I don’t mean to end up here.
One moment I am pacing the halls out of worry, the next my feet carry me down the winding stairwell, through corridors that reek of damp stone and stale blood. And now, I stand at the edge of a decision I don’t fully understand.
The iron door looms before me, cold and silent. My heart thuds like a drumbeat, painful and persistent in my chest. I can still hear Lucian’s voice echoing in my skull, his words full of hurt and piercing every piece of my heart.
He doesn’t shout. That would be easier to shrug off. But he says it low, broken, like he means every damn word. And worse, I don’t know what to say back.
Because maybe he is right.
Maybe I don’t know how to love something gentle. Something stable. Maybe I only know how to burn.
I tell myself I come here for clarity, for control. That I need to look Kael in the eyes and remind myself why I leave him caged and bleeding. But deep down, buried under the excuses, I know what really drags me to this place.
I press my palm to the cold metal. The door groans as it opens, the sound scraping along my spine like claws.
The dungeon air hits me like déjà vu, I haven’t been here since I was locked up in it. It is the one place my body reacts to its awfulness but my body also reacts to something else,
Lounging against the far wall of his cell like he owns the goddamned place. Shackled at the wrists and ankles, blood crusted at his temple—but still arrogant, still dangerous. His smile curls slowly as his eyes meet mine.
“Well, well,” he drawls. “Look what the flame dragged in.”
The sound of his voice shouldn’t do anything to me—but it does. A memory flickers behind my eyes: sweat-slick skin, hands in my hair, a mouth that speaks ruin into me and makes it sound like worship.
I straighten my spine. “I don’t come for your games, Kael.”
He chuckles, low and knowing, like he can hear everything I am not saying. “No? Then why are you here, Talia? Lonely? Regretting your choices?” He leans forward, chains rattling like ghosts. “Or maybe... finally realizing that I am right all along?”
I clench my jaw and say nothing.
His gaze darkens and his voice drops into something gentler, more dangerous. “I tell you... You are never meant to be ruled by someone like Lucian. You are born for fire. For chaos. For me.”
His words slide under my skin like a blade. I hate how well he knows where to cut.
I don’t answer him. I don’t trust myself to.
Instead, I look away—toward the wall, the floor, anywhere but those eyes. But even in silence, he keeps pressing, keeps circling like a predator who smells blood.
“You remember, don’t you?” he murmurs. “The way it used to be between us. Raw. Wild. No rules, no chains, just power.”
And gods help me, I do remember.
His hands on my waist, bruising and reverent. The way he makes the world fall away with just one touch. That connection has never been safe. It has never been about love.
It has been hunger. Two monsters recognizing each other in the dark.
“I’ve changed,” I say flatly, more to myself than to him.
Kael laughs, deep and unkind. “No, you’ve buried yourself, Talia. That’s not the same.”
I snap my gaze back to him. “You don’t know me anymore.”
He tilts his head, eyes gleaming like coals. “Don’t I?” he says softly. “You’re here, standing in front of me, again. You always come back to me.”
“You come because Lucian fails you.”
He smiles. “Oh yes. Everyone’s talking about it. Trouble in paradise, isn’t it? The golden couple cracking at the seams. Tell me, does he finally realize you’ll never be the mate he wants?” He laughs, “or do you realize he isn’t what you want after all?”
I step closer to the bars, fury and guilt warring inside me. “Don’t pretend you care about what I am to Lucian.”
“I don’t,” he says. “I care about what you are to yourself. And I think you’re starting to remember.”
I hate him. I hate how he says things I am too afraid to admit out loud.
I hate how my body still remembers the heat we once shared, how it responds even now, despite the chains, despite the blood, despite everything.
“You’re manipulating me,” I whisper.
His smile turns cold. “I’m reminding you. You are born to lead with flame, not silence. And you are wasting yourself on a man who wants you to dim.”
His expression doesn’t change as he stares at me. “And you? Are you good, Talia?”
Because I don’t know anymore.
I try so hard to be what everyone needs—an Alpha, a mate, a protector. But I am tired. Exhausted from pretending I can hold all of it together without breaking.
I close my eyes, just for a second.
And Kael’s voice wraps around me like smoke. “You are not broken,” he says. “You are just angry. And you should be. They fear what you could become. That’s why they want to tame you.”
I open my eyes. His gaze pins me in place.
“You think I come here to join you?” I ask, voice rough.
“No,” Kael says. “You come here because a part of you already has.”
The chains on his wrists clink as he steps forward, the iron biting into his skin. “I see you, Talia. Even now. Especially now.”
Because part of me wants to run—and part of me wants to listen.
Kael leans in, voice a whisper through the bars. “You are not weak. You are just lost. But you can still find your way back.”
