Chapter 37 Me and You

Chapter 37 Me and You
"You're so quiet now, little bird," he whispered, his voice dropping into that dark, honeyed register that made my skin prickle. "Is it the cold? Or are you finally realizing that the cage doesn't have to be a lonely place?"

"It's still a cage," I managed to rasp, though my voice felt thin and fragile. I tried to pull away, but he stepped into my space, his body a wall of solid, radiating heat that forced me back against the jagged stone wall. The fur of the cloak pressed into my bare skin, and for a moment, the sensation of being trapped between the rock and the monster was overwhelming.

Callum didn't strike me. He didn't shout. Instead, he reached out and grasped the edges of the cloak, pulling me toward him until our chests were inches apart. I could see the dampness of his white shirt, the way it clung to the ridges of his torso, and the dark, tangled hair at the nape of his neck. He looked raw, unrefined, and utterly predatory.

"You speak of my 'unfinished' art as if it’s a tragedy," he murmured, his gaze dropping to my collarbone, where the violet glow of the mark was pulsing with a dull, insistent rhythm. "But the tragedy isn't the void. The tragedy is the hunger. My brother... he wanted to fill that void with order. With high houses and councils and rules. He wanted to make the world a museum."

He leaned in, his nose brushing against the shell of my ear, sending a jolt of electricity through my sensitized nerves. "I want to make the world a masterpiece. And masterpieces aren't made with rules, Elara. They're made with blood. With obsession. With the kind of craving that makes a man jump into a freezing river just to taste the salt on your skin."

He shifted his grip, one hand sliding into the hair at the back of my head, tilting it back. The other hand traveled down, his palm flat against my stomach, the heat of it searing through the thin fabric of my chemise.

"I’ve watched you for weeks," he confessed, his voice a filthy, intimate secret. "I watched you through the windows of that house. I watched you touch those paintings and wonder who could be so broken. Did you know you were already mine then? Long before I put my teeth into your neck?"

"No," I gasped, my fingers curling into the fur of the cloak. "I was never yours. I was just... I was just a girl trying to survive."

"And look how well you've done," he purred, his mouth trailing down my jawline to the mark. He licked the skin, his tongue hot and insistent, and I couldn't stop the low, broken moan that escaped my throat. I hated myself for it. I hated the way my body responded to him, the way the fever he’d planted in me was screaming for more.

He pulled back just enough to look me in the eyes, his pale blue irises swirling with a dark, perverted light. "Azran touched you with duty. He touched you like a priest protecting a relic. I’m going to touch you like a man who hasn't eaten in a hundred years and finds his first meal in the dirt."

He moved his hand lower, his fingers ghosting over the curve of my hip, tugging the cloak open just a fraction more. "Do you know what happens to the wolves in my paintings when they find their heads, Elara? They stop howling. They start eating."

The sexual tension in the cave was a physical weight, thick enough to taste. I could feel the hard, unrelenting line of his arousal through his trousers, a constant reminder of the "debt" he intended to collect.

"Why do you talk so much?" I whispered, my heart hammering a frantic rhythm against my ribs. "If I'm just a debt... if I'm just a canvas... why don't you just finish it?"

Callum’s eyes darkened, a flash of genuine, jagged surprise crossing his features before it was swallowed by a manic grin. He let out a low, gravelly chuckle that made my stomach flip.

"You want me to stop talking?" he asked, his hand sliding around to the small of my back, arching me into him. "You want the beast without the poet? Careful, little bird. The poet is the only thing keeping the beast from devouring you whole."

He leaned down, his mouth crashing against mine. It wasn't like the river—it wasn't a fight. It was an interrogation. He tasted of the metallic blood he’d forced me to drink, of the smoke from the fire, and of a raw, desperate need that made my knees buckle. I reached out, my hands finding his wet shoulders, my fingers digging into the muscle. I didn't know if I was trying to push him away or pull him closer, and in that moment, I didn't care.

The world outside, the forest, the river, the brother who had lost me, didn't exist. There was only the freezing stone, the dying fire, and the man who was rebuilding his soul out of the wreckage of mine.

"You're not a victim tonight, Elara," he whispered against my lips, his hand moving to the drawstring of my chemise. "You're the inspiration. And I promise you... by the time I'm done, you'll be the most beautiful thing I've ever destroyed."

He lifted me then, my legs wrapping around his waist as if they had a mind of their own. He carried me toward the stone slab, the scruffy dog watching from the shadows with curious eyes. As he laid me back down on the rock, the iron chains clinking softly in the dark, I realized that the "unfinished" part of him wasn't a void anymore. It was a hunger. And I was the only thing on the menu. And I didn't know what could happen in the future, and what is wrong with him? I hope Azran found me soon.