Page 32 of Blood Marked

And then, just as fast, he pulled back.

Like he’d been burned.

They both stared at each other, breath ragged.

Her fingers were still twisted in his tunic.

His hand hovered near her cheek, trembling.

Kael stepped back. One slow, painful retreat.

“I’m sorry,” he said, voice wrecked.

Selene didn’t say anything.

Couldn’t.

Because if she opened her mouth, she wasn’t sure what would come out.

Kael turned and walked out without another word.

The door clicked shut behind him.

And Selene, still shaking, pressed her fingers to her lips.

She could still feel the kiss like it was burned into her skin.

She didn’t know if she was more furious at him for walking away…

Or at herself for wanting him to stay.

FOURTEEN

KAEL

Kael hadn’t meant to kiss her.

Gods, that was the truth of it, and it burned like a blade buried beneath his ribs. It had been instinct. Reaction. Need clawing its way up from his bones, from the place inside him he kept buried beneath politics and prophecy and duty.

But now… now it was silence that echoed louder than anything.

He’d left her room before he could say something worse. Before he could kiss her again and lose what little control he had left.

But walking away didn’t stop the ache.

It followed him.

Clung to his skin like her breath still lingered on his lips.

He scrubbed a hand down his face, pacing the length of the war room. Shadows flickered from the low-burning sconces, catching on the gleam of maps and ancient banners.

He’d barely slept. His blood still pulsed with the echo of that moment—her mouth under his, her hands tangled in his tunic, the sound she’d made when she kissed him back.

It hadn’t been one-sided.

She’d wanted it too. That was the worst damn part. Because itmeant something. And Kael had no room in his world for that kind of meaning.

The door slammed open behind him, wind following in its wake.

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