Page 30 of Red Dreams

LAYLA

My fingers trace the new ink etched into my throat, a map of my own execution drawn by the daughter of the man who'd destroy worlds to protect me. The swollen lines burn beneath my touch.

“Don’t.”

I flinch as Kaden brushes my hand aside, his calloused one surprisingly delicate as he examines Cassie’s handiwork. I lie tangled in silk sheets, my body aching. Kaden sits beside me, his weight dipping the mattress.

“Hold still,” he murmurs.

The damp cloth in his hand is cool against the inflamed flesh, a temporary balm to the violation I can feel all the way to my bones. I haven’t moved from the bed, too shocked to so much as sit up after Cassie flounced out of the room, taking her horrible men with her. She didn’t say when she would come back, but she never has. Cassie just … appears.

Kaden’s clinical and assessing touch contains an undercurrent of possessiveness in the way his thumb lingers on my pulse point, as if reassuring himself that I'm still here, still breathing.

“I will burn every one of those assholes alive,” he says, his gaze locked on my neck. “Without hesitation.”

I should be horrified by his words, by the casual brutality of his conviction. But a part of me, the part irrevocably changed by what I’ve endured, approves. That would do the same for him, consequences be damned.

“I know,” I murmur, reaching out to brush a strand of hair from his forehead. I linger on the jagged scar that curves under his brow, a reminder of the battles he's fought and the demons he carries.

He leans into my touch, his eyes fluttering closed for a moment.

“Cassie...” His voice is rough with an emotion I can't quite name. “What happened to her ... what Morelli did...”

I wait, my heart in my throat, as he struggles to find the words.

But he trails off, his gaze distant and haunted.

“Why did she do this to me?” I whisper.

I can tell my question slices through him, cold and cruel. But there’s something else beneath, an undercurrent of rage that I was stolen from him. I want to assure him that Cassie may have branded my skin, but Kaden has claimed my soul.

“This doesn’t change anything,” I say fiercely. “I’m yours.”

Black flares in his gaze, fierce and feral. He bows his head until his lips touch the side of my neck.

“Mine,” he growls before kissing the hot, angry skin.

The word is a vow, a promise sealed in ink and blood. A shudder ripples through me at the declaration, his lips on my skin.

I tangle my fingers in his hair, holding him close as his lips trail along the edges of the tattoo, each brush a searing brand. But the desperate edge to his voice, the rawness, speaks of the scars Cassie left on his soul this day. I know the memories are tearing at him, the weight of the past threatening to drag him under.

I tug gently, urging him up until I can see his face. His eyes are storm-tossed, a tempest of rage and anguish.

“Kaden,” I whisper, my thumbs brushing his cheekbones. “Talk to me.”

He exhales a sound that's almost a growl. “She's not the little girl I remember. That Cassie is gone. I don't know if there's anything left to save. What she’s done to you … if anyone else did this,anyone, I would’ve given them a slow, violent death. I’d want them to suffer. I would’ve let you watch me tear them open to get your justice. Cassie has made it impossible for me to save her, yet I can’t kill her to save you.”

I swallow past the permanent lump in my throat. Kaden’s feelings for his daughter and me are tearing him apart, but I’m not as conflicted. Cassie has tortured me, played numerous mind games, and enjoyed putting me on display for her men. She allowed their threats of rape and assault so I’d stay terrified and complacent, no matter how many knives she sharpened against my skin. I never knew the twelve-year-old whose younger years are frozen in time and scattered around me, covered in rose petals and blood. Yet I never knew love growing up the way she did with Kaden. Cassieknowswhat real love feels like. She must remember her time with her dad. Doesn’t she miss it? How can she truly believe Kaden abandoned her for all these years?

“You’re right,” I say. “She’s not that little girl anymore. She’s grown now, and she’s made her choices.”

“What about the choices taken from her?” he counters.

“You can't blame yourself for that.” I stroke my fingers through his hair.

“Wraithling, you’re ten years too late,” he says with a quiet rasp.

My heart clenches at the anguish in his words and the fear that Cassie is gone forever.

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