Page 123 of A Storm in Every Heart
“That’s different.” I close my eyes, feeling immeasurably tired. “It doesn’t work on Daemon because we’re related. It has nothing to do with his willpower. You resisted it the other night, so you probably have a stronger will than most men, but the compulsion still works on you…just, slower, I guess.”
“I don’t believe that.” Kastian steps closer, and there’s a fire burning in his eyes as he grabs my chin and forces me to hold his gaze. “Odessa, listen to me. I know I should care about the bond, but I don’t. I should have been obsessed with finding her, but I’m not. I tried for months to ignore it, but the only person I can think about is you.”
My legs threaten to collapse, so I dig my heels into the mud and cross my arms tight over my chest, as if I can keep all my insides from spilling out in front of him. “None of that matters. You don’t get to rewrite the laws of nature just because you feel like it, Kastian. Ultimately, you have a soul-bond out there somewhere. I’m just a complication you’re going to regret the second your real bond walks back into your life. And that’s assuming I don’t accidentally kill you in the meantime.”
He steps in close, eyes boring into mine, daring me to run. “Go ahead and keep talking, Princess. You won’t convince me togive up on you. Do you really think I would be wasting my time on the most stubborn woman on the damn continent if I wasn’t just as persistent?”
“There’s persistence and then there’s idiocy,” I retort. “You're not hearing me. We're not meant to be together.”
“Who the hell believes anyone is meant to be?” he barks. “Soul bonds aren’t fated, they’re formed over time.”
“So you say, but no one really knows that. It could be fate.”
“You’re honestly saying that you believe it’sfatethat I had one traumatic experience a hundred years ago which I can’t even remember, and because of that I’m doomed to never love anyone? I don’t believe that, and I don’t give a fuck about fate. I don’t want it, I only want you.”
His chest heaves with deep breaths, and the words hang in the air between us, heavy and all too final.
My throat and eyes burn, and I stare at the river, at the shifting current, trying to find some kind of answer in the movement of the water.
What is there to say? That he’s right? That I feel the same? That I’ve always felt the same, even on the days I’d rather die than admit it?
Kastian is looking at me like I’m the center of his universe and I want to give in.
I want to think his bond was never real, or maybe it got broken, or maybe—terrifyingly—maybe it was me all along. But I can’t. It’s not safe. Not for me, and definitely not for him.
“Here’s what I find interesting,” Kastian says, his tone softening slightly. “You keep saying that I’m confused. I’m the one with the problem?—”
“Because you are,” I interrupt angrily.
He presses on, refusing to let me derail the point. “You keep insisting I can’t possibly care about you, but you’ve never said you don’t feel the same about me.”
My mouth opens, ready to shoot back a dozen half-baked defenses, but I have nothing. For once, I can’t find a single clever thing to say that wouldn’t sound like a lie.
“What do you want me to say?” I ask again, almost pleading this time.
“Say you don’t want this.” Kastian demands, voice low and tight, a single bead of sweat carving its way down his jaw. “Say you don’t want me, and I swear I’ll leave you alone.”
I stare at him, at the inked memory of myself splayed across his chest, and I can’t do it. I see every jagged line of his longing written across his face. There’s no more mask, no measured calm; he’s laid himself out in front of me, raw and reckless.
I suck in a shaky breath, but it hurts—like inhaling broken glass. “I can’t,” I whisper, the words barely audible. “I can’t say that.”
For a moment, there’s silence. Then, slow as sunrise, a triumphant smile blooms across Kastian’s face. It’s not the cocky half-grin he wears for the world, but something softer and infinitely more dangerous.
He moves in, so close I can see the wildfire in his eyes and feel the heat radiating off his skin. I’m paralyzed, frozen by the realization that all my careful plans have come to nothing because I can’t find a way to lie and say I don’t care about him.
He reaches out, hand trembling, and cups my jaw, his thumb tracing the line of my cheek He leans in and my vision tunnels, my body humming with the inevitability of what’s about to happen. He’s waiting, giving me a final chance to push him away, to lie to him, to run.
But I don’t. I won’t. I’m so tired of running.
Kastian closes the last few inches between us, his lips crashing against mine in a kiss that’s all desperation and defiance, and somehow I’m kissing him back, fierce and hungry.He tastes like salt and summer storms—like every reckless thing I’ve ever craved and never thought I’d have.
The river’s roar fades to nothing, the whole world narrowing down to the press of his mouth, the harsh hitch of his breath, the sound of my own pulse pounding like war drums in my ears.
I’m drowning, and I don’t even care.
ODESSA, PRESENT
Kastian breaks our kiss, panting hard. “What are you thinking right now?”
