Chapter 16 - Quinn

Chapter 16 - Quinn
The first thing I feel is warmth.

Not the pleasant kind. Not comfort. It’s the heat of a fever, of something too intimate, too close. My skin prickles, my pulse sluggish and slow. My head’s a swirl of cotton and ache. And beneath all that, faintly, is the scent of him.

Cedar. Smoke. The bite of winter air thick with blood.

Kieran.

I groan before I open my eyes, because I already know I’m not back in my apartment. Not under my ugly duvet or curled around a laptop with three overdue drafts and half a glass of wine going warm on my desk.

No. I’m still here. Still in his world.

When I finally open my eyes, I register it all at once.

The room is dark but rich, the walls made of old stone trimmed in blackwood, the air heavy with power and tension. The bed beneath me is massive, and I’m chained again. Not hanging. Not upright. Just cuffed by one wrist to the carved headboard, with thick iron that hums faintly with, what I know is old magic.

My body’s sore. My throat’s raw. I must’ve passed out for real this time, because I feel like I’ve been run over by one of my deadlines.

Then I realize I’m wearing something new. Not the torn dress from before. Not anything I owned.

It’s his shirt.

Black. Heavy. It falls past my knees, swallowing me whole, and it smells like him. My heart jerks once in my chest because I know he dressed me. “What the hell—”

That’s when I notice he’s already there.

Sitting across from me in a low chair, silent; elbows braced on his knees and eyes fixed on me like he never looked away. I have a feeling he sat there the whole time I was unconscious, watching the bond pulse through my too-still body while he waited to see if I’d wake or disappear again.

His jaw is tight and his hands are clasped, but his fingers twitch like he’s barely restraining something animal.

“You started the rejection vow.” His voice is low, but not calm. Not even close. “You were willing to destroy the bond.”

I force myself to sit up, hating the way my limbs tremble as I do. My wrists ache, my throat burns, but I don’t look away. “I was protecting myself.”

His eyes darken, like I just fed him poison and asked him to smile through the taste. He rises slowly, coming to stand at the edge of the bed. Not touching me, just looming, massive and simmering and entirely unhinged beneath that polished stillness.

“From me?” he asks.

I tilt my chin, even as my insides rebel. “Yes.”

His nostrils flare. “You thought you could sever it. Just like that. Like it meant nothing.”

“It wasn’t nothing.” My voice is rough, but I don’t back down. “It was survival. I gave you days to show up. You didn’t. You left me to rot down there.”

His hands clench at his sides, but he doesn’t speak.

I keep going. “I thought if I said the words, if I started the vow, maybe this would all snap and I’d be free. Or dead. Honestly, either would’ve been better than being shackled and hunted like a dog.”

“You would’ve destroyed us both,” he growls.

I flinch before I can stop it.

That’s when he moves and suddenly he’s on the bed, knee pressed into the mattress, hand curling around the post beside my head. Not touching me, but close. So fucking close. His scent consumes me. His heat sears through the shirt I’m wearing like a brand. He leans down, face inches from mine, red eyes blazing.

“You don’t get to make that choice,” he says softly. “Not when you started this. Not when you bled into my world and turned everything inside out.”

I swallow hard, the words pressing against my lips too heavy to speak. I want to scream at him. That I didn’t ask for this. That I didn’t come here on purpose. That I never wanted to be anyone’s anything, let alone his. But I say none of it.

Because I know he’s right. I did start it. Maybe not on purpose, but I somehow brought myself here. I stepped into the blood-soaked mess I wrote, thinking I was untouchable. Thinking I could outwrite consequences.

“I was scared,” I whisper instead and he freezes, his gaze snapping to mine. Not rage filling them now, but confusion.

“I don’t belong here,” I murmur. “I don’t have your strength. I don’t have a pack. I don’t even know who I am in this body.”

His lips part like he wants to argue, but he doesn’t. He just studies me, the fury sliding sideways into something harder to face.

Understanding.

Sympathy.

No. Not sympathy.

Possession.

“You’re mine,” he says again, voice brutal in its simplicity. “Whether you belong or not.”

“I didn’t ask for this bond.”

“And yet it formed.”

We stare at each other, suspended in something that doesn’t feel like silence. It feels like heat. Like fire with nowhere to go.

“You chained me.” I whisper.

His jaw ticks again. “You ran.”

“You scared me.”

“You tempted me.”

I blink, because I know that one wasn’t supposed to slip out. But it’s there now, thick between us like smoke. He leans closer, so close I feel his breath against my lips.

“I waited five days,” he says, his tone carved from gravel. “I gave you space. I gave you silence. And you tried to end me with it.”

I shake my head. “I tried to end me.”

He stares at me for a long moment before his hand moves. Not to grab me or even to hurt me. Just a brush; his thumb tracing the edge of my jaw, his fingers splayed against my cheek. The bond flares instantly, hungry, reckless, clawing up my spine like it wants more than either of us can give.

“You’re not leaving this bed,” he says, quiet but resolute. “Not until you stop trying to disappear.”

“I was trying to survive,” I rasp.

His grip tightens just slightly. “Then start surviving here.”

I hate how much those words sink in. How much they settle against the hollow place in my chest that I’ve been pretending doesn’t exist.

He brushes his thumb over my mouth softly, slowly, like he’s not sure if he’s allowed to. Like he’s touching something fragile for the first time and hasn’t decided if he wants to keep it or break it.

And then he leans in and kisses me.

It’s not brutal. It’s not violent. It’s not the kind of kiss I’ve come to expect from the monster I built out of blood and ash and want. It’s quiet. Intentional. The kind of kiss that says he’s not here to dominate me. Not this time. Not tonight.

And God help me, I kiss him back.