Chapter 34

“Kai,” I whisper, unable to say anything else. He’s all I can sense, all I can breathe. His tangy scent invades my lungs as I inhale sharply.

“Mine,” he growls again in an unexpected spurt of possessiveness. His large hands capture my shoulders, holding me steady. “Say it. Say that you’re mine.”

I consider my answer very carefully. He reminds me of a ticking time bomb, one second from detonating. Though I can’t see him, I can feel the tension in every line of his rigid body.

My disappearance shook him. Bled him. There’s something distinctly primal in his actions now.

“I’m not just yours,” I reply at last, and when his hands tighten, I fear I said the wrong thing. After a moment, he loosens his steel grip and presses his forehead to my own.

“Even a little piece of you is better than no piece at all,” he whispers, breath fanning across my lips. “You can be mine…but you can also be theirs.”

I’m left speechless by his words, my jaw dropping.

Surely, he can’t mean what I think he means?

“Nina…” He cups my cheek tenderly, reverently. I know that, if I were to go into his head, I would see only myself. His eyes are a physical caress on my suddenly overheated skin. “Can I kiss you?”

I swear my brain forgets to function as my breath leaves me. This proud, beautiful man is asking for a kiss from me, as if it’s the only thing he needs. The only thing he wants.

Kai. My first true friend—my best friend. My protector.

“Kiss me,” I agree breathlessly.

Still, he hesitates, lips hovering over mine.

“If you need me to stop…” He trails off, continuing to knead both of my shoulders.

“I’ll tell you,” I say instantly. And I know he would, no matter how far along we were.

His lips are tentative against mine at first. Soft and careful, as if he’s afraid the slightest pressure will break me. It’s such a contrast to Bronson’s heated, desperate kisses—though I can’t compare.

I place my hands on his shoulders, trail them down to his biceps, and then raise them once more. I repeat this pattern three times as we exchange the most innocent, sweetest kisses imaginable.

At this moment, it’s not just lust, though there’s plenty of that too. It’s a merging of souls reconnecting after years apart.

I reluctantly pull away, my lips tingling from his kiss. His kiss. How many times have I imagined this exact moment? It’s even sweeter, better, than I had hoped.

“Nina…” He caresses the skin of my neck, each touch sending lightning through my veins. My body feels as if it’s on fire, as if the heat his dragon emits is palpable.

“I need to shower,” I reply, brushing my thumb over his plump lower lip. “I’m gross and sweaty and bloody.”

“You’re perfect,” he declares immediately.

A swarm of butterflies escapes in my chest, fluttering their wings in tandem to my rapidly beating heart. Kai has always made me feel valuable and loved. In his arms, there’s not a storm we can’t face.

“I’m gross,” I counter with a giggle. “There’s a lot we need to talk about.” Pressing my forehead against his, I lean closer, our lips a hairsbreadth away.

“We’ll talk,” he agrees at last. With a pained groan, he steps away from me. “But just remember, Nina. You’re mine.” His husky voice causes flames to burn throughout my body, filling the space with a cloistering heat.

But his possessiveness doesn’t scare me. If anything, it only reinforces what I already know.

Maybe, just maybe, I’ve always been his.

Kai leadsme to his private bathroom, through a door in the throne room. After quickly relieving myself, I fumble into the shower and scrub myself raw. Kai provides me with a fluffy towel, a change of clothes, and a shampoo bottle.

When I finally force myself out from under the spray, I feel relatively human again. The last few hours are nothing but a horrible dream. A nightmare.

Dressing in the satin white nightgown Kai has provided me, I drape the towel over the sink and step back into the throne room.

It’s silent when I enter, eerily so. I push myself into the nearest mind, marginally surprised that only one person is here with me. The tattooed sleeves crossed over his chest allow me to see that the man is Kai.

“Where are the others?” I query. Through his vision, I see myself step closer. My dark hair cascades down my back in wet curls, and my face is devoid of the makeup Rebecca had applied earlier.

“I sent them away,” Kai announces quietly. His eyes track me—a lion hunting a gazelle—as I perch on his throne against the far wall of the room. “I told the twins to make rooming arrangements for…Braelyn and her mate.” His voice lowers to a rough tenor as he speaks about my kidnapper.

“And Rion?”

Kai’s head dips once as he nods. “We set him up in a room as well. As far away from you as fucking possible.”

I want to scoff at his overprotectiveness but wisely remain silent. Rion will never hurt me, but Kai doesn’t know that. Heck, even I don’t know how I know that. It’s the same sixth sense that made me comfort a little boy so many years ago in the Compound.

“We haven’t really talked since you’ve been here,” Kai says. He doesn’t take a step towards me, but I feel his daunting presence almost physically.

“We talk all the time,” I point out.

“Not about what’s important.” Finally, he moves forward until he’s leaning over me. His eyes focus on my lips before moving up, staring in first one eye and then the other. “I never meant to leave you.”

His voice is like a cold trail of water sliding down my back.

“At the Compound?” I whisper, anxiety clouding my face.

“I’ve known about the supernatural world since I was a young boy,” he admits, dropping to the ground. This position puts his face at level with my breasts—he’s intimidatingly tall, while I’m painfully short. “My family is descended from dragons. The last of our kind. I was kidnapped from my mother when she took me to the fucking supermarket.” He releases a humorless laugh. “If that isn’t a fucking cliché, I don’t know what is. Kidnapped at the supermarket.”

“Why didn’t you tell me?” Tears burn my eyes, but I refuse to let them fall. Instead, they hang suspended on my eyelashes like raindrops. In a matter of seconds, he has ripped the security straight out from underneath me. I’d thought I wasn’t alone during my years at the Compound. I’d thought that Kai was stumbling blindly through the dark with me.

Stupid, stupid me.

I’m the only one with lost vision.

“I thought… I wanted to protect you.”

“By keeping me in the dark?” I snap back. “Because, Kai, as someone who has spent her entire life in the dark, it’s not that fun.” Rage swirls low in my stomach like a tsunami. It courses through my bloodstream. Interwoven with the rage is betrayal. Disappointment.

Crippling loneliness.

“I was a little boy, baby,” Kai pleads, taking hold of my hands. I immediately pull away, his touch too much. “I was a stupid little boy who wanted to be your knight in shining armor. I wanted—no, I needed—to protect you. You’re my mate. When I started showing signs of being more powerful than them, they took me away. Took me from you.” His voice lowers to a whisper, but it echoes in the cavernous room.

“Why…why does everyone keep saying that? That I’m their mate? Bronson. Rion. You. What does it mean?” My fingernails dig into my palms. That one simple word causes goose bumps to bloom across my skin. My heart gains wings and flies around my rib cage.

Kai unclenches my fists, dropping his gaze to my hand. It’s soft and delicate compared to his. Despite all I’ve endured, my hands have remained relatively clean. They’re not as tainted as the rest of me.

“It means you’re made for me, and I’m made for you. It means you’re mine to protect and love and cherish. It means that I’ll never leave you again, that I’ll go to the ends of the earth for you. That not even bars can keep us apart. It means that I’m yours, despite you deserving ten times better than a monster like me.”

His eyes lift to my face, my lips, and an insatiable hunger fills me. I pull out of his head, embracing my customary darkness, and smash my lips to his in a feverish kiss.

He freezes beneath my assault, hands stilling on my own, before he wraps them around my waist and pulls me to him. I lower myself onto his lap, kneeling on either side of his thighs, and brush my fingers through his hair. It’s getting longer now, the strands cascading through my fingers like silk.

I… I want him.

That thought pierces me with its intensity. I want him in the same way I wanted Bronson only earlier today.

“Nina…my Nina,” he murmurs against my lips. Dozens of fires blossom through my body, a bomb exploding, and I embrace the sensations they evoke within me.

“Yours,” I agree, because at that moment, I am completely.

He lowers us both to the ground, me still on top of him, and slowly begins sliding down the straps of my nightgown.

“Is this okay?” He pauses with bated breath, awaiting my permission. When I nod, leaning down to kiss him again, he places a gentle hand on my chest. “I need to hear your words, Babygirl.”

“Yes, Kai. Yes.”

He pushes down my dress until my breasts are revealed. I didn’t bother to wear a bra after my shower, and my nipples are currently beaded nubs.

“Do you know how often I imagined this?” he whispers, trailing kisses down my neck and to my aching breasts. I moan as he captures first one peak and then the other in his mouth.

“Kai…”

“Say my name again, Babygirl. Say it.”

“Kai.” I pull his lips back to mine, sliding my dress down the rest of the way. I shift my body awkwardly to kick it off my ankles. Through it all, Kai never breaks our heated kiss. “You. Can’t. Leave. Me. Again.” I punctuate each word with a kiss to his lips.

“Never,” he agrees.

I lower my hands to his broad shoulders, memorizing the contours of his muscular chest. Shakily, I begin to unbutton his shirt, desperate to feel his heated skin against my own.

Kai doesn’t rush me as I take my time removing his garment. He continues to leisurely caress my sides and breasts, never touching me where I need him to.

When I reach the final button, he slides the sleeves down his arms and takes my hands in his, bringing them to his chest.

“Touch me.” His voice is half a whisper and half a plea.

I take my time mapping out every tight muscle and the grooves of scars. I don’t need sight to know that he’s beautiful.

“I made a lot of mistakes in my life,” he whispers hoarsely as I bend my head to kiss his chest. “But loving you isn’t one of them.”

His words give me a pause. My lips pause their trajectory across his expansive planes.

“You love me?” I can scarcely breathe. Having someone love me, having him love me, is all I’ve ever wanted. I’ve spent my entire life as a prisoner to not only my surroundings, but my own mind as well. It was a loveless, lonely existence, bathed in darkness and shadows, with Kai’s presence the only bright spot in my life. A part of me has loved him since that first day, when I recognized him in myself.

“More than anything.”

Our lips meet once more as Kai fumbles with the button on his pants. One moment, there’s rough denim beneath my legs, and the next, it’s prickly skin. I tense, my breath coming in quick bursts, as memories from the past drag me down like a pit of quicksand.

“What’s the matter, Little Monster?” Man caresses my cheek before lowering his hand to my naked chest. “You don’t want to play with me?”

“Nina! Nina!” Kai’s desperate voice pulls me out of my flashback. I’m trembling, cocooned in his vise-like arms. “Shit, I’m sorry. I’m so fucking sorry.”

I take a deep breath to steady myself, to ground myself in the present.

I’m not there. I’m here. With Kai. Who loves me.

I’m safe.

“I’m okay,” I assure him. “I’m okay.” I grasp his cheeks firmly between my hands. “I don’t want to stop.”

“You just had a fucking flashback.” His voice is heavy with horror and pain. “I don’t want our first time to be because you feel like you need to or some shit.”

“I don’t feel like I need to do anything.” I brush my thumb across his lips. “I want to. With you. It’s not just because I’m trying to trade that bad memory with a good one, though I admit that might be part of it. It’s because I love you.” He releases a shuddering breath at my confession, arms tightening. “I love you, and I want you.”

“I haven’t ever…” He trails off, and I imagine that, if I were to see him, he would be blushing. My own cheeks catch fire when I realize what he means.

“Not ever?”

With my hands still on his cheeks, I feel him shake his head adamantly. “No. I was a young boy when I was brought to the Compound, and after I left, I didn’t want to. You’re it for me, Babygirl. You’re my queen.” He lowers his forehead to my shoulder and takes a deep breath. When he exhales, his hot breath elicits a barrage of goose bumps. “I want you so damn much.”

“You have me. Now and forever.”

Because, with him, the darkness isn’t too much for me to handle.

Kai’s cock lines up with my sopping wet entrance.

“Are you sure?” he asks one last time.

“I’ve never been more sure about anything in my life,” I reply earnestly. I don’t know what this means for me and him, me and the others, but in this moment, my soul cries out to his. After years of separation, he has finally supplied me with the missing puzzle piece needed to make me whole. I could’ve died today, and that brush with death taught me that I can’t take the people in my life for granted. I’m scared, yes, but I’m also hopeful. There’s no telling what the future will hold and how we’ll survive it. All I know for certain is that Kai makes my life a little bit brighter.

He enters me slowly, both of us groaning at the connection. He curses, muttering about how good I feel, before kissing my lips. His words keep me cemented to the here and now. Inch by inch, he sheathes himself fully inside of me, pausing his movements to allow me time to adjust.

Panic threatens to choke me, but I push it away. I’m with Kai, who will never hurt me.

Kai.

My best friend.

The man who loves me.

“Ride me,” Kai whispers, kneading my breasts. “Take what you need.”

I move my hips, familiarizing myself with him. I feel full, almost too full, as I ride his cock. One of his hands grips my hip while the other rubs at my clit.

“You feel so good, Babygirl. So fucking tight.”

His praises make me move faster until I feel myself reaching the precipice, the impending explosion.

“Come for me,” Kai whispers, claiming my lips in one last kiss. I explode around him, tears burning my eyes. It feels…glorious. Perfect.

I never knew sex could feel that good.

I collapse on Kai’s chest, sweaty and sated, and play with the hairs on his chest. For a brief moment in time, everything makes sense.