8. Kellen

Chapter 8

Kellen

All Kellen wanted was to enjoy a glass of rakira in peace.

He frequented The Dow at least once a week, a necessity for his well-being to separate from Delmarth campus’s claustrophobic nature. Daniel was spiraling due to Oliviana’s sentencing and had begged Kellen for a night out to take his mind off the girl who would never reciprocate his feelings. He’d initially blown Daniel off to spend his evening grading the History of the Gods exam, which more than half the class failed. Kellen really needed to get out of his fucking head and let off steam, and not in the company of others like Daniel, but in the comfort of solitude.

Before making the flight over to The Dow, he first went to check on his siblings.

The twins were at dinner with a few of their friends in the dining hall on campus. Kellen could locate them in a blackout easily through scent and familial adoration. He found Laya first, her long black hair tangled in a disheveled bun atop her head, her dark brown skin glowing while she commanded the conversation. Her radiant smile signaled that despite the hell she’d been through, she found light in the crevices of darkness. Right beside her was Jarion, his scrawny, lanky limbs barely fitting under the metal table, his black curls hidden beneath a red beanie—one of Kellen’s beanies, he noted with a smirk.

That smirk faded, however, as he watched his brother’s shoulders cave in, folding in on himself so no one at the table could read the sadness outlined in his lightless green eyes. He hid even from Laya, whose eyes kept swinging over to him every few seconds to verify he hadn’t walked off.

Kellen never used his Cerebri abilities to infiltrate his siblings’ thoughts, but just this once, he felt he had no choice. If Jarion wouldn’t tell him what was going on with him, he needed to find another way to help his brother. Reading his thoughts seemed like the only plausible solution at the time.

When Kellen concentrated over Jarion, what filled his brain wasn’t coherent thoughts—it was agony, such an astonishing, staggering amount of it that Kellen nearly crumbled to the ground. The pain was localized in Jarion’s upper back over his shoulder blades, the sensation on both sides vibrating like knives poking the interior of his flesh.

Kellen knew this pain intimately. He felt it daily, though he’d grown accustomed to the feeling so it no longer debilitated or shocked him. Jarion’s wings were pleading to be released. What Kellen didn’t understand was why it seemed Jarion was refusing to unfetter them, keeping this anguish contained within.

Kellen wanted to go to him. Comfort him. Beg Jarion to release his wings so he wouldn’t be hurting so much. But when Laya spun her head to the side and located Kellen by the entrance of the cafeteria, she simply shook her head at him, her lips flattened in a grim line. Kellen heeded the warning and stalked out of the cafeteria.

The second he stepped outside, he stretched out his wings, feeling in that moment, after experiencing Jarion’s discomfort, that if he didn’t release them, he would burst. He kept the rest of his dragon at bay so he wouldn’t lose his clothes by fully shifting and took off for the clouds, flapping his wings brutally to gain momentum on his journey to his hometown of Yorkdill. He shielded himself within a billow of mist while he hovered above his childhood home, peeking through the myriad of windows to check if his mother was there. He found her in her bedroom, a teal blue robe draped across emaciated shoulders, long silver threads of hair dripping down her chest and leaking onto the binder she grasped between her hands.

One look at Miya Kilic Ates, and you’d never know the evil that lurked within, tainting her soul in black smears. Her appearance was a devious, well-crafted deception. Kellen didn’t necessarily blame Cavalian law enforcement for having a difficult time believing her involvement in the torture of Jarion and Laya, given what used to be her stunning reputation in Cavale amongst the community of Varmin dragon-shifters. Once the evidence was laid out for them, none could deny the truth of her participation, even if it had been the twins’ father, Ciaran, who’d done the most physical damage. Miya used her connections within the system to receive a reduced sentence for her crimes, weaving a story that painted herself a victim as much as the twins had been. Somewhere, in the depths of Kellen’s hatred for her, he actually believed some of that was true.

It wasn’t enough for him to forgive her, though, especially as she continued to try and separate him from the twins, searching for any excuse to reopen the custody agreement and reclaim her parental rights.

Miya, as if sensing his presence somewhere in the ether, shut her binder and stuffed it under her pillow before scampering to the window to peer into the night. By the time she reached the window, Kellen was already gone.

Five minutes later, he’d flown to the city of Sleka and landed in front of The Dow, trudging inside.

Two seconds.

That’s all it took for him to feel Noella Rose—not just smell her, but feel her—inside the tavern.

Her eyes locked on him the moment he crossed over the entrance.

The clothing Kellen usually saw Noella wear was conservative, modest, and did nothing for her figure—high neckline sweaters, colors that didn’t flatter her skin tone and washed her out (unless it was that maroon turtleneck she wore the other day, or the aqua blue blouse from the second week of school) and loose trousers, typically the same black pair of pants and her loafers. What adorned her physique now was shockingly different from what he expected to see on her. The vibrant, red corset top accentuated her full chest and cinched her waist to create an hourglass shape with her curves. He could really see her figure in this outfit, every delicious bend and roll, and the way her waistline blended into wide hips and thick thighs. Her hair, a voluminous stream of blonde ripples, torrented down her chest to her waistline.

It was easy to ignore her beauty during the week when it was obscured by her work uniform and draining personality. With all those defenses down, nothing to conceal her splendor from him, the truth of what she was felt so far away. Kellen couldn’t remember why he wasted so much time despising her. A beauty such as hers not only knocked the wind out of him, but stole the wind and refused to return it, so he was permanently forced to exist without air in his lungs.

What the fuck is wrong with you? She’s a human. Get it together, Kellen.

Kellen ripped his eyes off Noella, shattering the trance, and noticed her table mate. Josefyn Yilanci was one of the Primordials in his grade at Delmarth. She possessed an aura of goodness about her that made it impossible not to like her. He could have seen himself becoming friends with Josefyn, had he made any effort with her when they were teenagers. Now he was technically her boss as the Varmin department head, and she dissolved into a shuddering mess every time he spoke to her.

That ship had clearly sailed.

Noella’s grey gaze scrutinized Kellen fleetingly, as though he wasn’t worth a closer or longer inspection, before she flipped her blonde hair over her shoulder and disregarded his presence, focusing back on Josefyn.

Fuck no.

He would not let her dismiss him so effortlessly, not when she looked like that and every Primordial in this room had taken notice of the allure she exuded with her smile . While his mind screamed you hate her, Kellen, you hate her, his heart and his dick didn’t receive the message. Against his better judgment, he found his feet moving in her direction, making a beeline for her table.

“I see you made yourself a little friend,” he said in greeting, scraping his eyes across Noella’s face.

“Sucks for you that your ploy to make me a social pariah didn’t work,” Noella slurred with an intoxicated grin.

Kellen peeked down at her empty cup and wondered if this had been her first glass of rakira. For her first time drinking Primordial liquor, it shouldn’t have been rakira. She should have started with something far more benign like emirbon, or something fruity with syrup to dilute the alcohol. Her human tolerance wouldn’t be able to stomach something so strong. Did she eat before she drank?

Wait. Why the fuck do I care?

“That’s alright,” Kellen sneered despite his plunging thoughts. “I expect you’ll find a way to screw it up. Or Ms. Yilanci will come to her senses and realize that associating herself with human scum is not only social, but career assassination.”

“Maybe we should let Ms. Yilanci pick her own friends and stay out of it, Kilic,” Noella snarled at Kellen.

“I like the sound of that,” Josefyn murmured, avoiding the glare Kellen fired at her by sipping her drink.

“How’s Oliviana holding up?” Noella tipped her chin upward at the flash of fury that sparked in his flushed cheeks. “Does she get visitors in Terminus?” Kellen swiped his tongue over his top row of teeth.

“If I were you,” he hissed, leaning in so close to her that his lips almost nuzzled her cheek, “I wouldn’t speak so glibly about Oliviana’s sentencing. There are enough people in Cavale who would love to see your head on a spike, myself included.” Noella pulled her face back slowly.

His lips dragged along her jaw. Neither of them had anticipated the interaction between his mouth and her skin due to the close proximity and the unhurried pace at which she drew away from him. Kellen hissed out a sharp breath between clenched teeth, his lips burning from the residue of her warmth, while Noella’s breath stuttered, revealing that she wasn’t completely unaffected by him.

“Thanks for the pep talk,” she said once she regained her equilibrium, decorating her face in that tough, Primordial mask that Kellen didn’t admit aloud was almost believable. “But I think I’ve reached my quota on small-dick insecurity.” Kellen grabbed her arm before she could shove past him.

Inclining his head so his eyes were level with hers, incensed green meeting tenacious grey, he growled, “Not that you’ll ever have the pleasure to find out, but my dick is anything but small, sweetheart.”

Noella’s eyes thinned into slits.

“If your behavior is any indicator of your size, I can only assume you’re hung like my pinky finger. I would get more pleasure from stuffing a tootsie roll up my ass than whatever you could possibly offer me.”

Josefyn spat out a mouthful of rakira, spluttering up the amber liquid into her napkin through an inebriated cackle. Kellen was so shocked by Noella’s crudeness that he almost laughed— almost.

“I don’t know what a tootsie roll is,” he said, a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth. “Please, Ms. Rose, describe to me what you meant in extensive detail. I’d like to keep the image in my spank-bank.”

“Oh, to go along with the image of me dying? You’re a sick bastard.” She weakly attempted to yank her arm away from him, but he only held her tighter.

“Is this a game to you?” he roared. “What, you can dish it out, but you can’t handle it thrown back at you?”

“ No,” she answered sharply, trying to rip her arm out from between his fingers. “This is not a game to me. I’m trying to survive here, Kilic. Same as you, same as everyone else. And you know what? I have every right to be here right now as you do.” He opened his mouth to argue, but his retort plummeted to a painful death when she yelled, “I DO! I heard Headmistress Dyer today, and I believed her. If the Gods didn’t want me here, I wouldn’t be here. Yet, I am. I have every right to stand in this bar and enjoy myself as you do. And I’m going to exercise that right, right now.”

No matter how hard she tried, she couldn’t wiggle her forearm out of his grip. No matter how hard he tried, he couldn’t let go of her arm, even as he sent orders down to his fingers to release her.

Let me go, Kilic, she demanded, speaking right into his brain.

I would if I could, he answered without thinking, revealing far more than he’d meant to. He didn’t understand it, but standing before her right now, even under the spotlight of her hatred, was the closest feeling he got to being around his siblings, to feeling completely unencumbered and stripped bare and seen.

“Is he bothering you, Ella?” a male voice asked from behind them.

Kellen turned his head to find Akio Takeshi standing there with a basket of fried potatoes, smothered in melted, bubbling cheese. Kellen never had an issue with Akio when they were classmates or when they became colleagues, not until right this second, when the sound of his voice interrupted the way Noella had been gazing at him, for the first time with the absence of loathing and instead with something akin to interest. Her eyes tore off him to regard the creel of food in Akio’s hands.

She gave the potatoes a look of pure veneration that Kellen dreamt he’d see displayed on her face.

His mind deviated to picturing what Akio’s head would look like disunited from his neck.

“Yes, he is,” Noella replied, taking advantage of Kellen’s focus being diverted and rescuing her arm from his entrapment. She backed up against the wall to create distance between herself and Kellen.

His fingers ached from the loss of her touch. They stung so much that he needed to tuck them into his trouser pockets so he wouldn’t give into the urge to leap across the bench and drag her back to him.

What the fuck is wrong with me?

“Don’t worry. I’m leaving,” Kellen snapped, grinding his teeth together to delay his fangs from lengthening. “I have no interest in hanging around the disgusting earthborn, or the Primordials who’ve chosen to lower their standards to associate with her.” Why does it feel like I’m lying?

“Go frighten some fish, Kilic,” Noella snarled, then beckoned for Akio to reclaim his spot next to her, bestowing onto him a luminous smile that Kellen knew she’d never present to him.

“Ella, you’re my fucking hero,” Josefyn gushed. Noella clinked her empty glass with Josefyn’s.

This was too much for him to bear.

He couldn’t handle seeing her accepted by his people, acclimating to his world, a world where she didn’t belong. She acted as though she had better control over this realm than any of the Primordials who were born and raised here, her performance so convincing that he wondered if it was maybe not a performance at all.

Leave, Kellen ordered himself as he backed away from their table and watched Akio slide onto the bench next to her. Leave The Dow and go back to campus. Instead, his feet took him to the U-shaped bar.

He ordered himself a glass of rakira and plopped down on a stool.

Kellen remained painfully aware of where Noella Rose drifted through the tavern, the sound of her laughter skittering beneath his flesh, enveloping itself around his bones. When she stumbled to the bar to order herself another drink, he felt her. When she glided through the crowd with Josefyn and Akio to claim her place on the dancefloor, he felt her. He was acutely aware of every single time her body brushed up against another, his muscles smarting from how tightly wound he clenched them, knowing that if he let himself slacken, he’d lunge out of his stool and body slam anyone who touched her. He didn’t understand it, but it took everything in him to stop himself from going back over there and picking another fight with her, just to be in her presence a little while longer.

In his peripheral vision, he caught a glimpse of a vortex of blonde hair twirling within her tiny spot on the dancefloor. He couldn’t count on two hands the number of dreams he’d had where that same blonde hair was snarled in his fist, and not because he was smashing her skull into the floor like he so desperately wanted to do right now, just for the way she invaded his thoughts.

She set her hand on Josefyn’s shoulder to steady herself and threw her head back, her blonde hair trickling down her spine to graze her mouthwateringly perfect ass before she laughed up at the ceiling.

Gods, her fucking laugh.

He wanted to tear into his flesh, gather the vestiges of her laughter twinging through his core, and toss them on the floor so he could crush them with his boot, so he could demolish every piece of her she’d planted inside him the last four weeks. His life had become overwhelmed by her. She flooded the grounds of Delmarth, her name practically intertwined with the wind from the amount he constantly heard it throughout the day. He couldn’t escape her, and he wanted to, so fucking badly.

He couldn’t even escape her in his apartment—she lived across the hall.

One night. He wanted one night to drink himself to oblivion and forget about her existence, and he couldn’t even be granted that. It felt like she’d been brought to Cavale not to be a school counselor for Delmarth, not to help their students, but to be his own personal Terminus.

LEAVE, he commanded himself. Stop torturing yourself by being near her. Leave.

Someway, somehow, he mustered the strength he needed to rise from the stool and head to the door.

Kellen flew for hours around Cavale, spanning the complete length of the realm back and forth with no specific destination in mind. It was all he could do to stop himself from either returning to The Dow to pick another fight with Noella, or stop himself from confronting Jarion. Neither urge would benefit him, only bring more agony and conflict, so he chose to remain in the sky, where he felt safe from the plunging descent of his thoughts. When he finally returned to campus, the sun was hidden well behind the moon. Stars leaked across the canvas like sugar spilled over black marble, the galaxy flickering and swirling around him. After he landed, Kellen’s wings melted back underneath the casing of his skin as he slid his phone out of his back pocket and sent a message to Laya.

Kellen: I need a favor. She answered back in less than a minute.

Laylie: I shall grant you said favor depending on the severity and what I could get out of it.

Kellen chuckled as he typed back. Kellen: Being a good sister isn’t enough of a reward for you?

Laylie: You had to ruin my fun. What’s the favor?

Kellen: I need you to report to me what you notice about Jarion. If he complains of any pain, if he tells you anything about his dragon emerging, you need to tell me. Kellen chewed a hangnail dangling off his thumb on his way to the faculty housing, staring intensely at his phone for a response.

Laylie: I don’t feel comfortable betraying his trust, Kell (not that he’s told me anything. Any time I ask, he shuts me down).

Kellen: I know you’re worried about him, Laylie. I am too. Between the two of us, we have to help him. Please. Don’t do this for me. Do it for Jare.

Kellen elbowed open the front door to the faculty housing, his phone vibrating between his fingers.

Laylie: FINE. But if I get caught, I’m dumping all the blame on you.

Kellen: That’s what big brothers are for, my love. Thank you, Laya. I really appreciate this.

He came to a halt in the hallway.

Contorted into what looked like a smashed pretzel on the floor, Noella Rose leaned her cheek against the door of his apartment. Her lashes painted streaked shadows over her cheeks, her forehead crinkling in a manner that suggested there was pain echoing beneath the surface. She looked frighteningly pale and on the verge of passing out. Kellen wasn’t allotted time to remember who she was and why he hated her—the phone tumbled out from between his fingers before he sprinted the rest of the span of the hallway, falling to his knees in front of her. His hands surrounded her cheeks, brushing her hair back so nothing was concealing her features from him, and lifted her face out from where it crashed into the carpet, saving her skull from colliding with the wall.

“That’s a first,” she muttered to herself, sounding strangely pleased. “Usually you throw me into walls.”

“What the fuck happened, Rose?” He was surprised by the panic he felt strangle his words, how each question that came out sounded more frantic and hoarse. “Are you hurt? Did someone hurt you?”

“I shan’t find me keys,” she slurred, then spluttered a gale of intoxicated giggles that could have been classified as adorable, if Kellen wasn’t so anxious and consumed with examining her body for injuries.

“Where are Josefyn and Akio?”

“They…they dropped me off h…ho…hours ago.” She hiccupped, her nose scrunching up like she tasted something nasty in her mouth. “I think I fell asleep.”

“They just left you here?” They left a human who’d experienced her first dalliance with rakira alone?

“I told them to go. I…I’m fine.” She tried to swat him away, but he grabbed her hand before it swung in his eye.

“Yeah. So fine that you’re sitting in front of my door.” Noella lifted her head, dragging her eyes down the length of his door.

“Oh,” she chortled, slapping her forehead and snorting, some spit dribbling down her chin.

Don’t find this cute.

Kellen sunk his teeth into his bottom lip to keep from laughing with her. “Where was the last place you saw your keys?”

“My pocket.”

“Pants pocket or jacket pocket?”

“Jacket. I think.” Kellen didn’t ask for permission before his hands dove into the pockets of her leather jacket. “Whoa!” she squealed when she felt his fingers against her hips through the sheath. Kellen tried to ignore the way her curves fit perfectly in his hands, then noticed when her foot jerked dangerously close to his crotch that she was missing a shoe. “At least buy a girl dinner first.”

“Imagine if your keys were in your jeans pocket, sweetheart. This would be a very different conversation.”

“Don’t call me sweetheart,” she groaned. “It makes me forget that I hate you.” Kellen froze a moment too long, taken off guard by that unexpected revelation, then resumed his search, locating something metal and small in the depth of her left pocket, hidden within the folds of the excess material.

“Got it,” he announced, dangling the keys in front of her nose before snatching them away. “Where’s your other shoe?”

“My other—?” Noella peeked down at her feet, her lips wilting into a pout. “Oh no! Those were my favorite boots!”

“If you start crying,” Kellen warned, “I will leave you here. Give me your hands.”

“They’re actually rain boots,” she rambled while Kellen tugged on her arms and pulled her into a standing position. She stumbled into his chest, her chin resting on his shoulder before her little fingers fisted a handful of his button down, wrinkling the fabric. For the life of him, he didn’t understand why he not only couldn’t, but didn’t want to shove her away. “Because of the pointed toe, they can masquerade as regular boots.” She flexed the one boot she still possessed to show him what she meant.

“Why do they need to masquerade as regular boots? Does it fucking matter?”

“You asking that question shows you don’t understand fashion.” Kellen clicked his tongue, supporting her with one arm. “That is further reinforced by the fact that I’ve only ever seen you wear the same outfit. Do you own more clothing, or is this button down and these slacks the only items in your closet?”

“Says the girl who wears colors that don’t compliment her skin tone and clothes two sizes too big.”

Noella pulled her face back.

“I don’t know what I’m more shocked by. The fact that you called me a girl and not a disgusting human, or the fact that you just admitted you’ve paid attention to what clothing I wear.”

“You admitted it first.”

“That I notice what you wear? It’s hard not to when it’s the same thing every day and it fits your body perfectly, like it was made for you.” She continued babbling, a floodgate open, not even conscious of what she was saying. “Seriously, Kilic. You have a terrible personality, but damn do you have a ridiculously attractive body and face. How is that fair? Why can’t you be as ugly on the outside as you are on the inside? It makes things very confusing.” Kellen fought a smirk, completely ignoring her meaningless insults to focus on the hidden message woven through them.

“How much time do you spend thinking about my face and body, Rose?”

“About the same amount of time you spend seeking me out just to start a fight,” she fired back with an arched brow, rendering him speechless from how spot-on she was. She leaned in so close that he could taste the rakira on her breath. “Tell me something, Kilic. When you walk into a room, do you purposefully search for my scent in a crowd?” Kellen didn’t dignify her with a response.

He elected instead to shepherd her towards her own door, stabbing her key into the lock and twisting it for her.

“Wait, Kilic, stop.” Kellen paused the process of opening her door. “I’m confused,” she stammered.

“What are you confused about, Rose?”

“Why you’re helping me.” Me too, earthborn. “You hate me, yet you’re helping me to my door. It’s because I look hot, isn’t it?” Noella fragmented into snickers, while Kellen’s thoughts escalated into a frenzy.

Yes. No. Fuck. I really am that terrible of a person.

“Despite what you think of me, Ms. Rose, and my past actions towards you, I’m not that horrible. Besides, if I didn’t help, you would’ve given up looking for your keys and slept out here, and I would’ve hit you with my door in the morning when I tried to leave my apartment. Just trying to avoid spending three nights in Terminus for accidentally hurting you.” Noella stared at him silently for so long that he wondered if there was something on his cheek. He almost touched his face just to check.

“So it’s not because I look hot?” The corners of Kellen’s mouth capitulated and lifted in unison with her playful smile.

“Don’t flatter yourself, Ms. Rose,” he jested, though from her answering laugh, he knew she didn’t believe that.

Kellen finally pushed her front door open. Noella buried her face in the crook of his neck with a moan, shielding her eyes from the brightness she expected to encounter when they walked inside, then allowed him to guide her by his arm around her waist into her apartment. Instantly, they were met by a furry, four-legged creature with creamy beige fur and massive, bright black eyes, flashing a huge smile at them the moment they stepped inside. Kellen didn’t know dogs were capable of producing smiles that looked like actual smiles. He found nothing cute about it. It was fucking terrifying.

Yes, Delmarth Academy’s Varmin department head, who could shift into a twenty thousand pound dragon and whom the King of the Gods wanted for himself as a serjeant, was afraid of the tiny little dog with the goofy grin. If Noella wasn’t using him as a crutch to stand, Kellen would have gotten the fuck out of there.

“Freya!” Noella squealed as the gremlin leapt onto Noella’s legs and began licking her fingers aggressively. “Freya, this is Mr. Kilic. Don’t be fooled by his kind gesture. We don’t like him.” Noella must have felt Kellen shudder, or heard his sharp intake of breath when the creature leaned forward to sniff him, because she turned to him with a grin that outdid the dog’s. “Kilic, are you afraid of the little dog?”

“Fuck no,” he stuttered, refusing to make eye contact with the thing.

The creature shifted its focus onto Kellen, burrowing its snout in his knee. He tried to gently knock it away, but gentle was not in his vocabulary. It expunged a great amount of effort for him to temper the movement when what he really wanted to do was smack it. The fluffball refused to get the message and began to lick the back of his hand.

“She likes you,” Noella observed with a hint of bemusement, then drawled, “I can’t imagine why.”

I don’t like you, Kellen spoke into the creature’s head, withdrawing his hand. Go away. A high-pitched, sugary voice filled his ears.

You took care of her. So I like YOU, the thing protested.

I’ve hurt her more than I’ve helped her, gremlin.

And I know that wasn’t your first choice. Kellen furrowed his brows at the dog, who continued to present a sunny smile externally.

What do you mean, that wasn’t my first choice? The line of communication between them went silent as the creature nudged his wrist with its snout, forcing his hand to turn over so it could nuzzle the top of its head inside his palm. Answer me, you monster. What do you mean that wasn’t my first choice?

“I don’t feel so good,” Noella muttered, her lips twisting in an odd shape as her cheeks lost their healthy blush. Kellen escorted her to the couch, draping her across the cushions before he crossed the room to the kitchen and grabbed the metal trash bin, positioning it beside her on the ground next to the sofa. The dog jumped onto the couch and adjusted its shape so it could fit against Noella’s body, resting its chin on her hip. Noella lifted her hand to fondle its head, rotating onto her back.

“If you feel sick, don’t lie on your back,” Kellen snapped, grabbing her shoulders and rolling her so she lay on her side.

See? The gremlin’s voice returned to his ears. Your first choice.

You’re wrong. I hate her, he asserted, shoving those words down his throat, forcing them to seep into his heart, to the weakest part of his being that refused to remember she was despicable, an abomination, a disgusting blemish tarnishing his world—

“My head hurts,” Noella mumbled through a groan, pressing the heel of her hand to her forehead, covering her eyes with her forearm to block out the overhead light.

She represented everything he’d been taught to abhor, and yet in that moment, Kellen would have slayed all the particles of light in that room contributing to her pain, would have shredded them apart with his bare hands, if only to compensate for his touch not being enough to heal her.

You need to leave, he told himself. You need to walk out that door and never turn back.

“Alright. I’ve fulfilled my duty of safely delivering you to your doorstep. You’ve used up all my kindness. I’m going now.”

Kellen began his trek to the exit, but before his fingers could stretch towards the door handle, Noella squeaked, “Kilic?”

He spun around automatically, with no control over his actions. “Yes, Rose?” he groused.

“Why do you hate me?” Her voice sounded so small, so fragile, so unlike her usual tenacity. “I get that your kind doesn’t respect my kind, that you think humans are weak. But is that the only reason you despise me?” A thousand possible responses, all equally true, fluttered around his mind.

I despise you because you’re everywhere. I can’t escape you in the waking hours or in slumber. You’ve taken over my thoughts, my dreams, my every breath. You represent everything we’ve been taught not to value, yet you’re the strongest person I’ve encountered in all my twenty-eight years of life. I despise the fact that I respect you, that you’re good with the students and you know it too. I despise the way you meet every challenge I pose and dominate every argument, that you’re the only worthy adversary I’ve ever faced. I despise the fact that you’re right—I do seek out disputes with you just to steal more of your time for myself, because fighting with you has become the best part of my day. I despise your presence in my land because it’s putting my guardianship over my siblings in jeopardy. I despise how if I let my walls down with you, I know you will be the only person in Cavale who would not only try to understand me, but would probably succeed. It terrifies me how easy it would be to yield to you, how easy it was for you to take command of me tonight, how easy it would be for me to fall into you. You are drowning me, Noella Rose, and no matter how hard I try to stop it, I’m fucking letting you.

“That’s one of them,” he answered elusively, swallowing a thick breath. “And a million other reasons I can’t tell you.”

Noella frowned. “Why not?”

“Because they’ll make you not hate me, and it’s better for us both if you do.” Kellen loathed the way she was looking at him now, with a sweet softness he didn’t deserve. He allowed himself one touch—his fingers danced over her temple, brushing tendrils of blonde hair out of her eyes. Her pupils eclipsed the grey of her irises as she followed his hand movement. “In fact, it’s better if you don’t remember this at all.”

Kellen splayed his fingers over her forehead.

He gathered every memory of the last thirty minutes since he found her in the hallway and vacuumed it into his hand by pulling his fingers together and pilfering the images from her brain. When his fingers disengaged from her forehead, Noella’s eyes sealed shut, a breathy yawn loosing from her parted lips as she slipped into a deep slumber. Kellen headed to the door, but stopped when he felt two beady eyes pierce his cheek, forcing him to twist around and meet the expectant stare of Noella’s dog.

The creature gave him a condescending look down its nose with what he interpreted as an amused smile.

Somehow, he knew it had heard everything he’d said about Noella in his thoughts.

Don’t tell anyone, he found himself pleading, which was fucking ridiculous since the dog couldn’t talk to anyone but him. Right as his fingers enveloped the door handle, he heard the gremlin’s voice in his head.

There’s a fine line between love and hate.

Fuck off, he snarled, then stormed out of Noella’s apartment.