The moon set in the low range of the sky and like a watchful eye shined down on Crimson Hollow Packhouse. Aria stood at the edge of the training field alone with her blades to her hand and her breath deep and steady.
Tonight was not about proving herself. Tonight was about controlling - something she was rapidly losing all the time Kaine tried to come in.
The bond was snarling beneath her skin.
Each time she saw his face there was that flashing — that fiery, stubborn, desperate face. He was falling apart — slowly and wonderfully. And she had no intention of helping him gather himself.
Especially after what he'd done to her.
'That move, ' she recalled a voice through her head. 'That was too slow making the turn. You'd have been dead before you struck.
Aria turned, blade half-raised.
Darius.
Another Alpha born. Pure brute. Hard muscle, shrouded in a thick layer of ink and blood. He wasn't Kaine, at least not in the good ways: gentle grin, but someone was watching in his eyes: he wasn't safe.
And tonight, she needed him to be anything but.
"Would you mind showing me? Aria asked, tilting her head back. She sounded sugar drenched.
Darius smirked. "I thought you'd never ask."
They approached each other, they moved in circles, his hand caught her wrist and she twisted beneath him breathless, they crashed into each other again full of sweat and tension, like lightning in a bottle.
And in the shadows, Kaine watched.
Hidden under the balcony, his fists locked around the stone rail, claws half at the ready, his breath ragged. Wild. The sight of Aria — his Aria — laughing as Darius pinning her to the grass with a sticky stream of sweat running down her throat shocked something primal in him.
It wasn't training anymore.
It's A seduction game. It's A game Kaine was n't playing he was losing.
It was like a fireball from hell. The love twisted tight in his chest screaming to be known and to be accepted.
He disappeared from the balcony, nothing but wind and rage.
Below, Aria could feel the change in the air seconds before Kaine swept into the field.
Darius stumbled back as Kaine stepped between them, letting out a gasp of raw fury.
"The session is closed, " Kaine growled, his voice low and sharp.
"No, it is not, " Aria grinned, unflinching. "You don't get to intervene because your ego got the best of you. .
Kaine's eyes were black, feral gold blinding the night. "Do you think this is an ego thing, Tom? "
"So I guess it 's you not enjoying the fact that somebody else is touching me and I 'm not pushing them away. '' she snarled.
A second of silence passed. Darius wisely went back but didn't leave as he was looking at Kaine with curious eyes, like testing the alpha 's limits.
"You're playing a dangerous game, Aria, " Kaine warned, looking up slightly in his nearly growling voice. "And you're not prepared for the consequences. "
She tilted her head. "Try me."
And that was his undoing.
On one fantastic gesture Kaine grabbed her wrist and pulled her toward him and hurled his mouth down on hers so horribly and viciously that she could no longer contain him.
Aria gasped into him, the heat of the bond escaping like a match being put to gasoline. Her blade came off her hand. She nearly kicked her knees off.
But then, just as suddenly, she shoved him back.
Hard.
The connection snapped. Her lips were swollen. Her eyes blazed.
You 're not allowed to kiss me after rejecting me. After humiliating me.
Kaine's chest heaved. His jaw clenched.
"You think I wanted to break up with you? " he growled. "You think I didn't feel it at the moment the bond snapped into place? That it didn't tear me apart every day I was not touching you?
"Then why did you? " cried her voice with fury. And pain.
Kaine wouldn't answer right away. He didn't really look at it, either, like it was a physical thing.
"Because I thought I was cursed, " he finally admitted. "Because everybody I love dies. And I was not going to make you a part of it. "
The silence that followed was suffocating.
Aria stared at him. Her heart thundered.
"You don't get to decide that for me," she whispered.
Then she turned and walked away.
Kaine didn't follow.
He couldn't.
---
Back in her room, Aria leaned against the door shaking her head, her lips still in the heat of his kiss and her heart steamed with fury and longing.
But she'd made her choice.
She was not his to claim at any time his guilt turned into obsessiveness.
She 'd be making him feel every second that she was gone. Every second that he took her for granted.
Because one thing was becoming terrifyingly clear.
Kaine wasn't just possessive.
He was falling into something darker.
And she wasn't sure either of them would survive it.