Page 68 of Ashen Souls

The apartment was hollow without Harper’s chaos. When I went to bed, I didn’t reach for my phone. I didn’t push up my sleeve to check my wrist. I didn’t ask the dark for anything.

But as I lay there, my mind stayed locked on the ironwork above those doors.

The sensation that had gripped me outside the Archive was new. Before, this tether had only been about Daeren, about escaping into his darkness.

But today... today the sigil tried to communicate.

18

♫ CHASE HOLFELDER—EVERY BREATH YOU TAKE

Mine.

The word moved through my sleep like a breath at my ear.

The sigil on my wrist burned.

Reality slammed into me, wrenching my mind into a nightmare it couldn't comprehend.

The chamber looked as if it had been gouged from the bones of the earth itself. Black volcanic rock formed the walls and ground, threaded with glowing veins of liquid fire that throbbed with a sluggish tempo, mimicking a heartbeat trapped under obsidian. The air was thick with the bitter tang of copper and the intoxicating smoke of charred myrrh.

Towering iron candelabras thrust out of the jagged terrain, their snarling flames reflected in the dark surfaces. The earth's crust was fractured, bleeding narrow seams of blistering radiance, as if the floor itself could barely contain the inferno clawing to get out.

Nothing about this place resembled the velvet illusions of his previous lair. The only surviving fragment was the vast bed beneath me, its black silk spilling over the rugged volcanic stone.

I thrashed on instinct, only to be jerked taut.

My arms were shackled high above my head, wrists lashed to the iron frame with thick, coarse rope. As I fought the bindings, the fibers bit viciously into my skin, sending a white-hot stab of agony down my limbs.

The gown I wore was a slip of blood-red silk again, but now it was so thin it was nearly transparent. It clung to me, designed to reveal every curve, transforming me into a surrender waiting to happen.

Daeren stood at the far end of the cavernous space. Behind him, a vast circle of fire hovered against the stone. Neither sun nor portal, yet somehow both. Its slow, breathing light cast a blazing halo across his wings and turned the fringes of the room into writhing silhouettes.

The glow carved stark lines across his face, catching in the dark fall of his hair and the uncompromising set of his jaw. He wasn’t moving. He watched me with a starving intensity. His attention glided slowly over the gown, lingering on the fragile material like a promise to tear it away.

Daeren moved closer, unhurried, treating the distance between us as mere inconvenience. He emerged from the gloom piece by piece: dark wings, bare skin.

“Why am I tied?” The words sound thin and brittle against the roar of the fire.

He halted right beside me, his scrutiny tracking over my bound form languidly, savoring the sight of a body that was already his.

“So you can’t run while I remind you exactly who owns your fucking flesh.” His words ground together like the shifting of tectonic plates.

“Remind you what happens when you let him look at you,” he continued. “When you forget who you belong to.”

I fell silent. There was nothing I could say that wouldn’t sound like a defense. And nothing that would matter to a creature fueled by possessive wrath.

“Daeren,” I managed. “If you mean Ethan… nothing happened between us.”

A deep vibration rumbled in his chest as his hand smoothed over my waist, pressing the thin red weave flush against my quivering stomach.

“You allowed him to crave you. You let him smell my scent on you, my Patches.” His thumb brushed over the throbbing vein in my neck. “I should burn him to ash just for breathing your air. But before I tear his fucking throat out, I need to make sure you never forget who you belong to.”

The promise of murder terrified me, but beneath the spike of pure panic, a humiliating ache pooled between my thighs, responding to the unhinged jealousy in his eyes. The last shred of my sanity wept, even as my legs parted against the silk.

His hand crept higher, settling over my heart with agonizing slowness.

“We have to fix that,” he murmured.