rage still there, but beneath it, something gutted. Hollow. The wreckage of a man still trying to stand amidst everything collapsing.

His hand dropped from her leg. From her skin. From hope. He stepped back like the distance might save him. Might stop him from saying something he couldn’t take back.

“If you want to hate me, Nadya… then hate me.” His voice was cold now. Empty in the way that meant he was already starting to shut down, to wall up what was left of himself before she could set it on fire.

“I stayed here to make things right,” he murmured. “But this…?” He shook his head, eyes sweeping over her like he didn’t know if he loved her or hated her for what she’d become. “This isn’t right.”

Silence stretched between them like a blade between ribs.

“There.. Now I really do have no one” His lip curled, bitter. Final.

“Congratulations.”

He turned, shoulders heavy with everything unsaid, and walked away. And every step felt like dying.

Cullen stopped dead in front of her, breath ragged, eyes gleaming with disbelief and fury as she dared to ask him if he was satisfied.

In a heartbeat, he was toe to toe with her, his voice rising, shaking, broken from too many wounds that had never quite healed.

“Me?! Are you—are you fucking mental?!”

His hands clenched into fists at his sides, trembling as he fought to hold himself back.

“How hard did you hit your head exactly, Nadya?” He laughed, but it was bitter, hollow, no humour left in him.

“You, my best friend, had the woman I loved dragged away from me by her twisted brother. You gave him information that he can hold over me, that he can use against me to have me killed if he wants to. You had my home burned. You had me beaten to shit, thrown into a cell to rot for weeks, and when they finally dragged me out, it was just to toss me to the front lines like I was already fucking dead!”

His voice cracked, and still he stepped closer, unable to stop himself.

“Oh wait, sorry, I was meant to thank you, right? Thank you so much for ensuring I got to keep Meala. Thank you so fucking much for your mercy, Nadya.”

The venom in his voice scorched. His eyes, black with hurt and betrayal, scanned her face, as if still trying to find the girl he once trusted more than anyone in the world.

“And then you stomp around acting like I’ve betrayed you?! That I’ve done something terrible to you?! You tell me you’ll cut me out if I don’t fall into your arms like some storybook idiot and forget everything you did?”

He was shouting now. Not at her, at the ghost of her, the lie she was forcing him to confront.

“You’re fucking delusional, Nadya!”

“I thought I lost you…” His voice dropped, hoarse now. Hurt. “…And I was terrified. You’ve been at my side since we were children. You're all I have left. And now you’re standing here rubbing salt into the wounds you inflicted, daring to say you’ll hate me if I don't drag you into my arms and whisper sweet nothings like none of this happened?”

His jaw clenched, the tendons in his neck tight as a bowstring. “How is this fair?” His eyes bore into hers. “How is any of this fair?” His voice dropped, softer now, but laced with razorwire.

“…How is this any different to what they do to me? How are you any different, Nadya? How can you claim to care for me at all when you're about to cut me out of your life for not giving you what you want?”

He shook his head slowly, as if the image of her standing in front of him, arms crossed, judgmental and cruel and weeping all at once, didn’t make sense anymore. Like she wasn’t who he thought she was. He stepped back from her, half a pace, just enough to breathe.

"I didn't know you were capable of any of this, Nad. And it's breaking my heart more than losing her ever did." he admitted and dropped his gaze to the floor. "Get out of my way."

Cullen didn’t move at first. Her sobs hit him hard, but he didn’t reach for her. Didn’t comfort her. Not now. He stood frozen in the eye of the storm, staring at her shaking frame, her shoulders trembling, voice broken, grief pouring from her in shattered pieces as she pushed him away.

His fists uncurled slowly at his sides. He didn’t understand her. Did she truly think this was the way to earn his love? To corner him? Strip him of choice? To reduce everything they’d been through into this cruel, manipulative gamble?

His voice was low. Controlled. And yet it carried a gravity that stilled the air between them. “I forgave all of it.. Because I thought I’d lost you. Because I told myself, you did what you did to protect me.”

He paused, jaw tight, breath steadying. “But this?” His voice cracked, not with rage this time, but something quieter. Something that sounded dangerously close to defeat. “What you're doing now... the way you're using your grief like a blade... This is something I’m not sure I can forgive, Nad.”

“I’m sorry that I hurt you,” he said. “I’m sorry if I was blind. If I’ve been stubborn, or angry, or didn’t give you what you wanted.”

He stepped close enough that the storm of her body pressed against the edge of his calm.

“But if you want me to stay…” He looked her straight in the back. “Then apologise. Tell me you’re sorry. Tell me you didn’t mean what you said. That this isn’t how our story ends.... Fix this, Nadya. Now. Or let me walk out that door.”

His voice dropped to a whisper. It wasn’t a threat. It was a mercy. A last chance.

“That’s your ultimatum.” he said, and waited.