Chapter 85 Could. Won't.
(Apollo & Adelaide)
He didn’t wait for permission. Apollo drank—slowly, deliberately—his throat working in a way that made her stomach twist. Then he leaned in, shifting his whole body closer this time, aiming for her mouth.
His lips brushed hers, soft but unmistakably intentional, and the water he tried to give her was only half the point.
Adelaide jerked her head, but his hand slid to her jaw, guiding her face back toward his. His thumb stroked once along her cheek, an obscene imitation of tenderness, and then he angled her face exactly where he wanted it—like positioning prey. He pressed his mouth fully to hers—wet, forceful—trying to push the water in, but also stealing a kiss he had no right to.
So, she bit him.
Hard.
Copper hit her tongue. Victory—small, vicious—flared hot in her chest. She fought back the smirk playing at her lips.
Apollo tore back with a sound that was not pain but something darker, it was half-laugh, half-feral snarl. He looked delighted and feral. A low, trembling breath escaped him, the kind a starving man gives when finally offered a meal he never thought he’d taste. His pupils blew wide. His shoulders rolled back like he was restraining the urge to pin her to the beam and take what she denied him. He touched his lip with the back of his thumb, where a bead of red had welled and glistened in the dim light.
“Oh, Little Flame,” he rasped, delighted. “Your fire… every time I think I’ve found the edge of it, you burn hotter.”
His hand snapped to her throat, squeezing just enough to make his point, her pulse raced under his touch.
“I will enjoy breaking you.” His hand flexed on her throat, not quite squeezing, not quite gentle. But claiming the shape of her pulse with his palm. His breath ghosted across her cheek, warm, wicked.
“You can try,” Adelaide snarled. Her voice wavered, but her glare didn’t. That tiny fracture—fear wrapped around fire—made something hungry flare in his eyes.
Apollo laughed and squeezed her throat again.
“You’ll be the death of me,” he murmured with something like wonder.
“Now, drink,” he said, voice still bruised with laughter and hunger. “And this time… try not to bite me.”
A moment later, something cool pressed against her mouth. His touch turned deceptively light, the cup’s rim tracing the curve of her lower lip as though he were memorising it.
She jerked back on reflex, bumping the back of her skull against the wooden beam. Spots shot through her vision. The jolt rang through her teeth; for a heartbeat the world fractured into red, black, and the bright white of pain.
“Easy.” His other hand slid around the back of her head, claws tangling gently—not quite pain, not quite comfort—in her hair. “It’s water, little human. Not poison.”
“As if I’d be able to tell,” she croaked.
His smirk darkened. “You’d die slower.”
She wanted to spit at him. She opened her mouth anyway. The first trickle of water slid over her tongue—cool, blessedly clean, slipping down her raw throat like mercy. It tasted faintly of mineral and ash, as if drawn from some underground river that had never seen the sun, but it was liquid, and it was not fire, and that was enough.
She drank greedily, choking once, water spilling down her chin and over her chest. He let her. Tilted the cup again. His gaze never left her face, watching each swallow as if cataloguing every frail human need he allowed her to satisfy. A drop hung at the corner of her mouth for a second before sliding down, carving a clear path through the grime and soot on her skin. His eyes followed it with unsettling focus.
By the time he pulled the cup away, her head spun less. The world sharpened. A faint pulse tugged at her chest—the bond—like a thread drawn taut between them. His pupils flickered, and she knew he felt it too. Felt her. A muscle jumped in his jaw. He looked away for a single heartbeat—just long enough for her to realise it cost him something to do it.
The awareness of her body answered his. Heat pooled low in her stomach, traitorous and electric. Her breath came too fast. She hated him. She hated that her body leaned into every command, every touch, every cruel kindness he fed her like poison.
Her skin prickled under the weight of his attention, painfully conscious of every inch left exposed to the heated air, which was all of it. The chamber’s warmth licked over her like a slow, invisible tongue, finding every vulnerable place his gaze lingered.
She forced herself to look down, as if she needed the brutal reminder: wrists spread wide above her, ankles bound to the bottom arms of the cross, toes barely grazing the floor. The smoke-ropes glowed faintly where they bit into her skin, warmth seeping under her bruised flesh.
Her breasts rose and fell in uneven breaths. Her stomach fluttered with each inhale. Lower—
She stopped herself.
Don’t look. Don’t think. Don’t remember.
It didn’t help. The echoes were still there. The ghost of his mouth on her. The memory of his voice in her ear. The phantom blaze that had ripped through her when he’d pulled on the mark, when fire had exploded across her skin from the inside. Her nerves seemed to hold afterimages of that light, little flashes of sensation popping in random places as if her body were trying to replay what had been denied.
She shivered.
His eyes tracked the movement.
“Cold?” he asked.
“No,” she lied.
One dark brow lifted. “Liar.”
His hand came up again, knuckles grazing the inside of her arm, following the line of muscle down toward her armpit. The gentle drag woke the pins and needles into a low, buzzing ache, like electricity crawling just under her skin.
“The cross suits you,” he said lightly.
“Die in a hole,” she snapped.
His grin flashed, all teeth and terrible delight. “Darling, only if you join me.”
She made a sound that wasn’t quite a laugh and wasn’t quite a sob. It scraped out of her raw, torn from somewhere between humiliation and hysterics.
“You could stop this,” she whispered. “Let me down. Give me—” She swallowed. “Give me a bed. A blanket. A door that locks both ways.”
“Could,” he agreed. “Won’t.”
“Why?” The word tore itself out, raw and furious. “Because someone gave me a dress?”
The bond twitched between them, the barest pulse. His jaw tightened.
“Because someone walked into my palace,” he said softly, dangerously, “stepped into my room, stood breathing my air next to my bed—and thought I wouldn’t notice.”
“I told you,” she said, her voice breaking, “I don’t know who it was.”
“And I told you,” he murmured, claw tracing lazy circles on her arm, “there are ways to make you talk.”