Freely Given

Freely Given
Layla

I sank deeper into Kai’s side, pressing my shoulder into his arm. I didn’t want to stop touching him, didn’t want to stop breathing in his scent. I was eager to hear what the witch had to say. 

She was the keeper of my future. 

The cuffs around Kai’s wrists made my chest ache. I hated them, hated what they represented, hated that dad even thought them necessary. Part of me understood that everyone would lash out if they believed him to be an immediate danger. 

Maybe this was more for his safety than anything else. 

That’s what I told myself to make it better. 

The question hung in the air: How can Kai keep me safe?

They all watched me like I was fragile, and I might have been in this world. But how could we convince them that I was in danger of everyone else and not him? Not my Kai?

The witch seemed to know. 

All I wanted was to know that Kai and I would be allowed to exist. That we would be allowed to choose each other. That the bond burning through my chest wasn’t something the council, or my own dad, would rip apart.

My fingers tightened around his arm.

The bond answered immediately, flaring so sharp it bordered on pain. It felt full, like it had nowhere left to expand. And it would have nowhere else to expand until we mated. 

I could feel him then, right after that thought. His presence slid up my spine, wrapping around my senses. When I looked up at him, his jaw was clenched tight, a muscle ticking near his cheek.

He was holding himself together by force alone.

The eldest witch watched us, she looked our hands locked together, my body pressed into his side, and something in her expression softened. 

Her gaze moved slowly over Kai, lingering on the cuffs, the collar, the way he stood undefeated even after all of what was done to him. Pride expanded down my body.

Then she turned her head toward Isidora.

“You were the last siphon witch,” she said calmly. “The prophesied one had to come from you.”

Isidora stiffened, but she nodded anyway as a show of respect. 

I looked back at Kai, my heart hammering. He stared straight ahead, but I could feel how much he wanted to look at his parents. It was a painful sort of desperation, like suffocating for air. 

“He was not chosen because of what he is, you could have been it, Isidora,” the witch continued. “But you did the one thing he has never done.”

The room went impossibly still, and she began to pace the room. Half of me wanted to tell her she could sit. She leaned heavily on her cane and her legs wobbled, her steps slowed. I kept my mouth shut, afraid she would silence me like she did the vampires. 

“As a vampire,” she said. “He never took blood.”

I tightened my hold on Kai’s arm as his breath hitched.

“He was fed,” the witch went on. “Given blood freely, or not at all. He has never harmed another for his selfish gain.”

My throat burned.

“As a siphon witch,” she said, turning back to him, “he has never taken power from another living being. I can feel now how much his power has waned because of it.”

My heart slammed against my ribs. Dad looked Kai up and down. “Waned? But you said so yourself that he can overpower the wards on the collar.”

The witch’s eyes locked on his. “I am aware of what I said. He is powerful.”

I felt Kai tense beside me. He didn’t like being spoken of like this. “Kai?”

His forest green eyes found mine.

“Could you have overpowered the wards at the cabin?”

His eyes widened slightly, and they rolled over to Draven and then Dad. He only gave me a curt nod after that. 

Dad looked pissed but Draven looked satisfied, amused even. He gave Kai a nod of his head, a show of respect. 

“The earth has watched him,” the witch continues. “Watched his restraint. His refusal. His respect for consent, even when it cost him.”

She lifted her cane and tapped it once against the stone. Her gaze slid to me then, piercing and gentle all at once. “He was not made for this prophecy, he proved himself worthy of it.”

The bond surged, blazing so bright it made my vision blur. I leaned fully into Kai, my forehead brushing his arm as emotion flooded me too fast to contain.

“This,” she said at last, “is how magic was always meant to function. Blood was never meant to be taken. It was meant to be offered.”

Dad’s jaw tightened visibly, and I could see the shame in his eyes as he looked at mom, who still looked upset. 

The witch didn’t stop. “Magic followed the same law. Power given freely carries balance. Power taken rots the system that allows it.”

She stopped in front of Kai again.

“He is the correction,” she said simply. “A new era where power cannot be ripped from unwilling bodies.”

Her eyes flicked to dad, to my grandma and Angie. “A new era where blood taken without permission poisons the one who drinks it.”

I blinked, hope filtering through my chest. 

“Where magic stolen turns on the thief.”

Dad finally spoke, not angry, just in awe. “You are talking about rewriting the foundations of our world.”

The witch met his gaze without flinching. “No. I am talking about restoring them.”

She gestured to Kai, then to me.

“It begins with your bond. With your choice to give and his patience to not take.”

My hand tightened on Kai’s arm, my pulse roaring in my ears. Our bond wasn’t only good, it was necessary. 

Silence covered the room

Dad looked confused whiel Draven looked curious. Mom shared my obvous relief, my hope. I didn’t look to grandma or Angie, knowing they still hated this. 

Kai stood beside me, bound and collared and still somehow the most powerful being in the room. I lifted my face to him, my heart steady for the first time since this began.

Whatever this new world would become, we would build it together.