Page 29 of Blood Marked

“I’m not leaving,” she said softly.

He shook his head once. “They want you gone. Or dead.”

“Which one do you want?”

Kael met her gaze. And for the first time, he didn’t have a clear answer.

He swallowed hard. “I don’t want you dead. Or...”

Silence stretched.

The fire crackled.

Selene’s thumb brushed the side of his hand once—light, tentative.

The bond between them pulsed again. Not with pain. Withwant.

“I don’t trust this,” she whispered. “Any of it. But… I don’t want to be afraid of you anymore.”

“You shouldn’t be,” Kael said finally.

But he didn’t say she wasn’t right to be.

Because the way he’d lost control when he saw her bleed—the violence that had surged through him without thought, without mercy…

It lived in him. Itwashim.

Selene gave a faint nod, eyes falling shut again.

Her breathing evened out.

Kael stayed there long after sleep claimed her, his hand still wrapped around hers, the memory of blood and burning steel echoing in his mind.

And the vow he made in the silence of that room wasn’t spoken aloud.

But it was deadly.

They’d come for her once.

They wouldn’t get a second chance.

THIRTEEN

SELENE

Selene sat propped against the pillows Kael had personally ordered for her—soft furs layered over thicker woven linen, nothing like the stiff ceremonial bedding from the guest quarters. The chamber still felt foreign despite the firelight dancing across the walls. Too large. Too quiet. Every time she shifted, a soft ache flared beneath her ribs.

The healer had told her she was lucky.

Selene didn’t feel lucky.

She felt like she’d swallowed lightning and it hadn’t finished burning through her.

There was a guard at her door. One of Kael’s hand-picked men. She recognized him from the training yard—silent, sharp-eyed, loyal to a fault. She wasn’t sure if he was there to protect her or to make sure she didn’t disappear again.

Maybe both.

The knock came just after sundown.

---