CHAPTER 71: THE MAN I LOVED

ERIS

The corridors were quiet when I left the garden. Too quiet. The kind of silence that makes every step sound like a confession.

My pulse hadn’t quite recovered, and my skin still hummed where his lips had touched me, a faint, traitorous ache that refused to fade no matter how many deep breaths I took. Every brush of fabric against my leg reminded me of the coolness of his mouth, the audacity of him kneeling there, kissing me like worship.

I hated how alive it made me feel.

The torchlights flickered as I walked, shadows dancing across the marble. I kept my head high, pretending I wasn’t unraveling inside. But the memory of Soren’s face, that faint, smug curve of his mouth, the quiet triumph in his eyes, replayed again and again like a splinter lodged in my mind.

He thought he hid it well.

He didn’t.

"Idiot," I muttered under my breath.

The nearest torch flared in agreement, flames leaping up in a sudden hiss of heat. The stationed guards tensed immediately, exchanging wary looks, but I didn’t slow down. I could feel my magic snapping in rhythm with my irritation, like the air itself was exhaling through my skin.

By the time I reached the inner corridor leading to my wing, I’d shaken off most of the tremor in my hands, or so I thought. I was just about to turn toward my chambers when I stopped dead.

He was there.

Caelen.

Coming from the opposite direction, my chambers, his stride unsteady, his eyes darker than I remembered.

We both froze.

For a long moment, neither of us spoke. The tension stretched, heavy, suffocating, like a string pulled too tight between us. His gaze roamed over me, my face, my posture, the way my hair had come loose from its pins, and for once, there wasn’t that cold, familiar disdain.

No. This look was different.

It was sharp and raw and wounded.

When I found my voice, it came out sharper than I intended.

"Why are you here?"

He didn’t answer. Just stared.

And for the first time in a long time, I didn’t know what he was thinking. His expression was a storm I couldn’t read, part anger, part grief, all tangled up in something dangerously human.

I sighed, breaking the silence first. "Forget it," I said, brushing past him. I didn’t have the energy for whatever mood this was. Not tonight.

But before I could take another step, his hand shot out, fast, firm, wrapping around my arm. He turned me to face him, his grip tight enough to make me flinch.

The scent hit me before his words did.

Alcohol. Strong. Familiar.

Ah. Of course.

Just like our wedding night. The beginning of everything that turned more horrible than before.

"Are you drunk?" I asked flatly.

He ignored the question. His jaw tightened.

"The nanny told me you went to see Rael."

I stared back, unblinking. "What about it?"

His next words came quieter. Rougher.

"Are you really leaving Solmire?"

The question hung between us, sharp and heavy, and for a moment I didn’t understand why he looked at me like that, like I’d said something unspeakable. As if he hadn’t been the one waiting for this.

I frowned, confusion folding into disbelief.

"Isn’t it obvious?" I said, voice even but laced with exhaustion.

"If I hadn’t planned to leave, I wouldn’t have handed you the crown."

His jaw tensed, but I didn’t stop.

"I certainly wouldn’t have dissolved our marriage to let you marry Ophelia."

The words came out colder than I meant them to, and the air seemed to shrink around us.

"You really think I’d do all that just to stay here, just to watch you play at being the husband you could never be to me?"

Silence.

He stared at me, eyes darker than wine, something ugly and desperate swirling beneath the surface. Then, quietly, too quietly, he said,

"Is that why you did it then? To get me to finally look at you?"

My breath caught. For a second, I wasn’t sure I’d heard him right. Then the absurdity of it sank in, and the irritation burned its way through my chest.

"Look at me?" I repeated, a sharp, incredulous laugh slipping out before I could stop it. "Caelen, if you have nothing sensible to say, then leave."

I tried to step past him, but his hand didn’t move.

His fingers tightened around my arm, the restraint almost bruising. The audacity of it, of him, made the fire in me twist, alive and vicious. The air around us shimmered, heat rippling from my skin.

"Let go," I warned, my voice low, dangerous.

He didn’t.

Instead, before I could summon another breath, before the flames could even form, he yanked me forward.

"You handed me everything," he said, voice hoarse, "but you never once asked if I wanted it."

The accusation burned, twisting my confusion into a sharp spike of irritation. I opened my mouth to retort, to hurl back the years of neglect and indifference he’d thrown at me, but before a single syllable could escape, Caelen surged forward.

His mouth crashed against mine, hard and unyielding, a desperate claim that stole my breath. It was possessive, raw, like he was trying to devour the distance we’d built between us.

My hands flew up instinctively, shoving against his chest, fingers curling into the damp fabric of his cloth. But his grip on my arm tightened, iron bands that refused to yield, and his kiss only deepened, hungry and insistent, his tongue forcing past my lips to tangle with mine.

I tasted the wine on him, sharp, bitter, flooding my senses with an intoxicating haze that made my head spin. It blurred the edges of my resistance, making my pulse thunder in my ears as his free hand tangled in my hair, tilting my head to deepen the kiss.

Then he pressed me back, step by insistent step, until my shoulders hit the stone wall of the corridor. His body followed, pinning me there, the solid weight of him trapping me with no room to maneuver, no escape from the heat radiating off his frame.

For a fleeting moment, fury surged through me, hot and wild, my magic coiling like a serpent in my veins. I could burn him, gods, it would be so easy. Just a thought, and flames would lick across my skin, searing his flesh until he recoiled.

I should do it, make him feel the fire he’d ignited in me all these years. But beneath the rage, there was that cursed thread of care, the one that had always tethered me to him despite everything. No—damn it, no. I wouldn’t hold back this time.

Heat bloomed under my skin where his hand clamped my arm, turning my flesh into searing steel. The burn flared bright and painful, enough to blister his palm, the acrid scent of singed skin rising between us.

I expected him to flinch, to pull away with a curse, but he didn’t. His fingers dug in harder, tightening through the agony as if the pain only fueled him, binding us closer in this twisted dance.

He broke the kiss then, but not to release me. His breath ragged against my cheek, he shifted, one arm sliding around my waist to hoist me higher against the wall, securing me in a way that left me utterly at his mercy.

The new angle pressed his hips flush against mine, his arousal evident through the thin layers of cloth, a hard ridge that sent an unwelcome spark through my core.

’Have you lost your mind?’ I rasped, the words fracturing with the confusion churning inside me, betrayal, longing, a grief so profound it threatened to swallow me whole.

"Maybe I have." His lips curved in a ragged smile, eyes wild with torment and something achingly vulnerable. "You tell me Eris."

Then he kissed me again, without warning, his mouth slanting over mine in a fierce demand, teeth nipping my lower lip before his tongue delved deep. His hands gripped my thighs, hauling them up and around his waist in one fluid, possessive motion.

My ankle hooked behind him on instinct, the position pulling him even tighter against me, his hardness grinding against my center in a way that made my breath hitch, separated only by fabric that grew damp with my unwilling arousal.

Then he murmured against my lips, voice rough and low, ’It’s what you’ve always wanted, right? To torment me?’ His tongue traced the seam of my mouth before plunging back in. ’And every time it works. I’m always tormented by you.’

The words unraveled me, dragging up memories I’d buried deep, the echo of our wedding night, that same frantic desperation in his touch, the hunger that had consumed us both amid the confusion of vows and unspoken fears.

It had been like this then, too: his body claiming mine with a need that bordered on violence. Back then, confusion had tangled with ecstasy, my magic flaring wild as emotions I’d never named overwhelmed me: love twisted into possession, fear masked as fire.

Caelen.

The man I loved. The man I’d allow to ruin me.

Those feelings I’d desperately tried to smother... the ache, the longing, the raw vulnerability... rose now like smoke from embers, flooding my chest until I could barely think.

He pulled back from my lips, trailing hot, open-mouthed kisses down the column of my neck. His teeth grazed my pulse, then his mouth latched on, sucking hard enough to bruise, marking my skin with the heat of his possession.

A moan escaped me unbidden, my body betraying my mind as I melted against him, resolve crumbling like ash. My thoughts blurred, going blank under the onslaught, and my fire, restless and wild, responded to his touch, warming my skin without burning, coiling around us both in a subtle, sensual glow.

Why was he doing this? The question echoed in the haze of my mind. What did it mean after all the silence, the estrangement? Why now, when I’d finally steeled myself to leave?

Footsteps shattered the haze, heavy, faltering, echoing down the hall.