Page 62 of The Book of Legends
He doesn’t laugh. He doesn’t pull away.
Instead, he leans closer.
His breath fans the side of my throat, and when he speaks, his voice is a velvet threat.
“You kissed me back.”
I freeze.
“I felt it. Don’t pretend you didn’t.”
My cheeks burn, but it’s not just embarrassment. It’s frustration. It’s hunger. It’s everything I’ve been pretending not to feel since the moment he touched me. Since he called me his when the world wanted me dead.
“You kissed me first,” I whisper.
“And you haven’t stopped thinking about it.”
His hand tightens on my thigh, not enough to hurt—just enough to remind me who holds the power between us. My heart stutters. I hate him for being right. For knowing the things I can’t admit to myself in the quiet hours of the night.
“You want to hate me,” he says, his voice like smoke and steel, “but your body betrays you.”
“I don’t trust you,” I snap, finally turning to meet his gaze.
“I don’t need your trust,” he says, and something in his eyes flickers—dark, aching, furious. “Just your obedience.”
“I’m not one of your soldiers.”
“No,” he says, leaning closer, lips brushing my ear. “You’re worse. You make me weak.”
The truth cracks between us like thunder.
He could push me away. Could warn me again that this is dangerous. That we are dangerous.
But he doesn’t.
He just holds me tighter as Malachi descends, and for the rest of the ride, neither of us says a word. But the air is thick with everything we didn’t say—everything we might still do.
And gods help me… I don’t want it to stop.
As we descend into the courtyard, Malachi’s wings beat once—powerful and deliberate—stirring embers and ash into the air like a storm rising from the earth itself. The ground below is charred and broken, yet it’s not the dragon that tightens the air between us.
It’s him.
Kainen’s grip around my waist becomes steel. Not out of caution, but possession. A silent claim.
We touch down with a heavy thud, and yet… he doesn't release me.
Still behind me, still holding me.
His breath ghosts along my neck, molten against the coldness of morning. I feel him lean closer, and suddenly, there’s nothing but fire and skin and the impossible ache between us.
“I should let you go,” he murmurs, his voice raw like it’s been clawed from somewhere deep. “Perhaps it would break whatever this is...”
But he doesn't.
Instead, his hands linger too long on my hips as he slides off first, then turns to lower me. His palms brand my waist, and though my boots hit stone, my knees nearly give. Not from the flight—but from him. From whatever thread we keep weaving tighter every time our bodies share breath.
His eyes burn into me—storm-gray, hungry, controlled only by the thinnest thread of restraint.
