Private Tales The Price of Defiance

[Nikolai]

Nikolai dozed, barely tethered to sleep, his body still and heavy while his mind drifted along the edges of unconsciousness. But even in rest, he felt her.

Her scent filtered through the space between them like a breeze, subtle and sure. He could hear the delicate rhythm of her pulse. The shift of breath through her lungs. Every little flutter of movement as her body settled.

The thread in his chest, that strange invisible thing that always seemed to strain in her absence, loosened. The weight eased. His own breath deepened. She was near. Safe.

His eyes flickered open.

The room was quiet, wrapped in the hush and darkness, the fire and orb lights in his room having gone out, but Nikolai was not a creature who needed light or sound to see. He turned his head toward the bed automatically, expecting to find her curled into one of the endless pillows like some tired bird with her wings tucked in sleep.

But she wasn’t there. His brows drew together, and slowly, he rose. Barefoot and soundless, a living shadow, he moved around the edge of the massive bed. His gaze swept the room—sharp, cutting—and then landed on her.

There, beside the dais. Hidden from sight. Curled like some discarded thing on the cold floor. Like a pet.

He should have been amused by it, but the flicker of heat that passed through him wasn’t amusement. It was anger. Not the wild, vicious kind that spurred him to violence. No, this was quieter. Sharper. More precise. It twisted beneath his ribs like a blade and lodged somewhere deep in his chest.

How dare she. How dare she think herself so little. So unworthy. So beneath the comfort of a bed that would never deny her space. He dragged a hand down his face with a low, tired exhale, kneeling beside her, then, careful not to wake her, he slipped an arm beneath her knees, the other behind the nape of her neck. She was all fragile bones and sleeping warmth and weightless exhaustion wrapped in blanket and tension. Still, she didn’t stir, not even when he lifted her.

He carried her the short distance like she was made of spun glass, and when he laid her down in the bed, it was with a gentleness that surprised even him. She looked so small against the expanse of it. And still not fully relaxed.

Nikolai undressed without sound, casting off his layers until only loose linen shorts hung against the pale lines of his skin. Then he climbed in on the opposite side of the bed, careful to leave space between them, though every part of him was aware of her now—aware in a way that hummed through his blood like a second pulse.

He didn’t touch her. He didn’t speak. But his gaze lingered for a long time, before he forced himself to turn around and let his eyes close again.

 

[Sadie]

Sadie hadn't stirred when he lifted her.

Hadn't awoken when her head lulled against his chest. Not when the blankets slipped loose from her small frame. Not even when he laid her down on bedding more lavish than anything she had every known, anything she had ever deserved.

But her stillness didn't mean peace.

Even in sleep, her brows remained faintly drawn together. Her fingers curled into tight little fists clutching nothing near her chest. Her breath came in slow, but uneven. It was the kind of breathing one learned to do after weeks or months of being forced to sleep with one ear open. Ready to flee.

Nikolai would see it all. Feel it in the thread that bound them so tightly, even now while she lingered in a land of dreams.

She didn't move when the bed dipped low beneath his weight. Didn't flinch when the coldness of his body infiltrated the same space as hers. But once he turned, slowly and deliberately, adjusting how he lay to give her space...

She moved.

It wasn't a sharp movement. It wasn't coordinated or done with panic even. It was done slowly, an unconscious desperation of someone who had only ever known safety when it was fleeting.

She shifted across the bed, her body curling towards his as if she'd done it a thousand times before. One arm slipped across his ribs, delicate pale fingers resting on his torso. Her cheek pressed lightly between his shoulder blades. Breath ghosted along the bare skin of his back.

And finally, that tension that had been as taut as a bowstring ready to snap, had eased.

It wasn't gone, not completely. But her body slackened. Her jaw unclenched. The pain that had been etched between her eyebrows softened. A sigh slipped past her lips, quiet and thin. But she didn't speak. Didn't wake. But her grip on him tightened, ignoring the cold of his skin entirely. Her heartbeat slowed. And then, only then, did she sleep.

 

[Nikolai]

Nikolai lay still, the weight of the silence settling over him like frost. He hadn’t turned to look at her, hadn’t let himself indulge in the instinct to glance back when her breathing changed, when the pull of the tether between them grew taut then gradually softened, loosening like a knot unpicked by trembling fingers.

He’d felt her before he’d registered the motion. The slow shift of weight across the mattress. The faint pull of sheets. The warmth.

Then—her.

She pressed herself into his back with all the hesitant certainty of someone whose body remembered things her mind had never been taught. An arm slid over his side, not possessive, not even searching. Just there. Quietly anchoring.

His breath caught, not enough to stir the air, not enough to wake her. He remained still, uncertain. When had he ever in his life been so fucking uncertain?

She shouldn’t have done it. Shouldn’t have drawn so close to something like him—cold as he was, barely clinging to the edge of what still resembled mercy. Her skin should’ve flinched from his. Should’ve recoiled from the chill that clung to him like a second skin, ancient and cruel. But she didn’t. She just.. nuzzled against him.

And gods, he felt it. All of it.

The magic in her blood, laced through with grief—unfolded around him like mist, brushing against the edges of his senses. Her scent curled through the air, that maddening blend of blood and power that danced and thrummed just beneath her skin, sweet and sharp like crushed fruit on a blade’s edge. He shouldn’t have wanted it. Should’ve turned away. But her breath ghosted along his spine and something in him—something ancient, something broken—shuddered.

Still, he didn’t move.

Because what would he even say, if he did? What would he do, if she woke to find herself curled against the very thing she despised? If she realised what she’d reached for wasn’t safety, but a storm?

He swallowed, slow and dry, his hand halfway to reaching back—maybe to touch her, maybe to still her fingers where they gripped so gently at his side. But he stopped himself. Let it fall to the mattress again. If he touched her, he wasn’t sure he’d be able to let go.

She was asleep, truly asleep now. He could feel it, the soft unfurling of her mind, the slow quieting of her pulse. The tension she carried like armour had eased, if only a little, and that should have been enough for him.

It wasn’t.

He lay there, eyes open in the dark, staring into nothing as her presence wrapped around him like something sacred. Something stolen. The bond between them eased into something quieter, something that didn’t pull quite so hard at the root of him. He didn’t want to need this. Didn’t want to want the warmth of her trust or the shape of her small body nestled against his like a secret.

But he did. And so he let her stay. Let himself stay. He let himself breathe again.

And then, despite every rule, every brutal instinct that said this was wrong—he let himself rest.

 

[Sadie]

Somewhere deep in her dream, she ran barefoot through fields of white trees, the sky stained purple and violet of the dusk. She wasn't afraid there. Wasn't hunted. Something did follow her, though. Not dark, not cruel. Just.. steady. A presence constantly at her back, watching over her.

She nuzzled in closer to it, the cold skin beneath her cheek startling even in sleep, but not enough to make her move away. Instead, she only shifted with a quiet sigh, her arm tightening a little more around the body she had curled herself around. Her brow furrowed briefly, a flicker of something surfacing on her otherwise peaceful, slumbering face. Was it guilt? Sorrow? Whatever it was, it faded quickly back into the quiet.

But then she woke.

It was all wrong.

Her lashes fluttered open, the haze of sleep still clinging to her and she felt it. The weight of his arm near her hip. The cold of his body pressed along hers. Her hand was still wrapped tightly around his torso, held closer where his own arm rested atop. Her breath caught. No.

Her heart surged and the peace of her dream filled slumber evaporated. What was left behind was the shocking and suffocating truth of reality. She had fallen asleep beside him. With him. Like a pet curling up against its owner. She didn't even remember crawling into his bed. Didn't remember the moment she chose ice over safety.

Panic was swift, her throat tightening and her chest following suit. She tensed instantly, stiffening against his back like she had been caught doing something shameful. Something wrong. Her lips parted but she didn't break the silence as she looked up only to find him still asleep, faced turned from her.

Gods. She just looked at him. But before he could wake, before he could say anything, before he could look at her and punish her for what she had done...

She moved. Slow and careful. Her breath was held tightly in her lungs as she began the delicate process of withdrawing her arm from beneath him. Her fingers trembled as she slipped free, moving inch by inch slowly, terrified the movement would disturb his slumber.

The moment she was free, she didn't look back. She grabbed that thin blanket she'd stolen off his bed the night before and fled.

Up and up the stairs. The sun was already rising outside. Its golden light stretched across the marble floors and through the walls of glass, chasing away the chill and the dark and everything cold enough to hurt her. She didn't stop until she reached the greenhouse and locked the doors behind her with a shaking hand.

It was warm in here. Bright. Maybe too bright after months in the dark halls of Nikolai's manor. It stung her eyes as she sank to the floor beneath the hanging flowers she had strung up the night before. Her hands pressed into the warm stone floor, steadying herself. She was safe. He couldn't hurt her here.

 

[Nikolai]

He hadn’t meant to sleep. Not really.

It had crept up on him in the quiet, in the unfamiliar stillness of not needing to watch his back or guard his throat. And maybe it was her fault. Her warmth, her heartbeat, the fragile, living thing that had curled so trustingly against him. Or maybe it was his own weakness. The ancient, aching kind that wore a face like hunger and a name like loneliness.

But sleep had come. Heavy. Deep. Until it wasn’t.

The moment her body shifted away, he felt it. Not with his eyes, not even with his senses—those remained dulled by the remnants of rest, but with something deeper. That gossamer thread, crimson and ever-there, that tugged softly from his core like a string being drawn taut.

And then, cold. The warmth that had been wrapped around him, the arm that had rested lightly across his ribs, the delicate weight of her breath against his back was gone. Replaced by the empty press of air, the soft shuffle of sheets, the sound of bare feet slapping against marble and stairs.

His eyes snapped open. His heart, the useless, long-silent thing, stumbled hard in his chest, gripped by a panic he hadn’t felt in centuries. He sat up fast, blinking against the sudden loss. Scanning the room with sharp eyes, searching for whatever she had run from.

He realised quietly what it was however. Him.

He moved before he could think better of it, feet striking the cold floor as he bolted for the stairs, chasing the fading echo of her flight. “Wait—”

The moment he hit the sunlit threshold, the pain tore through him like fire.

He staggered back with a snarl, one arm thrown up to shield his face as the morning light spilled across the hall in golden waves, cruel and bright. His skin hissed beneath it, blooming with the sharp sting of heat. He clutched at his chest, fingers curling over the blistered mark where the light had kissed too long.

And gods, the scent of her was still there.

Something soft and faintly floral—like crushed petals in moonlight. It lingered in the wake of her steps, clinging to the banister, the air, the memory of the space she had fled from.

He slunk back into the shadows, teeth bared in a soundless growl, and leaned against the wall, letting his head fall back with a dull thud. His breaths came shallow, ragged. Not from the pain, not really.

What had he been thinking?

She didn’t belong in his bed, or his home, or his arms. She had only clung to him because of that cursed thread—the bond that tangled their fates like thorns around a rose. It told her lies. Whispered safety where there was none. Painted comfort over the face of a monster.

And she’d believed it enough to want to be close to him. But now she realised her mistake. Now she remembered. He dragged his eyes down to his chest, ignoring the scorch mark blooming there like spoiled fruit. It was nothing. Would heal in day or so. But beneath the skin, the ink stirred. That shifting, restless ink that never stayed still. Never settled. Never would.

He shoved the thought aside and padded silently back down into the gloom of his chambers, he crossed the room in long, quiet strides. His fingers closed around a bottle of fae wine from the shelf, and he sank onto the low couch, uncorking it with a fang before bringing it to his lips.

The room was too quiet now. Her absence a weight in the air, more suffocating than her presence had ever been. He could still feel the ghost of her touch against his ribs. The memory of her breath on his back. Her heartbeat, once steady beside his, now pulsing somewhere too far to feel.

He tilted the bottle back again, wiping a smear of blood-wine from the corner of his mouth with the back of his hand. His eyes, dark and violet and tired, fixed on the far wall. On nothing.

It had been so simple for her to leave. And yet, gods help him… he hadn’t wanted her to. He would wait out the sun of the day, and the moment it set, he would do the sensible thing and leave her in peace.

 

[Sadie]

Sadie remained on the greenhouse floor long after the sounds of his agony faded. They had scraped through the silence of the house, snarls that were of raw pain. Not rage or hunger. Just hurt. He had tried to brave the sun and lost. And still, she hadn't moved.

She had known he would follow. Known he would try. Even as she slipped away like a coward into sunlight and silence.

She pulled her knees in close and rested her cheek on one of them, breathing deep the warm air thick with the scent of soil, stems, and sunlit blooming flowers. Here, in the heart of light, her couldn't touch. She was safe. At least that was what she told herself. But had she ever not been safe with him?

She pushed that thought aside. It didn't matter anyway. He was still him. Still a creature carved of shadow and blood and secrets and ink. Still the figure in prophecies she wanted no part in. And still... Her gaze lifted to the ceiling of glass, watching how it fractured the light into golden sheets. The rays touched her arms, her cheeks. It was not the morning sun she had believed it to be at all. No, she had slept straight through that. It was midday at least. She had been allowed to rest, really rest, for the first time in gods knew how long.

And she had run from it.

Sadie let out a soft, humorless breath. Her eyes burned. Eventually, she did move. The flowers she'd strung up to dry had begun to curl and tighten. Not ready yet. Drying would take time and patience she wasn't sure she could have anymore. But she did have time, didn't she?


When the house finally settled back into true quiet without footsteps, growls, or groans of pain, she rose and carefully stashed the bag with her books in the corner of the greenhouse. Underneath a bench that was overflowing with potted plants whose leaves touched the ground. Just in case. Then, she ventured back into the main house.

The sun lit every surface it touched in gold and the air was warm with it. It smelled of spices and wood- and something floral she had no name for. She'd never smelled it before. She wandered the corridors again, her feet were nearly silent on the marble, and the quiet of the house was a little less suffocating this time around.

The library was as grand as it had been the day prior. Bookshelves lined the room, from the floor all the way up to the high ceilings. A ladder waited at the end of the aisles. There were books in every language she didn't recognize lining the walls, but many she did recognize too. She thanked the heavens and reached for one bound in leather. Wild Remedies for the Healer's Path. She cracked it open at one of the tables near a window and sat.

Hours passed. She hadn't noticed until her stomach clenched painfully, demanding her attention. A low growl echoed in her stomach and made her wince. With the book tucked into her armpit, she slipped quietly from the library and into the kitchen. It was absurdly stocked. More food than she'd seen in her entire life. Spices in crystal vials climbed one wall. Cheese wheels bigger than her torso sat on a wooden workbench. Vegetables of all sorts were in jars of wildly colored brines. There was a bowl of fruit- fruits in shapes like stars and spikes that she had never known existed- sat inside.

Her plate had become a chaotic tower of texture and color and impossible flavors. A hideous disaster of things that probably didn't go together, but Sadie didn't care. She wanted to try them all. And try she would. She sat at the table, spearing some sort of tiny fruit with her fork and paused as it reached her mouth. A passing worry filtered through her mind. Was Nikolai hungry? Did he have anything down in his cave? She hadn't spent any time exploring when she had the opportunity...

She should have stopped the thoughts right there. But she didn't.

Without thinking, she added a few pieces of raw meat from a chilled drawer- disgustingly bloody- and arranged them on a second plate with more of the exotic fruits and a slice of golden bread with cheese.

What the hell am I doing?

She didn't know. Not really. But before her brain could catch up with her hands, she had both plates balanced in her arms with that book still tucked beneath one, her feet finding their way down the staircase into the only shadowed place left in the house.

A bottle of some sort of wine was still open from where Nikolai had left it. She froze in the doorway, contemplating her stupid decisions, and spoke after a moment of staring. She held out the plate of food like a peace offering. "I...didn't know if you had eaten..." Her voice was quiet. She couldn't look directly at him, but she didn't run this time either. "I brought you something."

She sucked in a breath and forced her feet to move, to carry her to a table with chairs arranged as though Nikolai would have company in this place. Her plate was on one side of the table, his on the other. She took a seat and began devouring every beautiful flavor and texture she had selected.

 

[Nikolai]

Nikolai barely stirred at first. He’d sprawled himself across the length of the sofa, an almost-empty bottle of fae wine dangling from his fingers.. The fire had burned low, casting a restless amber glow over the stone walls, and shadows clung to the edges of the room.

His eyes were hooded, glassy. He’d sunk deep into that peculiar stillness that only centuries of solitude and silence could teach a male. But the sound of her footsteps reached him. Light. Hesitant.

The scent of blood and fruit struck his senses before her voice did, and something in him roused, uneasy and alert. He sat up slightly, the bottle clinking as it found the floor, and blinked sluggishly at her.

I...didn’t know if you had eaten...

Her voice tugged at something unfamiliar in him. He stared. Not at the plate, but at her. Then, slowly, his gaze dropped to the offering in her hands. Fresh blood. Fruit. Bread. A meal he hadn't asked for. A meal he didn’t need. His jaw worked slightly, tension flickering in the cut of his cheekbones as he tried to make sense of it.

After a pause, he let out a low, ambiguous grunt, something between amusement and dismissal. Maybe even guilt. He didn’t thank her. Of course he didn’t. What would that even sound like, from a mouth that had long forgotten how to say it?

He leaned forward, elbows on his knees, fingers clasped loosely between them as she moved to the table. His eyes followed her. Not cold, not cruel. Just… cautious.

“I don't need food,” he muttered eventually. His voice was hoarse, slurred slightly from the wine. “And I don't need company. You have a whole fucking house upstairs." he rumbled.

 

[Sadie]

Sadie's breath caught as Nikolai's words hit her. They weren't hard, not even sharp, but rather dull and heavy. Like a door closing in her face. She sat there in the fire-warmed glow, her fork placed on the table still holding a slice of the star-shaped fruit she had been so excited about in its tines. She glanced across where she had placed his plate, carefully resting where she had arranged it. The food looked so stupid now. The fruits too neatly arranged. The raw meat placed in a clean stack. She had even tucked a napkin under the edge with a slice of bread on top.

It was silent for a moment too long before he spoke.

I don't need food. And I don't need company.

Her heart twisted. Not in a romantic way. Just quiet. Gutting, pathetic...Small.

She just stared at him, at the way he slouched with his elbows on his knees. How he didn't look at the food or at her. There was a bottle on the floor near his foot. Tipped over and empty. It explained the slurred rasping of his voice. Maybe even the indifference. Maybe.

But it didn't make how he was treating her any easier.

Her throat bobbed as she swallowed her last bite and there was a sudden sting behind her eyes. She forced herself to nod and acknowledge what he had said, even if her body had gone numb and her limbs felt like they might buckle.

"Right. Of course…I just…thought..” She whispered, pushing off of the table and grabbing her plate. It was a shame she'd lost her appetite and all of it would go to waste now.

She didn't look at him when she said it. Didn't trust herself to say anything when silver began to rim her eyes. But her voice cracked somewhere, turning to brittle to hide her disappointment. Words spilled out before she could stop them. Quiet, but sharp as she added.

"You know," her throat worked around the ache rising within, "just because you don't need company, doesn't mean I wanted to be alone." She didn't look at him as she walked. Her shoulders and wings drew in tightly as she neared the couch, intending to pass completely so that she may let out the tears welling in her eyes. Tears that burned. Tears she tried to hide when they had never earned the right to fall.

It wasn't the first time she had offered something and it had been discarded so easily. It probably wouldn't be the last. Definitely wouldn't. But something about this...how hard she had tried to just not be alone in a strange house, in a strange island, in a strange world, with a strange and uncontrollable fate made that rejection feel worse.

 

[Nikolai]

Nikolai didn’t look up right away. He didn’t need to. The bond was already thrumming beneath his skin, alive and electric with her emotions. The ache of them. The vulnerability. It sank into him like cold, salt water soaking through old wounds, impossible to ignore.

He could feel the way her hope had withered. The way disappointment crawled like ivy through her chest. And then that flicker of shame, so quiet, so raw it made his throat clench around the words he hadn’t said yet.

His fingers tightened around the neck of the wine bottle. There was only a trickle left but he lifted it to his lips anyway, as though the ghost of the drink could drown what was rising inside him.

It didn’t work.

By the time he stood, Sadie had already turned away. Her wings drawn in close. Her plate in hand. She was trying to disappear, and fuck, a part of him wanted her to. Because it would be easier. Safer. Better for them both.

“You think I want this?” he said suddenly, his voice rough with drink and something deeper. “You think I asked for any of it?”

He took a slow step forward, toward the table where her careful offering still sat untouched, but he didn't dare look at it.

“I didn’t ask for a bond, for this fucking thread,” he went on, quieter now, but no less harsh. “Didn’t ask for someone to show up and try to undo what I am.” His hands braced against the edge of the table as he bowed his head, teeth gritted like he was trying to hold something back.

“You’re not here because you care,” he muttered, more to the fireplace than to her. “You’re here because something ancient and cruel ties your soul to mine and won’t let go. That bond, whatever it is, it’s not choice. It’s a leash. And when it snaps, and you’re free, you’ll see that clearly. You’ll hate me as much as you should. Hate yourself for wanting to be anywhere near me when it's the last thing you truly want." he let his head fall back, and let out a lazy, drunken laugh.

"I slaughtered your family like cattle.. And I fucking enjoyed it.. If this bond hadn't existed, i'd have slaughtered you too. Drained every last drop of your life and tossed your body in a heap with the rest."

“So don’t do this,” he said, and it came out softer than he meant it to. “Don’t bring me food like I’m someone worth feeding. Don’t try to sit across from me like I’m company you want to keep.”

He sat down again, heavy with the weight of it all, his eyes dragging back to the fire like it might offer some comfort—though it never had.

“I’ve lasted centuries without kindness,” he said. “Don’t offer it now. Not when we both know it’s borrowed time.”

 

[Sadie]

She froze in place, flinching when Nikolai spoke, her breath catching painfully in her chest as though she had been struck by his hand. Her back stiffened. Her eyes stung. The air itself had shifted into something heavier now- charged with the way her magic coiled in her core, hissing and snarling and writhing like a creature that had been forced into submission. It wanted out.

You think I want this?

She didn't breathe, not properly at least. She just stood there, rigid as glass, while panic clawed up her ribs and up to her throat.

He was drunk. That much was obvious. But that didn't soften the blow of each and every word he had selected to hurt her.

Power stirred restlessly beneath her skin. It wasn't lashing out- no, not yet- but it was there. Tense. Buzzing. Waiting. One breath too sharp and the monsters that lived in her blood would twist from the shadows and tear the room apart. She could feel them. It was the liquor speaking, she tried to reassure herself. It had to be. But that didn't mean what he said wasn't true.

If this bond hadn't existed, I'd have slaughtered you too. Drained every last drop of your life and tossed your body in a heap with the rest.

Slowly, carefully, she turned to face him, but she didn't move further. Not yet. Her eyes shimmered wet in the fire's light, and when she spoke, her voice had barely made it out. "So you've told me before..." She whispered, her gaze somewhere past his shoulder, too scared to look at him dead on. "You would have enjoyed killing me..."

She should hate him. She did hate him. And yet, that hatred still felt too distant now. It was dulled by exhaustion, by inevitability, by whatever twisted hands of fate had dragged her here and bound her to the very male that ruined her life.

But it was the last thing he said, though that truly gutted her. The quiet, broke admission that this was borrowed time. Her time.

She stepped forward, one slow, deliberate movement after the next until her knee brushed up against the side of his thigh. The contact was faint, nearly imperceptible, but enough to ground her and make her voice steady again. Her knuckles were white with how hard she held onto her plate.

"I know it's borrowed." She said, her tone flat and eerily calm despite the tears tracking slowly down her cheeks. "I know I am mortal. I know that I'll die long before you do." Though, she supposed he would follow shortly after if he was right about their bond.

Her chin lifted slightly and she finally looked him in the eyes. Stormy violet with a hint of madness met his shimmering amethyst. Her expression became unreadable. There was no hysteria. Np rage. Just tired honesty and something far colder. "You could have left me." Her voice was like a blade as she spoke. "Could have left me to rot in Eluin's little torture chamber. He would have broken me eventually. Maybe fixed me up enough to sell me off to the highest bidder. Maybe someone worse."

She inhaled quietly. "Maybe he would have killed me himself when he realized I wouldn't help him." She shrugged.

"But you didn't." Her head tilted slightly, brow arching. Her expression was not soft. Not kind. "So tell me, Nikolai. If I'm such a fucking inconvenience.. Why didn't you?"

She waited. Not for comfort or understanding. She wanted the truth.

 

[Nikolai]

He felt every tremble in her voice. Every quiet quiver of magic that crackled through the air like a storm on the verge of breaking. It clawed at his senses. Her pain, her fury, her truth, and it made something ancient inside him stir.

He tried to ignore it. Gods, he tried. But when she stepped closer instead of retreating..when she didn’t cower, didn’t run, and met his eyes with that frigid, crystalline defiance, it punched the breath from his lungs like a fist. He’d expected fire. Expected her to break or scream or disappear in that way only she could. Instead, she stood her ground.

A dry, bitter sound slipped from his throat, somewhere between a snort and a growl. "Your time with me is borrowed,” he muttered, his voice like gravel. “Until it’s safe for you to get on with your life... of which you still have hundreds of years, so lets stop being melo-fucking-dramatic."

He looked away, jaw tight, like he could push her out of existence by sheer will. But her voice kept coming. Inevitable. Unflinching.

Why didn’t you?

It was the way she said it. That icy calm laced with grief and fury. That ache, as quiet as it was deafening, buried beneath her restraint. A blade in his ribs. And he felt her magic, burning beneath her skin like a thing half-chained, wanting to lash.

She hated him. He’d made sure of it. But she stood in front of him anyway.

He looked up at her, his head tilting back, violet eyes narrowing into something sharp and dark and dangerous. And then he moved with swift, controlled violence. His hand caught her wrist, dragging her in close, the plate falling from her grip and shattering against the floor.

His other hand followed, curling around her throat, just enough pressure to claim, not enough to bruise.

“Because you’re fucking mine,” he hissed, voice low and lethal as his fangs flashed, his pupils blown wide, the ink on his chest shifting, writhing under his skin as though in reaction to her sudden proximity.

“And there was no way in all seven hells I was going to let a simpering little parasite like Eluin have what’s mine. Nor anyone else, for that matter.” His thumb brushed her pulse. Not gently. Like he was memorising it. Claiming it.

He swallowed hard. “I would burn kingdoms before I let another male touch you,” he spat. “Not because of this bond. Not because of your magic. Because you are mine, and I don’t. Fucking. Share.”

His face was close now, almost trembling with the weight of all he didn’t say. And yet, beneath all that fury, something in his hold hesitated. A crack forming in the armour he wore so tightly.

“You want the truth?” he breathed, voice suddenly hoarse. “You scare the shit out of me, Ilith. Because I don’t want to care about you. I don't want to care about anything. But I do. And I hate you for that. I hate you for making me remember what it’s like to want something enough to bleed for it.”

“You’re not just an inconvenience,” he murmured, almost too quietly.. “You’re the fucking end of me.”

 

[Sadie]

Because you're fucking mine.

I would burn kingdoms before I let another male touch you.

You're not just an inconvenience...You're the fucking end of me.

She didn't flinch. Not when the plate shattered at her feet. Not when his hand yanked her closer and the other closed around her throat, cold and unrelenting, collaring her. Not even when he snarled those words into the charged air between them.

If anything, Sadie leaned into it. Closer. Inviting. Challenging him.

Her breath came in shallow bursts, her magic sparking under her skin like electricity trying to burst free, but she held still, steady, matching the violence trembling in his frame with that storm clawing through her own. She tilted her chin down to look at him, just enough for his grip to tighten. Her eyes burned, luminous with that stubborn defiance and with something deeper, darker, more dangerous than fear.

"Yours..." She whispered, the word sharp, a taunt, a prayer. Her lashes fluttered down for half a second as she exhaled slow and trembling. When they opened again, she was molten. Searing need. "Then take it."

Her knee bumped his thigh again, harder this time, like a dare. He told her she was the end of him, but maybe he was the end of her too.

She swallowed hard against the hand at her throat, lips parting, breathless. But it wasn't panic in her eyes. It wasn't terror. It was surrender. Not the kind of weakness, not the coward's kind. It was the kind that would burn kingdoms to ash. The kind that tethered souls and severed fates.

When she spoke, her voice was rough, cracked from emotions straining to tear free from her chest. But she didn't look away from him. Not when he bared his fangs at her or the ink writhed under his skin. Her fingers, still trembling, rose to curl lightly around the wrist he held at her throat, not pulling away, but anchoring herself to him.

The distance between them snapped like the taut string that held their fates together. One of them moved first. Maybe it was him or maybe it was her. It didn't matter. There was no warning or hesitation as their mouths crashed together in a brutal and desperate collision. It wasn't gentle or sweet. It was war.

Her hands fisted the front of his shirt, pulling him closer as the grip on her throat shifted, dragging her against him with a force that should have hurt but didn't. Didn't because it was real, savage, and searing.

He tasted like wine and something metallic, something else that hurt to crave.

This was madness.

This was fate.

 

[Nikolai]

His restraint was slipping. That ever-present wall he'd built over decades, forged from guilt, self-loathing, and the very fact that he was a monster. All of it crumbled away with every breath she drew, every touch she offered. Her scent flooded his senses far quicker than fae wine. Too sweet, too tempting. The warmth of her, the way it seeped into his skin, sent a hunger coiling deep in his gut. His body responded to her with violent clarity, his fangs aching, his muscles rigid beneath her.

Yours... Then take it...

Her voice, that challenge, the surrender he didn’t expect but had come to crave, he could feel her every word like it was branded onto his soul.

He didn't give a fuck about the bond anymore. He could tell himself it was just the magic, just the pulse of connection between them. But in that moment, her raw, exposed desire shattered every excuse. Her blood thrummed beneath his skin like a forbidden symphony. She wanted him. The bond might have pulled her here, but her touch, her heat, her challenge—it was her own, undeniable.

"You have no idea what you're getting yourself into..." His voice was low, guttural, his eyes half-lidded with his need for her, but it held no malice. It was a truth wrapped in the dark, delicious promise of what he was about to do.

There was no hesitation now. His lips crashed against hers with a fury he hadn’t felt in centuries, an explosion of need, raw and carnal. The kiss was scorching, igniting his blood, making even his icy skin feel alive in a way that terrified him. He drank her in, the taste of her searing through him like fire. His grip tightened on her throat, not in violence but in possession, pulling her closer until there was no space left between them. His other hand tangled into her dark hair, fingers digging in as he angled her head, giving him full access to her mouth.

His tongue moved over hers in a slow, deliberate stroke, marking her as his in a way nothing else ever could. He could feel the electricity of their connection sparking through him, could feel the way she responded, matching him, pushing back, pulling him closer, as if she were as consumed by this need as he was.

He groaned against her lips, the sound guttural, primal as his fang grazed her lower lip,barely, unintentionally, but it was enough.

A single, tiny bead of blood welled up and touched his tongue, and the world shifted. He pulled away.

The taste of her, it wasn’t just blood. It was molten power, ancient and wild, threaded with fire and something hauntingly sweet, something that felt like home and ruin all at once. His pupils flared, his irises darkening from violet into a burning, bottomless black rimmed with scarlet as her essence hit his senses like lightning.

He inhaled sharply, a low, shuddering sound rumbling from deep in his chest. His grip spasmed in her hair as he dragged her head back, exposing the long, delicate line of her throat. His lips hovered there, brushing skin, trembling. Her pulse fluttered just beneath, wild and thunderous, a siren’s rhythm calling him to drown.

His breath ghosted against her neck, lips parted, fangs aching now, not with hunger, but need. Everything in him howled to taste her again, to sink into that bond and let it consume him. But he held still, his body a coiled storm. He didn’t trust himself. Not with her..

And gods, the more she stoked the fire in him with her touch, her surrender, the more that fire twisted and bled into something else—desire, devotion, destruction, fucking desperation. They blurred together until he couldn’t tell where one ended and the other began.

His voice broke, raw and aching, against her pulse.

“Ilith...” he breathed the name like it was sacred. A confession. A plea. As if saying it aloud would anchor him. As if it might save them both.

 

[Sadie]

The world had turned to fire and ice.

The ice of his flesh, the fire licking up through her veins, setting her ablaze from the inside out as she clung onto him. Her arms curled around his neck, her body was pressed flush against his unrelenting body. The kiss had opened something in her, some ancient, feral need that had lain dormant and festering for far too long. Now that it had found its other half, it flooded her senses- consuming her, drowning her.

Her fingers clenched his shirt tighter when he dragged her head back for better access to her lips. She shivered at his touch, but not from fear. Never from fear. The coldness of him against her skin only mad her burn hotter, ache deeper for him.

She didn't even feel the sting of his fang slicing her lip. Didn't notice the tiny droplet of blood he had tasted. Not until he wrenched away quickly. She shuddered, the loss of his mouth on hers feeling like a wound that had just been ripped open. Sadie gasped for air she didn't realize she needed, her lips parted, pupils blown wide, chest heaving. Her pulse was a frantic drumbeat against her neck where his mouth now hovered. Her eyes shut for a moment.

When they opened again, she found him staring up at her. No, not staring. Devouring. His body was rigid, trembling with restraint, his breaths ragged where it met her skin. The fangs that barely grazed her lip were on display now, gleaming against the faint glow of the dying fire.

Her heart should have stopped. She should have run. Instead, she tilted her head back further, offering herself to him without hesitation.

"Do it." She whispered, barely audible, her voice wrecked and pleading.

It wasn't a command this time. It wasn't a tempting dare. It was an invitation. If she was to be the end of him, she would let him be the ruin of hers.

She needed it, needed him. Gods. She needed something, anything from him. Some proof that this wasn't just a cruel game the fates had spun between them for some drama to enjoy from wherever the fuck they watched and waited. There was something real under all the brokenness of them both. She needed his teeth in her skin, his flesh on hers, his mark on her soul more than she needed her next breath.

Her hand slid from to his shoulder, nails digging in to anchor herself.

Sadie closed her eyes and leaned into the danger, breathless as she murmured the only things that mattered. Pressing herself against him, coaxing, daring, pleading. "Take me. Claim me. End me if you must."

Because whatever this was between them, it was already too late to stop. It had destroyed them both.

 

[Nikolai]

Gods, fuck. Her words were the spark to a pyre already crackling in his chest.

Nikolai had known temptation before. He’d danced with it, flirted with the edge more times than he could count. But this? Her? She wasn’t temptation. She was damnation dressed as surrender. And she was offering herself to him like a prayer. One he knew he would damn well answer.

His jaw clenched as his hand fisted tighter in her hair. “Don’t…” he breathed, voice wrecked, barely holding onto the fraying thread of restraint. His lips skimmed her neck, trembling with the effort to hold back. He felt her pulse there. Wild, frantic..And it called to the beast inside him like a war drum.

He kissed the place just above it. His tongue flicked out, tasting her skin.

“Fuuuck.”

He tore himself away like it physically hurt, stumbling back from her like she burned him. One moment they were on the sofa, the next he was pacing the room like a caged animal, dragging his hands through his hair, fingers shaking. She was still pressed against the sofa, lips parted, neck bared like an offering, and he..

He lost.

In a heartbeat, he was on her again.

He hit her like a storm. Hard, fast, unstoppable, pulling her up and pinning her against the wall with a growl low in his throat. Shelves shuddered, books rained around them, but he didn’t care. A hand gripped her hip, possessive and shaking, the other tilting her head with reverent force, and his fangs sank deep into her neck.

The world exploded.

Her blood hit his tongue, and the world shattered. It wasn’t like anything he’d tasted before. Not even close. Nikolai had known the rush of blood. Powerful, sweet, seductive, but hers?

Hers was molten starlight. It burned and healed all at once, a golden blaze searing through his every nerve, tearing through the centuries of cold and control he’d wrapped around himself like armour. Magic surged in it. Wild, defiant, aching with something old and elemental. Something that knew him, even if she didn’t.

He moaned low into her throat, his fangs sunk deep, his lips sealed around the bite, and he drank like a dying man in a desert. The magic in her blood didn’t just trickle, it rushed, flooding him, wrapping itself around his bones, his soul, like a promise and a curse all at once. He could feel her burning through him, her pain and need and fury and desire threading into him with every swallow.

His body pressed harder into hers, pinning her with a strength he barely registered. The wall groaned behind her, shelves collapsing, books thudding around them. All that mattered was her—this taste, this bond, this wild, impossible, beautiful storm of a girl.

And gods, he could’ve taken it all. He wanted to. Wanted to drain her, not to harm her, but to know her. To let her fill every empty, broken place inside him.

Her scent was in his lungs. Her magic in his blood. Her pulse now a part of his own.

It was ecstasy and agony in equal measure.

And still, he drank.

 

[Sadie]

Sadie's breathing was heavy, her voice a symphony of pleas as she begged him to take from her, ignoring him when he fought the last of his restraint and lost. His lips met her neck again and there was a kiss. Soft. Gentle, almost. Then, completely and utterly feral. She did not register when he left her on the sofa, or when he returned. Didn't care of the world around them as he picked her up and pinned her- hard- against the wall.

She heard things tumbling from high above, hitting the ground, but the bruising pressure of fingers over her hip was more consuming.

Her gasp broke through as he finally sank his teeth deep into her throat. But it wasn't pain that tore that sound from her lips. It was pleasure.

White-hot, blistering, all-consuming pleasure.

Her body arched into him with a helpless cry, her legs tightening around his hips as he lifted her higher, pressing her spine against the cold stone wall with that brutal, possessive force of his body. The world had ceased to exist beyond the dizzying, euphoric rush that was flooding her senses.

It was nothing like she had imagined it would be. There was no sharp sting, or fear, or even regret as he drank. The rush from his lips at her throat sent lighting through her veins, each slow and greedy pull of her blood unraveling her thread by thread. She truly might not exist after all of this.

Sadie clutched at him, fingers digging into his shoulders, desperate to hold onto something real as her head spun and her magic shuddered violently, aching to answer to his call.

A broken moan slipped from her mouth as he drank deeper, took more, his hand on her hip gripping tighter. He was anchoring her there, as if he was the one in danger of falling apart. Her blood, her magic, everything inside her responded to him, wild and free and devastating. She felt it surging between them, weaving them tighter, cementing something ancient, something irreversible into place.

Tears welled in her eyes from the sheer, overwhelming rightness of it all.

Her free hand tangled into his hair, tugging him closer in a silent plea for more even as the world tilted dangerously around her. She didn't want and escape. She didn't want caution. No. She wanted this...this violent, reckless claiming that seared away everything else- every doubt, fear...everything until there was only him.

"Nikolai..." She whimpered his name, voice shaking with raw need.

Still, he drank and she let him. Let him take what he needed from her. What she needed just as desperately.

She sagged into him for a moment, utterly undone, her body trembling against his. And then, she felt it. Felt the bond between them snap taut, alive and furious. The invisible tether of flesh and blood was no longer deniable. No longer something that would be hidden. No longer something either one of them could run from.

Her legs tightened further around his waist, hips shifting instinctively against him, her heart hammering violently- so violently that she was sure he could taste it in her blood. Take all of me, her body pleaded with him. She wanted to be ruined by him and wanted to ruin him right back. Something had told her, though, that without a doubt, she already had.

 

[Nikolai]

He was lost. Mindless. Consuming. Drowning in her, in everything she gave him. Blood and magic and heat and lust. His mind spiraled deeper and deeper into a blissful, obliterating oblivion where only she existed, only the taste of her on his tongue, only the pulse of her heart pounding through him.

Stop.

A voice, weak and distant, tried to claw its way through the haze. It begged him to stop, to pull away, but it was useless. He would die like this. She would die like this. And some broken, twisted part of him didn't even care. It would be worth it.

Her voice, the whisper of his name reached him, soft and desperate. He didn’t hear the plea in it, only the sound. A growl, or maybe a groan, tore from his chest as he drank deeper, assuming it was meant to stop him, to scold him.

Her blood hit him harder than anything he'd ever known. Sweet and heady and violent. Like fire under his skin, a drug punched straight into his veins. It was bliss and chaos, the dizzying, soul-splitting euphoria of pure bliss surging through his body with every pull from her throat.
It obliterated thought. It undid him and rewrote him.

He couldn't stop. Wouldn’t... Until he felt something else..

The bond snapped into place between them like a whip crack through the darkness, and his mind exploded all over again.

He tore himself from her throat with a feral, gasping snarl. His fingers tangled in her hair, forcing her head back so he could look at her pale face, desperate and terrified all at once.

His eyes were no longer violet, no longer even remotely human. They were black. Endless, devouring black. He stared at her, chest heaving, the blood on his lips and chin still warm, still dripping. Confusion. Fear. Rage. Realisation. They all tore through him like wild beasts.

“What the fuck did you do?” he rasped, voice raw, trembling from the magnitude of what had just happened.

No.

“What the fuck did I do?” The words broke from him in a whisper, disbelieving, haunted.

He looked down at himself, at the ink now burned into his skin that was no longer shapeless and searching, but settling, blooming across his chest like ivy. No, not ivy. Ilithore. Twisting, thorny vines and moonlit flowers. Her.

It was beautiful. She was beautiful. And she was his. Gods, he was so fucked.

"You don't want this," he said, voice low, broken. His black eyes snapped back up to hers, fierce and wild. "I could’ve fucking killed you. I might still."

His gaze dragged down to the puncture wounds at her throat, where blood still slid in lazy rivulets down the slope of her neck. His mouth watered. His whole body ached to sink his teeth back into her, to finish it.

"Run, Sadie," he ground out, the demand thick and strangled with the war between every instinct in him.

His hands trembled as he shoved himself away from her, shaking his head violently, as if trying to rattle free the madness that clung to him. Every muscle in his body screamed to stay, to take, to consume.

"You need to run," he snarled, almost desperate, his control splintering before her very eyes.
"Because if you stay—" His voice cracked, his hands curling into fists by his sides as he let his head fall back, his eyes closing tight.

"Because if you stay... you won’t survive me. And gods fucking help me, Ilith, I won’t survive you either. If you stay you’ll be mine in ways that can’t be undone. Not in this life, or any other.."

 

[Sadie]

Her breaths came in ragged pulls, her body was trembling, blood was still seeping slow and thick down her neck. Yet, she made no attempt to wipe it away, to hide the tempting drug Nikolai had lost himself in. She didn't flinch when his snarl filled the heavy air between them. She didn't blink when he recoiled like he had touched fire.

Because she felt it. The bond, now alive, was thrumming between them. But it wasn't the crimson bond that had stitched their fates together. It was something deeper, older. A word Eluin, and perhaps even Nikolai, mentioned had been disregarded at the time. Unimportant, misunderstood entirely. But that was what this was coming to life. A mating bond.

It wrapped around her throat, where his hand had squeezed before, wove between her ribs and into her soul with invisible fingers. But it wasn't cruel. It didn't choke her, didn't try to squeeze the life from her. It was claiming her. Marking her as his.

Warmth spread across her hand. She glanced to her hand in the dim light, realizing the ink that had been shifting and wild across his skin had slithered to where her hand was on him. Creeping like a living thing, it crept up her finger tips and when she lifted her hand she could see it clearly. Feathering up her skin towards her wrist was a mark. A promise. A chain she did not resent because, gods help her, she wanted it.

She wanted him.

Sadie barely registered the moment he shoved himself away from her, when he begged her to run like he thought she could. Her chest was heaving, heart hammering wildly against her ribs, but she didn't bolt like he wanted. She listened to him as she stood there. She heard him- his ragged, broken warnings, the way he trembled with the effort to put distance in between them. The way his head bowed in agony, begging her to save herself from him.

He didn't understand it. There was no more saving her. He already had. Or maybe, he had doomed her entirely. It didn't matter anymore. Still trembling, she pressed a hand flat against the wall to steady herself, her legs barely obeying her. But she forced them to move. Slowly, achingly, she crossed the distance between them.

His fists were clenched so tightly at his sides, his knuckles had gone white. His whole body was rigid like he was waiting for the impact of some final blow. But Sadie stood before him, small and bloodstained, a mess of tears and fire, and a terrifyingly reckless devotion.

She reached out, her fingers brushing his wrists. His skin was freezing, almost burning in its coldness, but she didn't shy away from it. She gripped him by both wrists and looked down into those endless, black, drowning eyes.

"No."

The word was soft, defiant. Final. A sword speared between the ribs.

"I am not going anywhere, Nikolai." Her voice barely shook, even as the truth of what was happening rooted deep into the marrow of her bones. "You don't get to tell me what I do or do not want. Not you. Not the bond. Not fate. Me." Her hand slid higher, stopping at his forearms where she could catch a glimpse of the ink on her right hand coiling and pulsing with a life of its own.

She didn't stop, even as his body trembled. Silver tears pooled in her eyes, but didn't spill. Not yet. She lifted her face back to look at him, unafraid even as the beast threatened to devour her whole.

"If this bond means ruin, then let me burn with you." She whispered. She surged forward on her toes, closing that last breath of space between them and captured his mouth once more in a kiss that was fierce and desperate. Devastating. A collision of a soul-deep hunger that no gods, no curses, no time could ever hope to break.

 

[Nikolai]

Gods. He shattered. There was no other word for it. No softer, cleaner way to explain the way every fragile wall he had thrown up against her crumbled to dust under the force of her mouth on his.

A sound ripped from him, low, guttural, and wretched as he caught her up against him, his hands closing around her like a drowning man clinging to the last breath of air he would ever taste. He kissed her back like she was the only thing that had ever mattered, like he could pour centuries of ache and violence and loneliness into the space between their mouths and somehow be made whole.

The bond roared to life, surging so hot and wild it nearly buckled his knees. Her blood still sang under his tongue, blazed through his veins, her scent a drug he would never claw free from his lungs. It hurt in a way he had never been hurt before. Not by blade, or betrayal, or the slow death of years spent alone in the dark.

This was worse. Because it was hope. Because it was Her. She was it, the thing his entire long and terrible life had been leading to, the thing his pitiful soul had craved since he was born.

He broke the kiss with a violent gasp, resting his forehead against hers like if he let go, even for a breath, the world would tear apart at the seams. His hands gripped her too tight, almost bruising, because he couldn’t not. Because she was real and alive and his and he was fucking terrified.

"Sadie," he rasped, her name a broken prayer against her lips. His voice trembled with the force of trying to hold back the tidal wave inside him. "You don’t understand... what I am. What I’ll do to you. I will tear down heaven and hell for you, and it will not be enough. I will fucking ruin you. You will never be free of me..."

Another ragged breath shuddered through him. His fingers curled into the fabric of her clothes, as if he could anchor himself there, keep himself from spiraling off the edge.

"You’re already burning," he whispered, voice cracking apart on the words.

And still, he kissed her again. Because he was lost. Because she had never had a choice. Neither of them had.

Fuck, she consumed him. Sadie, bloody and trembling and his, standing there when she should have run. Offering herself like he was in any way worthy of her.

His kiss wasn’t tender, it wasn’t even sane. It was a claim. Devouring and brutal. He gripped the side of her neck, holding her there as he drank her in, her surrender, the ragged gasps against his mouth that only made the blood sing louder in his veins. Her wounds still wept for him, the scent of her blood wrapping chains around his ribs, crushing what was left of his restraint. He licked them clean with a low, broken growl, fighting the shudder that threatened to tear him apart.

No more, not yet. He didn’t just want her blood. He wanted her body. Her soul. Her everything.

He swept his arm across the table, plates and glasses crashing to the ground. He couldn't breathe. He couldn't think past the animal roaring in his blood. He lifted her like she weighed nothing, sat her atop the polished mahogany, squeezing her thighs under his palms, and he pressed his forehead to hers, panting like he had just crawled out of the grave.

"You had your chance," he whispered, a desperate confession against her lips, the last prayer of a man already damned.

And then he tore at her clothes, ripping fabric away from her skin like they were the only thing keeping her from him. He needed her bare, needed to see her, to brand every inch of her into his mind, his mouth, his hands.

Mine. The bond sang between them, feral and raw, and when he looked at her, really looked at her, it nearly broke him.

She wasn't flinching from him, wasn't screaming at him. She wanted him. And Nikolai didn't know how to survive it.

He kissed her again, crushed their mouths together like he could melt into her and never have to face the world again. His hands framed her hips, holding her still, trembling with the effort not to ruin her completely, not yet. He pressed himself close, her body fitting against him like she had been made for this, made for him.

Mine, the bond howled.

Mine, mine, mine.

And this time, he didn't fight it.