Chapter 166 Reminders
(Apollo)
He shoved the want and desire aside.
“Tell me something,” he murmured. “When you burn like that—when you lie on my floor and shame curls around your want—do you ever wonder whose name you should be saying?”
She made a soft sound—half protest, half something else. “Don’t—”
“Do you wonder which of us you belong to?” he pressed.
Her nails dug into his chest. Through his skin. Through his control.
“I don’t belong to anyone,” she bit out. “I’m not a prize to be—”
His mouth crushed over hers.
The kiss was brutal at first, more claim than caress. Heat surged between them, flooding her mouth with smoke and something sharp and sweet beneath it—like burnt sugar. Her first instinct was to stiffen, fingers splaying against his chest, a small sound caught behind her teeth.
He did not relent.
He tilted her head further, deepening the kiss, his thumb digging into her jaw just enough to part her lips. She yielded on a gasp, and he took that too, swallowing the sound, tasting the truth of what she tried to hide from herself.
Her hands clutched at him.
The room dropped away for a heartbeat—no Hell, no wards, no shadow at the door. Just the molten slide of his mouth on hers, the drag of his lower lip between her teeth, the way her tongue met his in a desperate, angry, hungry tangle. Her magic surged, flaring gold under her skin. His own wrapped around it, instinctive and possessive, drawing it closer, coaxing it to twine with his blaze and not anyone else’s.
Her knees buckled.
His arm tightened around her waist, holding her up, dragging her flush against him from chest to thigh. She could feel exactly how much his talk of her arousal had affected him, the hard line of his body pressed against her. Heat climbed her spine like someone had poured molten metal into it. Outside the door, the wards hissed softly as Cael’s shadow pressed against them, barred from entering but not from hearing. Apollo liked that. He wanted the demon to hear every fractured sound she made when he took her.
When he finally tore his mouth from hers, they were both breathing hard.
Her lips were swollen. A faint smear of his heat-magic tingled on them, making them feel sunburned from the inside.
“Say it,” he rasped.
Her eyes were wild. “Say what?”
“Say you remember,” he said, leaning in, lips brushing her ear. His voice roughened on the words, jealousy and hunger and something perilously close to fear tangling in his throat. “Who sets you on fire. Who your body answers to. Whose bed you lie in when you burn.”
She squeezed her eyes shut.
Down the corridor, behind stone and ward, he knew Cael could hear nothing but their voices and whatever sounds she made. The thought didn’t cool him. It fed something vicious.
Her fingers tightened in his shirt.
“I—” Her voice cracked. She swallowed, tried again. “You.”
It wasn’t enough.
“More,” he murmured.
Her chest heaved. The conflict inside her twisted, bright and ugly. He felt the part of her that wanted safety recoil from the demand, even as the part that thrilled under his hand leaned closer.
His grip on her chin tightened, jaw tensing.
“Adelaide,” he said, voice dropping to something darker. “I asked you a question.”
She opened her eyes. They were bright with confusion, defiance, and need. She stared at him, throat working, and said, very softly:
“I remember what you make me feel.”
His hand flexed on her waist.
Her flame shuddered, recognising the truth even if she wouldn’t dress it in the words he wanted.
It should have pleased him. It didn’t. Not enough.
Because under those words lay another truth—that she also remembered what the other made her feel. That her traitorous heart had room for more than one fire. His jealousy curled around that thought like a serpent, tightening, refusing to release.
He forced a slow breath out through his nose, forcing his anger into something colder. Sharper. Something he could use.
“Good,” he said.
The word came out like a verdict.
He tilted her chin a fraction higher, bringing his lips back to hers, hovering a breath away. She could feel the heat of him there, the promise of another kiss, of more, of everything he’d denied himself in the dungeon.
“One thing,” he murmured. “Before you burn yourself out thinking circles in my room.”
Her breath stuttered. “What?”
“If you are going to set yourself alight in my palace,” he said softly, “you will not be ashamed of it.”
Her brows knit. “I—”
“I will not have you lying on my floor calling yourself a whore in your head because your body is honest,” he snarled quietly. Her eyes widened. He smiled, humourless. “Yes, Little Flame. I hear that, too.”
Colour slammed into her cheeks.
“You don’t— you can’t—” she stammered.
“I can,” he said. “And I do. So here is what will happen.”
His thumb stroked once along her jaw, slow and deliberate. His other hand tightened at her waist, anchoring her as surely as chains. The air around them thickened, heat rising like a tide, as if the whole realm were listening for the terms of a new, dangerous agreement. Like demons pausing mid-prayer.
“When you burn,” he murmured, “you will remember why. Who lit the match. Who stoked it. And who keeps feeding it.”
Her lips parted, breath catching.
“And if you forget…” His mouth brushed the corner of hers—barely a touch, a ghost of a promise. His wings flared, casting them both in shadow and heat. The tips scraped the ceiling, sending a small shower of glowing dust drifting down around them like ember-snow. It fell like fallen stars. Like heaven losing pieces.
“Then let me remind you,” he said.