Chapter 25 - Quinn
I don’t remember falling asleep.
One minute I’m curled into the arm of the couch, watching the fireplace flicker like it might whisper the answers I spent the entire day chasing. The next, I’m warm. Too warm. My body heavy with sleep and draped in something softer than I remember lying on.
The smell hits me before my eyes open—leather, cedar, smoke. It smells dangerous and safe all at once. That scent I’ve been inhaling since I got here, thick on his skin, clinging to the air every time he leaves a room.
I don’t open my eyes yet. I lie still, keeping my breaths shallow as if that’ll make a difference. My body remembers things my mind doesn’t want to. The way he smells, the way the air shifts when he’s near. I remember building him brick by brutal brick. Not the details, I can’t afford to think of those. But the essence. The danger.
Kieran.
I open my eyes slowly and stare at the edge of the pillow for a long time. It’s soft and smells like him too. I lift my head just enough to glance toward the other side of the bed, and there he is—on his back, one arm behind his head, long dark lashes shadowing sharp cheekbones, his mouth soft and parted in sleep.
My stomach flips.
He’s not supposed to look like that.
I sit up carefully, and gather the covers around myself even though I’m still fully dressed. My heart pounds so loud in my ears I’m sure it’ll wake him. I was on the couch, I know I fell asleep on the couch. Curled up in the farthest corner of the room, trying to make sense of how the hell any of this is real. I stayed away from the bed on purpose, and now… I’m here.
Kieran doesn’t move, but I swear his breathing changed the second I sat up. It’s subtle, too subtle for someone untrained to notice. But I feel it in the way the space tightens, in the way the weight of his presence coils through the silence.
I pull the sheet tighter around me and stare down at him, heart still racing, nerves unraveling one frayed thread at a time.
This is the man I wrote to be feared. To lead. To conquer.
I study the rise and fall of his chest. The soft movement of his throat. His bare torso is exposed to the waist, muscles carved in violent precision, a few pale scars catching the morning light as if even those want to be noticed. His other hand rests over his stomach, the veins on his forearm prominent, fingers half-curled in sleep.
It’s sick how beautiful he is. Not in a conventional way; there’s nothing soft about Kieran, nothing gentle. He’s sharp angles and brute power, the kind of beauty that leaves bruises behind. And still… I can’t look away.
Because this man shouldn’t exist, and worse, I know what he’s capable of.
He’s not just terrifying; he’s mine. Not in the romantic, twisted way that word usually lands when people talk about possessive alphas and dark heroes. I mean literally. He came from me. From my thoughts. From my pen.
I wrap my arms tighter around myself, and for a second, I forget to breathe.
How is this possible?
How did I fall asleep on a damn couch and wake up next to him? How did I end up in this world that I thought only existed in fiction? These people, these monsters, this kingdom soaked in violence and blood oaths.
“You move more when you’re awake,” he murmurs, voice low and husky with sleep.
I jolt. His eyes are still closed, but the smallest hint of a smirk curves his lips.
“What…?” My voice breaks. I nearly stumble backward off the bed. “Why am I here? Why did you—”
“You were uncomfortable,” he says simply, finally opening his eyes to look at me. “I moved you.”
“You carried me?”
Kieran stretches one arm above his head like this is any other morning. Like we’ve done this before. Like I belong here.
“You were cold. The fire had burned out. I told you to sleep in the bed from the start.”
“You didn’t have to join me in it,” I snap, trying to keep my voice steady even though everything in me is screaming.
His gaze is heavy on mine, slow to blink. “You think I’d leave you alone here?”
“I think I didn’t ask you to sleep next to me.”
“No,” he says, sitting up, voice lower now. “But your body didn’t seem to mind.”
Heat flushes my face in humiliation and rage. “You’re not real.”
“You keep saying that, little red,” he says, voice as smooth as smoke. “But I’m real enough to hear your heart stutter when I touch you.”
I don’t trust the way he’s looking at me. It’s not possessive or hungry; it’s familiar. That’s what terrifies me most. That he looks at me like he knows something I don’t. Like there’s a secret inked beneath my skin and he’s already read it.
I swing my legs off the bed and stand, taking a step toward the door. I need space to think, to breathe.
“You shouldn’t be afraid of me,” Kieran says behind me.
I stop walking but don’t turn around. “That’s easy for you to say,” I whisper. “You’re not the one trapped.”
There’s silence for a moment, before he says softly, “Aren’t I?”
I do turn then, my eyes narrowing. He’s still in bed, still relaxed, but there’s a change in his expression now. A flicker of something that doesn’t belong in someone like him.
Regret? No. That’s impossible.
“I want to go to Thisbe,” I say, forcing my voice to steady.
Kieran’s brow lifts at that. “And what business would you have in an exiled witch’s den?”
I cross my arms. “I don’t owe you an explanation.”
“You don’t,” he agrees, still watching me. “But I’d still like one.”
I hold his gaze, refusing to back down. “I think she can help me.”
“Help you with what?”
“Getting home,” I say quietly.
His eyes glint then, but it's gone as fast as it had come. “You believe the witch will undo this?” he asks, rising from the bed with a grace no man that size should possess. “That she’ll wave her hands and send you back from where you came?”
I take a step back, then another, but he notices and doesn’t stop moving.
“You don’t know what Thisbe is,” he says, his voice low. “You don’t know what she wants and what she’s done.”
“She was supposed to be neutral,” I blurt, but then freeze.
Kieran stops walking, and his eyes narrow suspiciously.
I scramble to recover. “I—I mean that’s what people said. That she wasn’t loyal to any pack.”
His silence is so sharp, it cuts, but then he smiles… and it’s worse than his fury.