Chapter 110
Vladimir
I bathed her, running the cloth over her flushed skin. As I washed over her hips, guilt gripped me like a vice when my eyes caught the finger marks I had left behind on her skin. But even as regret washed over, the memory surged up, unbidden and fresh.
Her grinding, wanton against my demanding mouth and my punishing. My tongue tingled with the after taste of her juices. Her moans echoed in my head.
I had climaxed so hard from just pleasuring her alone and my mind wandered—more like The beast I shared my consciousness with was anticipating her moist walls around my already hardening girth.
But it no longer ached from the rut, balls tight and blue. The release had temporarily freed me from the clutches of insatiable lust.
And I had only her to thank for it.
Because despite the horrible things I had said to her, she cared enough to—
She stirred in the bathtub, and I knew I had to get her in bed so she could rest properly.
I finished up even if Zver would not stop yapping.
“She tastes like ambrosia p>
“I am aware,” I replied, actually agreeing on something for the first time in forever.
“Nothing tastes as tantalizing. She tastes like she was meant to be mine p>
I rolled my eyes, even if I…agreed.
Nothing and no one should have tasted like a drop from the heavens. If I wanted to be utterly selfish and logical, bordering immoral, I would feasted even as she slept.
I would have tasted every inch p>
She stirred again as I carried clean body out of the bath and to her bed.
I laid her down carefully, easing her onto the bed as though she were made of glass rather than bone and blood. The moment her weight left my arms, I froze.
She exhaled.
Not a sigh.
Not a breath meant for sleep.
A slow, heated release of air that brushed my cheek.
It struck me like a blow.
Warm.
No—hot.
I felt it. Truly felt it. The heat bloomed against my skin, crawling over my face, seeping beneath flesh that had not known warmth in decades. My breath caught, sharp and startled, my body reacting before my mind could catch up.
That wasn’t possible.
I had felt echoes before—phantom sensations when I touched her, a suggestion of warmth that I had dismissed as the incomplete bond, the rut, the Beast clawing at my senses. Hallucinations born of hunger and proximity.
This was different.
This was real.
During the act—during her —the cold that lived beneath my skin had receded. Not vanished, but softened, reshaped. The sweltering heat I had felt pressed against me had not been imagined. It had been… intoxicating. Orgasmic in its own right, a counterpoint to the eternal frost that ruled my body.
I had been melting.
And the cold—
The cold had not resisted.
It had responded.
The realization settled like a blade sliding between my ribs.
The same cold that resonated with my dark arts.
The same cold that works with the runes etched into my back and chest to keep it away.
The rot
My uncle’s final gift to me
The cold keeps it at bay because cold things don’t rot.
My hand dragged through my damp hair as I tried to ground myself, fingers catching slightly as I raked them back. I pulled away—and stopped.
A strand of silver lay against my palm.
Loose.
Detached.
My breath stalled.
For one suspended heartbeat, the room narrowed to that single filament. Then logic clawed its way back in. I shed during the rut. Always had. My body thickened, hardened, then sloughed the excess away as the cycle ended.
This could be nothing.
A coincidence.
I forced myself to straighten, to step away from the bed, from her warmth, from the impossible implications curling in my chest. I needed air. Distance. Answers.
The physician.
Within the week and then my bionic hand twitched.
Not a tremor.
A jerk—sharp and involuntary—metal fingers flexing once, then stilling.
I stared at it as though it belonged to someone else.
Then—
“Are you… going p>
Her voice.
Soft. Rough around the edges. Awake.
The sound of it tore through me more violently than any revelation had moments before. I turned so fast the room tilted, my mind lagging behind my body as I found her propped weakly against the pillows, golden eyes half-lidded but unmistakably focused on me.
Awake.
After how hard I had held her.
After how completely I had undone her.
The words did not register at first.
“I said—” She swallowed, throat working, voice steadier than her hands. “Are you going to leave me now p>
“What?” The word fell from me, blunt and stupid.
I crossed the room in three strides, instinct overriding reason. “You shouldn’t be awake,” I said, too quickly. “You need sleep. Your body p>
“So you can go back to her p>
I stopped.
The sentence hit me sideways.
“What?” I repeated, this time sharper, turning fully toward her.
“The other woman,” she said, eyes glittering despite the exhaustion dragging at her features. “The one whose lipstick you come back wearing. The one whose scent clings to you when you return p>
The room went dead silent.
I stared at her.
Not in anger.
Not in irritation.
In genuine, bone-deep shock.
“What the hell are you talking about?” I demanded, moving closer, lowering myself beside the bed. “There is no p>
I stopped.
Because I saw it then.
The hurt.
Swimming in her eyes, bright and molten and so painfully bare it stole the air from my lungs. Not accusation. Not jealousy.
Fear.
The kind that came from expecting abandonment. From bracing for rejection before it could be delivered.
Something in my chest cracked.
“I don’t touch anyone else,” I said slowly, carefully, as though each word were a fragile thing. “I haven’t p>
Her lips parted, but no sound came out.
“There is no other woman,” I continued, my voice dropping, roughening. “No lipstick. No scent. Nothing p>
I reached for her before I could think better of it, stopping just short of touching her cheek. “Whatever you’re smelling—whatever you think you see—it isn’t what you think p>
Her gaze flickered, uncertainty rippling through the hurt.
“I would never—” My voice failed me, and I hated that it did. “I would never leave you like that p>
The words settled between us, heavy and unguarded.
And for the first time since the bath, since the chains, since the heat—
I was afraid.
She shook her head slowly.
“You don’t need to lie to me,” she said, quietly. Not accusing. Not angry. She sounded utterly tired. “I crossed a line. You don’t owe me anything p>
My chest tightened.
“You should go,” she continued, already turning away from me, already retreating. “I know how this ends. Go to her p>
She pulled the blanket up and turned her face toward the wall. Her dismissal was soft and final and yet, it hit harder than any blade.
“I don’t lie,” I said.
She didn’t answer.
I stood there, fists curling at my sides, something feral and uncooperative rising in my throat. The thought of another woman—any woman—made my stomach twist unpleasantly. The idea of touching someone else, of skin that wasn’t hers, scent that wasn’t this—
Disgust.
Pure and immediate.
“You think I leave to someone else?” I asked, incredulous now, anger bleeding into disbelief.
She sighed, weary. “You always come back different p>
I stilled.
“Hair ruffled,” she went on, voice dull, as though reciting something she’d already accepted. “Clothes rumpled. Smelling like perfume that isn’t mine p>
My breath caught.
“When,” I demanded. “When has that happened p>
She hesitated. “It doesn’t matter. You owe me no fidelity. Forget I asked p>
It mattered.
The pieces snapped together with a violence that made my head spin.
The nights I vanished.
The blood on my knuckles.
The way I scrubbed my hands raw afterward.
The scent—metal, smoke, adrenaline when the rut had me by the neck in a fucking noose.
The underground pit.
The fight club.
I stared at her.
Then—
I laughed.
A short, sharp sound that tore out of me before I could stop it.
She startled, turning back, eyes wide.
“What p>
“I don’t fuck anyone,” I said, still laughing softly, incredulous now. “I go to the pits p>
She blinked.
“To fight,” I clarified. “Bare-knuckle. No magic. No spectators I care about. And anonymously. Because the gods forbid the realm to find out that their Alpha fights in underground rings p>
Her brows knit together, confusion replacing hurt.
“I go to bleed,” I said simply. “To burn the excess out of my system. To keep from hurting anyone.” Especially you.
I crossed the room in two strides and sat beside her before she could retreat again. I reached out—slowly this time—and brushed my knuckles along her jaw.
“Beautifully silly creature,” I murmured, pressing a gentle kiss to her lips. Nothing demanding. Nothing devouring. Just warmth. Reassurance. “You thought I was sneaking off to be unfaithful p>
Her breath hitched.
“I come back rumpled,” I continued, forehead resting against hers, “because I’ve been thrown against concrete p>
Her lips trembled—then curved.
“And the scent?” she asked softly.
“My secret contact,” I said. “is a woman. She chokes me with her perfumes p>
I kissed her again—tender, lingering, grounding.
“And you,” I added quietly, “are the only one I come back to p>
She kissed me back but I could still feel her hesitance. I had some explaining to do but I couldn’t help but say. “You are so cute when you are jealous” I laughed even if she damn near killed me with the hurt in her eyes.
She swatted my arm, hard. “Hey!” she crumbled. “Only when I am jealous p>