Private Tales The Price of Defiance

[Sadie]

Sadie blinked slowly at his response.

Her mind was hollow. Empty. A void where her thoughts should be. She just stared, the answer falling flat between them, as if it had landed on the marble floor and shattered into dust.

Food. That was what he thought she had meant when she asked 'why'.

Her body swayed slightly as exhaustion pressed into her bones, dragging her further into the numbness that had been creeping through her body ever since she opened the fifth book. She should have laughed. Should have screamed in his face. Should have felt something. Anything.

Instead, she stood there. Silent.

A long breath left her lips, ragged at its edges.

She wasn't sure how long she stared at him, stared through him, mind grasping for some sort of reaction. But there was nothing. Her throat ached from crying. Her arms and legs felt like lead. Her soul- if she even had one- felt like it had been wrung out and left to dry in the cold winter air.

Food. That was all he had to say.

She sighed again, softly, something that may have held a bitter, empty laugh if she had the energy for it. Her stomach growled, giving him the answer she couldn't say out loud. Her fingers tightened around the door frame, holding her upright when her body swayed again. Her vision darkened at the edges.

"Not what I was asking." She mumbled as she turned away and made way over to one of the chaises, where she promptly collapsed into it's cushions. She didn't slam the door in his face. Didn't even close it. She just let him in. Let him decide what he was going to do with her. With her life. If he wanted to feed her before he killed her, so be it.

 

[Nikolai]

Nikolai watched her in silence.

The slow, vacant blink. The way she just… stared, as if his words had meant nothing. As if he meant nothing.
He didn’t know why that irritated him, what the fuck did he expect? Thanks for going back for her?

Her exhaustion was palpable, bleeding from every line of her body, pulling her down, down into something that looked far too much like surrender. When her stomach betrayed her with a low growl, his lips pressed into a thin line, but he said nothing.

Then, finally, she spoke—quiet, mumbled, almost an afterthought. Not what I was asking.

And yet, she didn’t push him away. Didn’t slam the door. Didn’t even close it. She just turned and let herself fall into the chaise, body sinking into the cushions as if she could disappear inside them.

Nikolai stepped inside without a word. The room smelled of ink and old paper, of dust unsettled by restless hands, of sorrow so thick it might as well have been carved into the stone walls.

He ignored the books strewn across the floor, the scattered remnants of whatever she had learned, whatever had hollowed her out. Instead, he studied her. The way her fingers gripped the armrest, knuckles pale. The way her chest rose and fell with slow, deliberate breaths.

His jaw tightened as he stared at her. She was crumbling before him, hollowed out and raw, yet all he could feel was the rising, seething tide of rage. Not at her. But at the question—at the weight of it, at the truth of it, at the memory of why.

His hands curled into fists. His throat locked. Guilt tangled with shame, with something uglier, something black and festering that coiled in his gut.

"You know why."

The words scraped from his throat, low and edged with something sharp, something almost pained. He forced them out anyway. He forced himself to look down, to see the book at his feet, the ink that had flayed her open, that had left her staring at him like he was a ruin in the shape of a man.

The silence stretched, thick and suffocating. Then, finally, he turned away. His fingers twitched at his sides, restless with the words he could not give her, with the truths she already knew.

"I’ll bring you something to eat," he muttered.

 

[Sadie]

Sadie exhaled sharply. Barely a breath. Barely a sound. It was just something to keep herself from snapping. She didn't look up at him, didn't acknowledge the way his voice had dipped into something she would have sworn sounded an awful lot like guilt. But she didn't care.

Because he was right. She did know. She clenched her jaw so tightly that she thought her teeth my crack. She did know why he did it. She just could not accept it.

Sadie curled her fingers into the armrest, digging her nails into the fabric as she willed her breaths to slow until they were deliberately measured. Something she could hold onto. Anything that could prevent her from letting go of her emotions, because if she did let go, she wasn't sure what would happen.

What was left of her to break?

She swallowed against the tightness in her throat but it did little to quell the way her stomach twisted or the way her heart still pounded too loud, too fast. She wasn't going to cry. Not in front of him. Not after everything he'd done. But fuck, she wanted to scream. She wanted to break things in a rage. She wanted to demand that he make it all make sense.

But there was nothing. There was no sense to be made.

And then, just as quickly as he had shattered her world, he turned away and stated he would bring her something to eat. And that nearly broke her more than anything else. There was not an argument to be had. It wasn't an order. His tone held not even an ounce of his all-too-familiar mockery.

It was just food. Like she was some helpless, fragile little thing he could put back together with a warm meal. "I don't want your food." She mumbled, voice hoarse and hollow when she finally spoke. She wasn't even sure he'd heard her. Maybe he did. Maybe he didn't.

Maybe he just didn't care. He left anyway.

The moment his footsteps disappeared, whatever had been holding her together snapped. She collapsed completely into the chair like a puppet with its strings cut, pulling that same blanket- the one she had used to stem the bleeding on her wrist- over her face.

And then finally, she let go. Again, she sobbed. Quiet, broken and angry. She cried until her chest ached and her lungs burned. Cried until she could barely breathe through the pain in her ribs. Cried and prayed he would poison this meal so that it would be her last and she would not lead the world into ruin. Prayed she would see her family on the other side. Prayed she could put an end to this curse.

 

[Nikolai]

Nikolai stood in the kitchen, staring at the tray in front of him, fingers braced against the counter.

I don’t want your food.

Her voice clung to him like smoke, like something that seeped into his skin and stayed there. He had heard her. Of course, he had. But leaving had been easier than staying. Easier than facing what lay in the wreckage between them.

His hands were shaking.

He curled them into fists, forcing the tremor to still. Forced his breathing to even out, though the rage still roiled, still burned beneath the surface. Rage at himself. At her. At the past. At the cursed, tangled fate that had bound them together like this.

She prayed for death.

He had scented it on her before—the wish, the longing, the quiet, hollow surrender. And yet, she kept breathing. She kept existing. She kept fighting, even if she did not realise it.

Nikolai inhaled sharply and exhaled slow, his fingers flexing against the cool marble. He could hear her, even now, through the stone and the distance between them. The quiet, broken sobs she thought were only for herself.

He closed his eyes, but it did nothing to block out the sound.

It would be easier if she would just scream, if she would rage and yell and hit him. He knew how to deal with fire. He knew how to stand against a blade. But this? This silence, this crumbling grief, this hollow nothingness—he didn’t know what to do with it.

He swallowed, and before he could think better of it, he moved.

The food was left forgotten. He turned back, retracing his steps down the darkened hall until he stood at her door once more. He didn’t knock this time. Didn’t offer food. Didn’t mock her.

Instead, he leaned against the doorway, watching the trembling shape beneath the blanket, listening to the quiet devastation in her breath. His voice, when he finally spoke, was rough. Lower than before.

"Sadie." he said, the word feeling foreign on his tongue.

It wasn’t a command. It wasn’t anything, really. Just her name, raw and frayed at the edges, like something torn from him before he was ready.

 

[Sadie]

She hadn't stopped crying since the moment he left. The second Nikolai had turned and left, she'd curled in on herself, tucking her knees in tightly to her chest and burying her face in them. She inhaled the scent of the blanket that still smelled like her blood, still smelled like him. Like the past month of her life had been stripped apart, piece by piece until there was nothing left but this moment.

It wasn't just grief. No. Grief would have been far kinder. This was ruin.

Tears soaked into the blanket. She hated it, hated how much of herself she was wasting on a history that was already written in blood long before she had ever had a chance to fight against it. Sadie's body shook from the force of her sobs, silent and wretched, until the cries themselves stopped making any sound. Until she felt like the might be drowning in her misery.

Sadie.

Her body went still. Her tears still flowed, but she held her breath, hoping he would go away. She had begged him before to call her by that name- her name. To give her that, just that, instead of the peculiar choices he had made, like Ilithore, which curled off his tongue and held her like a chain. He never listened. Not once.

And now? Now...

She squeezed her eyes shut tightly, like she could shut him out with the simple act. Like she could stop her chest from aching when he said her name. Like everything since her life went to hell, his words had lost their mockery, their cruelty, the way they were usually layered with his cutting amusement and sarcasm. Now they were just raw. Real.

Like the words had been torn from his throat before he was ready to say them.

Sadie finally inhaled sharply and uncovered her face- red and blotchy. Her fingers tightened into the blanket, still holding it tight to shield her sobbing self as she met his violet gaze. She blinked against the haze of unshed tears, vision blurring, before she swallowed once and whispered.

"What do you want?" She tried to sound brave, to sound like she could stand up against him like she wished she could. But there was nothing but the hollowness. Nothing but complete hopelessness.

 

[Nikolai]

Nikolai didn't move at first.

Her eyes—red-rimmed, swollen from crying—met his, and something inside him twisted so violently that he nearly turned and left again. Coward. He swallowed hard, shifting his weight as though it would somehow lessen the heaviness pressing against his ribs.

What do you want?

Her voice was small. Hollow. That was what nearly broke him.

He had seen her fight, seen her rage. She had cursed him, screamed at him, defied him at every turn, and he had met every moment with his usual amusement, his sharp-edged mockery. But this? This quiet, miserable thing in front of him?

He had done this to her. He clenched his jaw so tightly he thought his teeth might crack. He wanted to tell her to get up. To stop looking at him like that. To fight him like she was supposed to.

She just looked at him. Like she was waiting for something. And for once, he didn’t know what to say.

His hands flexed at his sides, unsure. He didn’t move closer—not yet—but his throat worked around words he didn’t even know how to say. Words he didn’t want to say.

"I—" He cut himself off. His breath was unsteady. He looked away for the briefest moment before dragging his gaze back to hers.

“I didn’t have a choice.” The words scraped against his throat like they didn’t belong there. He exhaled sharply, shaking his head. “I know that doesn’t matter. I know it doesn’t make anything better. But it’s the truth.”

He shifted on his feet, like he was uncomfortable in his own skin. And then, carefully, hesitantly, he moved toward her. Slowly. Like he expected her to recoil or spit in his face. He expected her to push him away. He wanted her to push him away.

He lowered himself onto the edge of the chaise, close enough that he could hear the way her breath still shuddered in her chest. He hesitated for a fraction of a second before reaching out, his fingers brushing against the blanket she clung to so tightly. He curled his hand into the fabric, an anchor for himself more than anything.

“You can hate me.” His voice was quieter now. “You should.” He forced out a hollow breath of laughter, but there was nothing remotely amused about it. “You should want to kill me. I’d understand that.”

His grip on the blanket tightened.

“But you can’t—I refuse to allow you to stop fighting, Sadie.”

He didn’t know what he was doing. He didn’t know why he was doing it. All he knew was that she was breaking, he hated it, and he didn’t know how to stop it.

"Hurt me, if that's what you want. I won't stop you."

 

[Sadie]

Sadie stared at him. She didn't blink. She didn't move.

She just stared at him, empty and quiet, as he struggled through words he had no trouble with before. Words he had never seemed to stumble through like it was something new. I didn't have a choice.

Was that what he had wanted her to believe? Was that supposed to make it better? Was it supposed to make any of this make sense? Her breath stuttered as he sat beside her, her own fingers tightening as his curled into the blanket she was clinging onto, like it was the only thing that could keep her safe.

"I do hate you." She let out a broken, bitter laugh, he breath trembling as she finally broke her silence. Her words were soft, but raw and true. She swallowed hard, her gaze flickering to his hands before forcing herself back up at him. His eyes burned into hers. Too much.

She wasn't strong enough for any of this.

"If you didn't have a choice," she rasped, "then you would kill me right now." Her voice cracked and she hated that it did that. Hated how weak she sounded, how weak she knew she was. Hated how lost she was.

The truth bled into the air between them, poisoning it. "I don't understand you." She whispered. "I don't want to fight you. I'm not going to fight you. I don't want to fight anyone." Her lips parted as though she might continue the though, like there was more to say. But then, she just...stopped.

What was the point?

She dropped her gaze, staring at his hand, the way his knuckles had gone white from how tightly he gripped the blanket.

Her voice was barely audible when she found the courage to speak again. "I've given up, Nikolai." She didn't notice that it was the first time she'd said that dreadful name the woman had moaned aloud. But she didn't care. There was nothing to care about.

"Just finish what you started. You've got your prize right here. I'm sure this is the easiest chance you'll ever get to kill one of my kind."

 

[Nikolai]

Nikolai clenched his jaw so hard it ached. His fingers dug into the blanket between them, his knuckles stark white. Gods, he wanted to shake her, for all the good it would do. It wouldn’t fix this. It wouldn’t fix her. Wouldn’t snap her out of this wretched, hollow despair that twisted something inside him so violently he barely recognised it.

"Just finish what you started."

"You've got your prize right here."

"I'm sure this is the easiest chance you'll ever get to kill one of my kind."

His breath came slow and controlled, a dangerous counterpoint to the sharp, unspoken fury in his gaze.

“I can’t kill you.” The words were forced from him, low and tense. "I should have, several times, but I can’t. Just as I couldn’t when I found you a month ago. Just as I couldn’t when I..." He faltered. For a split second. A single moment of hesitation before his head shook sharply.

"When I did what I did."

He let the silence settle, thick and unbearable. He wasn’t expecting his words to make her feel better. He knew they wouldn’t. He knew there was nothing he could say to mend the wreckage sitting in front of him.

His grip on the blanket was ironclad, but it wasn’t enough. His hands twitched with the unbearable urge to move, to do something.

"Do you really think I didn’t know where you were hiding all those years ago?" His voice was quieter now, but no softer. "Do you really think I couldn’t sense you?"

"It’s like I said," he murmured, a low growl threading through the words. "I am the only reason that you are alive."

 

[Sadie]

Sadie let out a hollow, broken laugh and just looked at him. Not with rage or sorrow, but something colder. Something far more dangerous. Her fingers dug into the blanket she had curled around herself, but the fabric was doing little to halt the shiver that ran down her spine. The weight of his words pressed down her chest, heavy, suffocating, and yet it wasn't enough to snuff out the storm building inside her.

She exhaled sharply, her voice hoarse but unwavering.

"Why?" She demanded. And when he didn't immediately respond, she continued. She needed him to answer. "Why can't you kill me?" Needed to hear him say it.

"You should have, you know." She forced herself to hold onto his gaze, even as something inside her begged her to look away. "You had every chance. So many fucking chances. And still, you killed them." Her throat felt raw from too many tears shed, too many unspoken words, but she forced them out anyway. "You knew where I was. You knew I existed. You know they were only in danger because of me."

Her breath shook as she repeated herself. "You knew..."

The words barely made it past her lips, but she saw how his expression shifted. Something flickered across his face- something that may have been guilt, or even regret, but she did not care. "You should have done it in Eluin's study. In the forest. You should have done it before you dragged me into this house- before I learned any of this. You should have done this when I was a child, when you killed everyone else. You didn't just let them die, Nikolai. You killed them."

Her stomach twisted, nausea clawing at her throat. "You have clearly never hesitated to take a life before, so why? Why the fuck am I still here?" Her voice cracked, raw with exhaustion, something deeper than anger. She let her head fall back against the chaise, staring at the ceiling as she exhaled a bitter laugh.

His words should have meant something. I am the only reason that you are alive. But his words fell on deaf ears. "Maybe you're just waiting for me to do it myself." She murmured, her voice quiet, almost thoughtful. He couldn't protect her from her own hands. That much she knew.

Her words were soft, but they weren't empty. She meant every one of them.

Finally she looked at him again. "And we both know that wouldn't take much."

 

[Nikolai]

Nikolai stilled.

The flicker of guilt, of something dangerously close to regret, was swallowed by something far colder—something as sharp and cutting as the edge of a blade. He watched her, unblinking, the space between them chilling.

She meant every word. He knew that. Felt it. The thought twisted through him like a knife, sinking deep, deeper than he’d ever admit.

For a long moment, he said nothing.

Then—

"Don’t."

A single word, low and venomous. His fingers twitched, curling tighter around the blanket, because if he let himself move, if he reached for her now, he didn’t know if he would shake her or—

'Why the fuck am I still here?'

His teeth clenched. He forced himself to breathe, slow and controlled, but the rage that coiled through him was raw. And it wasn’t her he was angry at. Not entirely.

"You think I don't know what I did?" His voice was quieter than before, but no less sharp. "You think I don’t wake up every fucking day knowing exactly what I’ve done? I killed them, yes. I made that choice. I've killed many. That's what I do - who I am. What I am."

His voice dropped to something quieter, something lethal.

"You were a child. And I wouldn't have thought twice about snuffing your life out then and there." His jaw tensed, his breath unsteady for the first time. "I should have finished it. I should have. But I didn’t, and you already know why." he frowned. He wouldn't say it.

And he still didn’t.

His hand moved before he could stop it, his fingers catching her wrist just above the cuff she still wore curling around it like she might disappear if he let go. She was cold. Cold in a way that had nothing to do with the temperature of the room, in a way that seeped beneath her skin, in a way that made his grip tighten.

"I am not waiting for anything," he said, voice rough, dangerous in its intensity. "You are not going to do it yourself." His thumb pressed against the delicate pulse in her wrist. His grip wasn’t bruising, but it was unrelenting.

"You think I want to watch you destroy yourself? Do you think I would have done any of this if I didn’t—" He cut himself off, a muscle in his jaw twitching.

He exhaled sharply through his nose, trying to drag himself back to something calm, but it was impossible when she was looking at him like that. Like she was already gone.

His fingers tightened—just barely. "You are still here because I decided you would be. And you are going to stay that way, even if I need to lock you in an empty room and force feed you. Even if I need to physically fucking bind you to me and never let you out of my sight again. Are we clear?"

 

[Sadie]

She was trembling now purely from the weight of not knowing.

She did not know why he hadn't killed her. She didn't know why she had survived when the rest had burned. But Sadie was was starting to wonder if she actually didn't know, or if she just couldn't bring herself to admit the reasons lurking at the edges of her mind like a sickness.

There was barely any time to react before his hand was on her wrist, finger pressing into the delicate bones beneath the weight of the ancient cuff- Eluin's ancient cuff. A piece of her imprisonment, a reminder of what she had just been saved from. Again.

Pain lanced up her arm as his grip tightened and she flinched, trying to yank her arm back.

"Let go." She demanded, the words quiet. But he didn't move. Didn't ease up. If anything, his thumb pressed harder against her pulse, against the undeniable proof that she was still here, still alive, still breathing when she should not be.

Her eyes locked onto his, hollow and burning. "Finish it." She demanded, yanking her arm back, but his hold was unrelenting. He wasn't letting go. "Finish your words. Do I think you would have done any of this if you didn't what?"

Something dark flickered across her face, but quickly shifted as she met him with something lifeless settling in her eyes. "Say. It. If you're so determined to control every breath I take. If you are so adamant that I don't kill myself. Then tell me what I already fucking know. Tell me why you let me live, why you dragged me back here, why you're still standing there like I am worth saving!"

She sighed quietly and looked away. "You think you can keep me alive just because you say so?" She shook her head. "You can't protect me from myself, Nikolai. I promise you that."

 

[Nikolai]

She was screaming at him now, her fury a living thing, raw and unraveling. Nikolai winced, his ears ringing, his patience thinning. Gods, he missed the fucking silence.

His grip on her wrist tightened as his own anger boiled over, sharp and cutting. "If I had any other fucking choice!!" He snarled, the words tearing from his throat like something he had been holding back for too long.

His breath was ragged, his control fraying at the edges. "I don’t get choices, Ilith. I do what I’m told. I follow orders. My free will is not always my own. I am the blade in the dark, the thing that erases every trace of what we are—" his voice dropped to something cold, something hollow, "—the thing that wipes out anyone foolish enough to whisper our name too loudly.*"

His fingers curled against her skin, pressing into the ancient cuff. A weight. A symbol. A fucking reminder.

"Ilythara’s bloodline was meant to be nothing but ash and bone. I was meant to be the one to burn it. And I did." His voice was like glass breaking, jagged, final. "Until you."

His head dipped lower, close enough that she would feel the words as much as hear them. His grip on her wrist was like iron.

"You, I cannot kill. No matter how much I might fucking enjoy it."

He let that sit between them, let her feel the truth in it. The raw, undeniable wrongness of it.

"Whether you like it or not, Ilith," his voice was quieter now, softer in a way that was infinitely more dangerous, "everything he told you is true. Every last one of your bloodline was bound to an Ail’thain.*"

A pause. A breath. And then, with the certainty of a death sentence—

"And you? You, are bound, to me."

 

[Sadie]

A sharp, mirthless laugh tore from Sadie's lips. "That's rich." She spat, voice sharp and laced with her own venom. "You don't get choices? You poor, poor thing." She tilted her head, expression a twisted mockery of sympathy. "All this power. All this hunger. And you're no better than a dog that follows orders from its master?" Her eyes gleamed with cold amusement. "No...not even a good one. If you were a good dog, I'd already be dead. And yet, here I am!"

She leaned in slightly, releasing her hold on the blanket but her wrist was still trapped in his grip, pulse hammering against his fingers. Anger was overriding her fear now. "What does that make you, Nikolai?" She purred, her voice like silk. "Morrwyn's failure? Is that what Eluin said her name was? Just a rabid beast who is too weak to put down what he was bred to destroy."

She saw it then, a flicker in his expression. A crack in his control. The way his jaw tightened, something dangerous flaring behind his eyes. Violet burned with something much darker. And it sent something twisting through her. A shiver. A spark of something primal, something raw. But it wasn't fear. It wasn't rage. It was worse. And she hated it.

The thought of him enjoying killing her was absurd, a cruel joke, but the way his voice curled around the words, the way the air had thickened between them...it felt like a blade against her throat. Like press of his teeth against her bare skin.

Her rage built higher, hotter, unstoppable.

Her entire life had been ruined by him.

She had been hunted because of him.

She had lost everything because of him.

And now he was telling her-

And you? You, are bound, to me.

No. He wasn't telling her anything. He was condemning her. To him.

For the first time since she had begun screaming at him, there was silence. Thick, suffocating silence. A paper thin pause before her fury returned in full force.

"No." She whispered to him. A word so soft, yet final. Her free hand shot out, shoving against his chest hard with every bit of strength she had left. She managed to push him back only slightly, only freeing inches of space between them. But by the time he had realized what she had done, she was already gone, tearing herself away and crossing the room towards that pile of books spread on the floor.

Her hands shook as she searched for the book, the one Eluin had treated as scripture, the one she hadn't read, but had allegedly detailed this. The Crimson Thread.

With a snarl, she turned and threw it at him as hard as she could. Damn him and damn the fucking book. She didn't care if it ripped apart or landed in the fountain at this point. The ancient tome hit him hard with a thud before falling to the floor between them.

Her voice was nothing but raw, ragged rage as she ordered him, pointing a single finger at the book. "Unbind it." She demanded. "Find a way." Her breath heaved, shoulders shaking with the force of holding herself together long enough to stand there. "I don't care what it takes. I don't care how impossible it is. I don't care what you have to do, but you are going to find a way to undo this."

She glared at him, fire burning in her stomach, consuming every shattered and broken part of her.

"Because I will not be bound to you."

 

[Nikolai]

Nikolai did not move. Not when she spat her taunts like venom, nor when she flayed him open with her words, tearing into flesh and bone and something far deeper—something raw.

'Not even a good dog.'

A sharp spike of rage lanced through him, hot and blinding, sinking into the marrow of his bones. His teeth ached, his fingers twitching with the urge to tear, to break, to force her to understand. The words carved into him like a rusted blade, twisted deep between his ribs. She thought she knew him, thought she understood the weight of his chains, the nature of his leash. But she didn’t.

Her voice was fire licking up his spine, scalding, goading, daring him. Morrwyn’s failure. Rabid beast. Weak... His jaw locked, teeth grinding, muscles wound so tight he thought they might snap. A growl built in his chest, low and primal, but he swallowed it down, forcing himself to stillness. His breath was slow, too slow, controlled with agonising precision. His restraint was a fragile thing, fraying, snapping one thread at a time.

The air between them was thick, pulsing with something dark and suffocating. And gods, he wanted her. The need clawed at him, brutal and unrelenting, twisting into something almost unbearable. His throat burned with it, his fangs ached with it. Ever since he had tasted her, she had haunted him. Changed him. Her scent was still in his lungs, her pulse still a phantom against his fingers. And now she had the audacity to stand before him and command him like he couldn't take whatever he wanted if he chose to. Luckily for her, he wasn't the rabid dog she thought him to be.

The book hit his chest and fell between them with a dull thud. He didn’t move. Didn’t look at it. Didn’t look at her. For a long moment, there was nothing but silence. Nikolai's sanity had been in question for centuries, but her coldness and loathing of him as she rejected him with such spite caused something in his mind to splinter. It'd been so very long since he'd lost himself to madness, since he'd turned villages into bloodbaths. It was the first time he felt himself capable of it again, the first time that he wanted to fall head first into the comfort of being so completely and utterly lost.

"I can’t."

The words barely made it past his lips, hoarse and wrecked, the fight gone from them despite the rage still smoldering beneath his skin. Despite the hunger. His throat worked, something bitter and unspoken lodging itself there.

"I’m sorry."

For this. For her. For what he was about to do.

His shadows lashed out, fast as striking vipers, coiling around her wrist before she could react, binding her to the fountain. He did not look at her. He couldn’t. Turning away, he forced the words out, barely more than a murmur.

"I’ll bring you some food."

 

[Sadie]

Sadies breath had came in ragged, burning gasps, chest heaving with fury, with desperation, with the sheer, unbearable injustice of all of this. "You can't?" She shrieked, voice raw and shaking, breaking with her anger. Her nails bit into her palms, shaking fists curling at her sides as her vision blurred with her rage and tears, but she refused to let them fall. Not in front of him. Not in front of the monster who had stolen everything from her and then dared to act as though he had lost something, too.

"You're lying to me." She hissed, words sharp and cutting. But she didn't care. "You just won't. You're too much of a coward to even try." She wanted to hurt him. To carve her hatred into his very bones and make him feel the way she did- caged, helpless all while screaming into a voice while nothing changed.

But then, he said it. I'm sorry.

And that was what made her hesitate. Not the news of the crimson thread. Not her past. Not the way he refused to fight back when she wanted him to. But those two words shook- barely a whisper, but painfully real. Sadie only stared at him, her lips parting like she wanted to scream more. Her pulse slowed just enough for that fire in her chest to flicker and for confusion to slip in where her fury had been ruling.

And then- a strange sense of darkness.

Shadows shot out, seizing her wrists in a vice, yanking her back before she could so much as gasp for air. Icy tendrils coiled around her skin, spreading over her like living shackles that dragged her and bound her against the fountain before she could fight back.

Her breath hitched and she glared at him. A growl of rage tore through her, her body twisting as she lashed against her restraints, fighting like a trapped, wounded animal. Wild. Furious.

"No!" She snarled, straining against the bond, wrists burning where shadows held fast. "No! You don't get to just- just fucking leave me here!" She wrenched against the shadows again, her arms shaking, breaths shuddering. But nothing gave. And still, he didn't look at her.

"Fix this!" She begged, voice cracking, breaking as she threw all of her weight into the fight. "You have to fix this! You-" He had turned away, leaving her alone in the room. The door clicked shut behind him, sealing her in the suffocating quiet of the sun room. Her own ragged breaths were the only sound in the emptiness he left behind.

If he came back, she thought she might kill him for leaving her bound to the fountain. It was unfair. It was unjust. Did he think she was going to drown herself or give herself paper cuts to death while he left her alone for minutes? No. Absolutely not. But he could not stop her when she did decide how this would end.

 

[Nikolai]

He had to get out. He couldn't breathe. Nikolai barely made it out of the room before his control snapped.

The moment the door clicked shut behind him, he staggered, hands bracing against the wall, breath sawing raggedly through clenched teeth. His body trembled with the force of what he was holding back, with the ghost of her voice still ringing in his skull—raw, broken, pleading.

Fix this!

Her fury clung to his skin like embers, burning into the ink that he felt spread across his back and chest like living ivy. No. Like Ilithore. The name roared in his mind, a curse, a brand, a shackle, sinking its claws deep into his chest.

A snarl tore from his throat as he wrenched away from the wall. He needed to move. To destroy. To purge the fire crawling under his skin and into his mind before it devoured him whole.

Shadows curled and lashed around him as he stalked through the house, his fury bleeding into the walls, into the air, into everything. The furniture in the hallway was the first to suffer—an ornate table overturned and shattered against the stone floor, shards of wood splintering in every direction. He didn’t stop. He couldn’t stop. The glass cabinets in the parlor exploded with a flick of his hand, shards raining down in a glittering cascade. Bookshelves toppled, paintings ripped from their frames, vases crushed beneath his boot.

He stormed into the dining hall, his rage a storm of shadows that swept through the room like a hurricane. Chairs were flung across the space, the heavy oak table split clean in half with the force of his magic. The chandelier groaned, chains snapping as it plummeted, smashing into the wreckage below.

Still, it wasn’t enough.

His breath came in ragged gasps, his vision blurred with red. It wasn’t the house he wanted to destroy. It was the thing in his chest, the thing tightening like a vice around his ribs, coiling like a serpent in his gut. That unbearable, wretched pull.

His hands found the edge of a marble pedestal, fingers curling tight before he heaved it, sent it crashing into the far wall with enough force to crack the stone.

He should go back. He should go back. The thought stabbed through him, sending a fresh wave of fury tearing through his mind. She had no right to sound like that. To look at him the way she did. To shake him to his very fucking core and then demand more from him.

Nikolai let out a broken, snarling laugh, running a shaking hand through his hair as he stood amidst the ruin of the room, his breath heaving. His own reflection stared back at him from the fractured shards of a gilded mirror.

He hadn't loathed himself this much in quite some time. Not even after Morrwyn was through with him.

Fix this..

I will not be bound to you..

You're too much of a coward to even try..
The only way to fix this was to end himself. The thought came swift, cold, and absolute. A final solution to a problem he could never solve.

He was a fucking coward. When mortals died, they lost years. When an Ail’thain died, they lost eternity. And yet, as he stood there, chest heaving, hands curled into shaking fists, he realised with grim certainty what the alternative was.

He would unravel, piece by piece, until there was nothing left of him but a hollow, mindless thing—an echo of what he had once been. He had been there before. He had felt that madness, had drowned in it, had torn the world apart with his own hands in a frenzy of blood and ruin.

He had clawed his way back from it once, and he wouldn't go back.

"I'll fix it." he whispered, the words carried to her on an icy breeze.

 

[Sadie]

Sadie panted, chest rising and falling rapidly as she yanked uselessly against the shadows that bound her. She twisted. She fought. She thrashed like a wild animal, but the darkness only tightened around her wrists like an iron vice.

The door was shut. Nikolai was gone. All she could hear was chaos. Glass shattering. Wood splintering. The deep, guttural snarl of something feral. And then…

Nothing.

A hush fell over the manor, an eerie and unnatural silence that felt too heavy, too still. And something like a whisper danced through the air.

I’ll fix it.

The words had been carried on a breath of wind, settling over her skin like frost, chilling her to the bone. And yet, something inside her knew that womething was wrong. It settled in her chest, ancient and raw. A primal and soundless scream vibrating through her very soul. And suddenly her fury was simply not enough.

A different kind of panic rose up, winding through her ribs and pressing into her throat. She needed to move. Needed to run, to find him, to stop whatever was happening. But the shadows held fast. Tighter now.

A choked sob tore from her lips. “Let me go, you bastard!” She demanded to no one, voice cracking. Of course the was no answer. Only the cold, biting stillness remained.

Nikolai wasn’t just mad. He was breaking.

Her pulse pounded against the shadows, thrumming in time with that rapid beating in her chest, a warning. A desperate plea. And still the shadows did not release her.

She was bound, trapped, helpless, as silence swallowed the manor whole.

“Fucking coward!” She screamed into the empty room, yanking at her restraints until her skin felt raw. She needed to get his attention. Her gaze darted around the room, searching. For what, she didn’t know. She had no use of her hands. But there was one thing she could still do.

Her wings still ached, bound tightly to her back, but not restrained. A thought hit her like a blow to the chest. Sadie swallowed hard and without giving herself a moment to hesitate, she whipped her body forward, jerking violently against her restraints. One wing extended and aimed for a small bit of stone that stuck out more than the rest. A sharp point.

Her wings dragged along it until there was nothing but pain. A sharp and brutal shock reverberated up her wing and deep into her spine. An ache so deep it stole her breath.

She didn’t bother holding back her scream.

“You think you can just run away? You think you can just decide what I do, what I feel, what I fucking am?” Her voice cracked, but she didn’t stop. Not even as blood trickled down her wing and onto the ground.

“You kill my family, you imprison me, you ruin my life and now you’re just going to leave me here to starve?” The screams ripped through her as though they’d been festering for years. Her wing extended again, a new slice through her flesh.

“I hate you!” Her eyes blurred with hot, furious tears, her throat aching as she threw all her hatred at him, as if that would bring him back. “You are the worst male I have ever met and I hope you fucking suffer for it!”

 

[Nikolai]

The words had been nothing more than sound at first, a distant echo against the storm in his head. But then—pain.

It hit him like a blow to the gut, sharp and searing, sinking deep into his marrow. Blood. Not his. Hers.

A snarl tore from his throat before he even realised he was moving. One moment he was staring at the deep hues of the predawn sky, the next, shadows carried him through the manor in a blur of motion, the scent of iron thick in his lungs. The door to the sun room slammed open, and his gaze swept the space in an instant, searching for a threat, for an enemy—

Only to land on her.

She was wild, heaving, bleeding. Fury and pain carved into every trembling inch of her. His shadows still held her, but she had found a way to hurt herself despite them. His jaw clenched, his fingers twitching as he tried to swallow down the raw, molten rage rising in his chest.

"Stop."

The word cracked through the air, low and sharp, laced with a command that left no room for disobedience. His fingers twisted, shadows obeying him before he could think better of it, wrapping around her ruined wings, binding them tightly to her back. It wasn’t gentle. He couldn’t afford to be gentle right now.

His gaze met hers, and something dark flickered there—something on the edge of breaking.

"What the fuck are you thinking?"

His voice was a growl, rough and raw as he forced himself to turn away. He couldn’t look at her like this. He couldn’t look at the blood smeared across the stone, the dark droplets staining the floor. His hands curled into fists, nails biting deep into his palms as he braced himself against the doorframe.

"I suffer," he muttered, the words slipping out before he could stop them, strained and quiet. "If that makes you feel any better."

It was the only truth he had left to give her.

His throat ached, something bitter and wretched rising inside of him. He forced himself to push past it, his voice flat as he spoke again.

"When you leave—flee to the Autumn Court. Find General Sidereal. He’ll keep you safe."

He grimaced, his head bowing, his breath sharp and uneven. His body was screaming at him to run. To disappear before he did something worse.

"I tried to keep you safe."

A pause. A sharp inhale.

"I can’t."

 

[Sadie]

White hot pain exploded down her back, sharp and blinding as the shadows wrenched her wings back, too tight against her body. A sharp yelp tore from her throat, vision bursting with stars as the crushing pressure sent a fresh wave of nausea rolling through her. For a brief, gasping moment, agony had stolen her fury. But only for a moment.

Her breaths came in, ragged and uneven, chest rising and falling as she snapped her gaze up to meet his. Yellow-gold specks burned within her violet irises- the same shade her last nightmare bore. Nikolai was shaking where he stood, fingers in tight fists, his face appeared to be caught between rage and something infinitely worse.

What the fuck are you thinking?

Sadie laughed, but it was hollow and jagged like broken glass, her voice cracking at the sound. What was she thinking? Her head tilted slightly, lips parting, but for a moment, no words came through. Because she didn't quite know the answer. Because something deep inside her had screamed for him. Screamed for him to come back, to stop. She had felt the silence, the horrible and deafening absence of him, and something inside her had twisted in warning.

"The silence, Nikolai." She swallowed past an ache in her throat, voice hoarse as she spoke. It felt foreign, saying his name, a word that had never been meant for her mouth. "Something was wrong when it went silent. And whatever were doing." She swallowed hard, her stomach twisting again.

"It was going to be catastrophic." She looked away, letting the weight of her words settle in the pit of her stomach. Her lips parted slightly again, but he spoke first.

I suffer. Sadie flinched. If that makes you feel better.

It didn't. Her stomach curled in on itself, nausea rising again like the bile in her throat. Had he thought she would find relief at hearing those words? Thought that maybe knowing he suffered, too, would bring her some shred of solace?

Of course it didn't. If anything, it only made her feel more empty. Like she had infected him, too. Everyone in her life had suffered because of her. Sadie clenched her jaw, refusing to acknowledge the pain in her chest, and the horrible ache in her back.

When you leave, flee to the Autumn Court. Find General Sidreal. He'll keep you safe.

Sadie blinked. Once. Twice. She could only stare at him with confusion on her face. Her mouth opened slightly, and for a moment the rate that had been fueling her fight slipped through the cracks, leaving behind the cold and hollow girl, a fragile and brittle thing barely holding itself together.

He wanted her to leave? To run? He was trying to get rid of her? Sadie didn't even realize how hard she was shaking until a sharp pain tore through her wing, sending her eyes watering.

She hated him. She hated him so much that she wondered if it might tear her apart from the inside out. But still, something had lodged itself deep inside her bones. Something uglier. Something far worse.

Her voice was a strained whisper, words feeling like a blade in her own throat as she forced them out.

"I don't want to be safe." Her breaths came in ragged, fingers trembling in useless fists, shackled against the fountain. "I want you to answer my questions. I want you to tell me the truth." She stared at him, waiting...waiting..."Why me? Why all of this? What the hell am I supposed to do? I cannot feasibly spend my entire life running from immortals who know more about me- what I am supposed to be than I do. I am not running off to the Autumn court to wait for someone else to end me."

Her wings throbbed, blood trickling down her back, down the fountain into a puddle, but she barely felt it anymore. She just stared at his face, unreadable as ever. And for the first time, her fury didn't burn quite as brightly. For the first time, something colder had settled into her bones. She wasn't sure she would ever get the answers she needed before it was too late.

 

[Nikolai]

The scent was unbearable. Thick, heady, laced with something older, something darker than simple iron and mortality. It curled around his senses, filled every inch of his lungs, coiling through his mind like a living thing.

Drip. Drip. Drip...

Each slow, deliberate beat of her blood against the stone was a hammer to his skull. A pull so deep it rattled the very bones in his body, scraped its claws along the inside of his ribs. He wanted— needed—

"I was going to fix it. As you were just fucking screaming at me to do," he grit out, jaw locked so tight it ached.

Sadie’s words slithered through him, clashing against the hunger that roared beneath his skin. I don’t want to be safe.

"Clearly." The word was clipped, harsh. His patience frayed with every second, every drop that spilled from her wings. Fucking idiot girl. Did she have any idea what she was doing?

The air crackled, shadows writhing in agitation, and Nikolai clenched his fists until his nails bit deep into his palms. A poor substitute for the hunger clawing at his insides.

She kept talking. Kept pressing. He heard her words, but they were distant, drowned beneath the rushing in his ears.

"Ilith," he growled.

His muscles coiled, tendons straining, barely able to focus on anything but the violent rhythm of her pulse hammering in the silence.

"I can't be here right now, or it'll be me that ends you." The confession made him sick. But it was true.

His fingers curled against the doorframe, wood groaning, splintering under his grip. He barely felt it. Barely felt anything but the overwhelming ache beneath his skin, the gnawing pull of what she was, what she meant.

"I don't know why it's you," he forced out, voice ragged, like each word scraped its way out of his throat. "You are part of the bloodline. A very fucking powerful bloodline."

He was shaking now. Every nerve ending alive, burning, blistering. His control was slipping, unraveling thread by thread. His shadows recoiled, loosening their grip on her as all of his focus turned to keeping himself from lunging at her.

"I need to leave." The words were hoarse, barely above a whisper. His entire body screamed at the thought, a visceral rejection of distance.

He took a single, shuddering step. Then another. Each one heavier than the last.

 

[Sadie]

Sadie's face twisted in frustration, a sharp and ugly thing. Her lips curled and revealed her teeth- elongated canines of the fae, nothing as sharp and lethal as the Ail'thain. She wished she could sink her teeth into him, tear out the truth he was trying to run from.

"Fix it?" She spat. "That was your method of fixing it?" Her voice rose again, disbelief woven into its edge. "And what were you going to do, Nikolai?" Her chest was heaving, her body writhed against her shackles again. "Walk into the sun and burn yourself into fucking ashes? Is that really your solution?" The thought of it sent something hot and nauseating through her, twisting in her stomach like a knife because she hadn't known.

But the look on his face confirmed what something deep in her body had been screaming at her about. She hadn't realized what exactly he had meant when he said he needed to leave. That he was about to tear himself apart trying to free her for whatever reason. But now? Now she knew. And it enraged her.

"Don't you dare leave." She refused him, watching his willpower struggle in a room she had ruined with her scent. Her voice didn't waver. It wasn't a plea. It was a command.

Her hands balled into useless fists, still bound to the fountain, blood still dripping from her wing, down her back and hitting the stone with a taunting, steady, unbearable rhythm in the silence.

"You cannot hurt me." Her voice dropped, each syllable spoken with a clear and unwavering certainty. It made sense. Her chest still rose and fell too fast, pulse thrumming like a drum, but she forced herself still. "You said it yourself, did you not?" Her tone was full of sharp bitterness. "You can't kill me."

Her wrist strained against the shadows, but they did not budge. Didn't even loosen as she let out a cold laugh. "So prove it."

She tilted her head just enough that her neck was exposed to him. Offered up to him like a challenge.

"Drink."

Her voice was quiet. Deadly. Final.

"If you're so fucking sure that you cannot kill me, then prove it."

The words settled between them, thick and suffocating, eyes boring into his. Waiting, watching, daring. She refused to look away. She refused to let him leave. Not without proving to her that there was something beyond them both that would stop him from ending her life.

 

[Nikolai]

The fire that burned in his chest ignited into rage. The truth, already so difficult to accept, was made worse by her defiance. She confirmed what he had planned, what he hoped to do. And that anger—furious, unrelenting—shot through his veins like fire.

"It’s the only way to fix it!" Nikolai shouted, his voice raw, tinged with desperation. "If I die, I die. You’re free of me. If you die, we both die."

Drink…

Sadie’s challenge pierced through the haze of Nikolai’s turmoil, the words sinking deep, rattling him.

It was a dare. It was a challenge. But it was so much more. It was a fucking temptation that had him on the edge of losing control completely. His heart hammered, and every part of him screamed no even as something far darker whispered yes.

Her neck was exposed, the challenge clear in her eyes, in the way she leaned into the silence between them. She didn’t flinch. She didn’t cower.

"Don’t fucking tempt me, Sadie!!!" he bellowed, his voice so loud that it cracked the very air. The windows rattled, and the room darkened as if some malevolent force had consumed the light. A chill—an unnatural, biting cold—swept through the space. His breath plumed in the air, visible and trembling, as if the room had become something else entirely.

The hunger, the need, swelled in him, a dark tide that threatened to pull him under.

"I said I didn’t want to kill you…" Nikolai’s voice was low, guttural, each word clawing its way from his throat. "But I can have that choice ripped from me with a single fucking drop." His eyes blazed, fury flashing in them, but behind it, something else—a deeper, darker pain. "I’ll be compelled."

He stepped back, fingers trembling, and his gaze fell to the blood that stained the stone, dripping steadily from her wings. The sweet, thick scent assaulted him. It’s not just her blood. It’s her. The bloodline. The power. The thread.

"What the fuck do you want?" he snarled, his voice cutting through the tension in the air. "You loathe me, though you won’t let me leave. Want me to fix it, but you won’t let me do that either. I told you what you wanted to know." His hands curled into fists again, fingers digging into his own skin. "You’ll be free to go, none will look for you in the Autumn Court."

He staggered back another step, feet crunching against broken glass and splintered wood. His body felt like it was falling apart, his ribs aching as though they were caving in. He couldn't breathe.

 

[Sadie]

The room trembled with the force of Nikolai's fury, but Sadie did not move. Her neck remained on display, an offer for him, pulse hammering beneath her pale skin. She was exposed to the air, thick with shadow, thick with him.

"You said it." She murmured, her voice still sharp but with a curiosity hidden beneath. "If I die, we both do." She inhaled, the scent of his shadows- something smoky- curling at the edges of her senses. "What does that mean, Nikolai?" Her voice didn't waver, didn't falter.

"And," Yellow-gold flecked irises burned into him as they met solid violet. "You didn't say you wouldn't kill me. You didn't say you didn't want to kill me. In fact, you mentioned how much you might enjoy it, if I am recalling correctly. But you said you can't. You cannot kill me." And she wanted to know why.

Why this thread bonded them, shackling them together in a way she couldn't understand. Why he thought his death might free her, when his words screamed that they were bound so completely that he could not survive without her. If she died, he died, too.

And for some reason, he hadn't told her that tidbit before.

Why?

Her breaths were visible as the temperature plummeted, still measured and shaking, but she didn't lower her gaze. She wouldn't let him retreat back into whatever tortured abyss he had been trying to flee to.

What the fuck do you want? His words lashed at her, a whip of frustration and desperate rage.

"I want you to drink." The words should have felt like her own death sentence. But strangely, they didn't. "And I want answers once you've finished." Her lips parted slightly but she hesitated before speaking for a few moments. "You have spent an eternity destroying any trace of either of us." Her voice had hardened, cold and sharp. Sharper than the pain lancing through her wings. "I refuse to believe it ends with an 'I don't know'."

Her pulse thundered, but she kept speaking. "You know more than anyone else ever could. You know what this is." She swallowed hard and twisted her head more, waiting. "So you're going to drink." She continued. "And then you'll explain before I lose my mind."

She was trapped here with him, with his hunger and his fury, with whatever chained their souls together. And she was not allowing him to leave until she understood everything.