UNPLANNED REBIRTH: MARRIED TO MY STEPSON

Chapter Five — Shadows Between Us

The pounding at the chamber door rattled through the stone like thunder trapped in a cage.

“Selene!” Malrik’s voice, hoarse with wine, boomed down the corridor. “Do not keep me waiting.”

My fingers froze on the latch. I couldn’t breathe. Every sound—the crackle of torches outside, the rasp of his boots grinding stone—dragged me back into fire and ropes and smoke.

Then another voice, low and edged, cut through the memory.

“Don’t.”

I turned, heart hammering. Kael stepped from the shadows, his hand closing firmly around my wrist before I could react. His grip wasn’t painful, but it was unyielding, a command written in touch.

“You’re not opening that door,” he whispered.

The knock came again, harder. The oak groaned under the strain.

“What are you doing here?” I hissed, my throat tight with panic.

“Keeping you from a mistake,” he said, his tone calm, almost cold. Yet his eyes—steel-blue in the torchlight—burned with something I didn’t understand.

Malrik cursed outside, his words slurred but sharp. The bolt scraped, rattling in its iron hinges. I pressed my back to the wall, pulse racing.

Kael leaned closer, his body blocking mine from the door, his voice a blade against my ear. “Stay silent. If you answer him, you’ll give him power.”

I bit down on a shiver. My instincts screamed to obey Malrik, to submit as I had before. But the weight of Kael’s presence—steady, immovable—held me in place.

Minutes dragged. Malrik’s stomping grew fainter, his voice dissolving into curses as he staggered down the corridor. At last, silence swallowed the hall.

Only then did Kael release me.

“You’re safe,” he said.

The word struck me like a blow. Safe. Here? In the same fortress where flames had consumed me once before? Safe in the hands of the man who had ended me in that life?

I wrapped my arms around myself, forcing steel into my voice. “You shouldn’t be here.”

A faint smirk tugged at his mouth. “And leave you to him? Not a chance.”

I didn’t know whether to be angry or grateful. The bond thrummed between us, relentless, pulling me toward him even as my mind recoiled. I remembered smoke filling my lungs, his indifference as I burned. My body flinched before my heart could stop it.

He noticed. Of course he noticed. His gaze sharpened, then flickered with something unreadable—hurt, perhaps—but his tone stayed mocking.

“Afraid of me?”

“You’ve given me reasons,” I said, my voice brittle.

His jaw clenched. For a moment, his mask cracked and I glimpsed something raw beneath, but it vanished as quickly as it came. “Think what you want,” he said flatly. “It makes no difference to me.”

The lie was too easy, too thin.

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The chamber was suddenly too quiet, too heavy with things unspoken. Kael crossed the room and dropped into a chair by the window, sprawling with a careless grace that only made him more dangerous. He looked as though he owned the space, as though walls and shadows bent around him by instinct.

I curled on the edge of the bed, pulling my cloak tighter around me. The mattress was softer than the one I grew up on, but comfort meant nothing here. The air tasted of smoke and silver, of the mate bond binding me in ways I hadn’t chosen.

“You watch people too closely,” he said suddenly, his gaze flicking toward me.

I stiffened. “What do you mean?”

“You’ve been studying me since the pyre.” His voice was calm, matter-of-fact. “You look at me as though you already know the ending.”

The words made my blood run cold. Did he suspect? Could he sense that I carried two lives inside me?

I forced my expression smooth. “Maybe I’ve just seen enough men like you to know where ambition leads.”

He chuckled, low and humorless. “Then tell me. Where does it lead?”

I swallowed. “To fire.”

For a moment, his gaze softened—not pity, not scorn, but something closer to recognition. As if he too had seen the fire waiting for him, and still chose to walk toward it.

He leaned back, tipping his head against the chair. “Then sleep, Selene. I’ll keep watch.”

The words caught me off guard. They weren’t cold, not truly. They were a promise, unspoken but steady.

I wanted to argue, to tell him I didn’t need his protection, but the weight of exhaustion pressed me down. Slowly, I lay back, cloak wrapped tight around me, eyes never leaving his form by the window.

Moonlight spilled over him, silvering the line of his jaw, the curve of his shoulders, the restless tension in his hands. He looked like rebellion carved in stone, a man both cursed and crowned.

The bond hummed, soft but insistent, a thread tying me to him even as I tried to bury the memory of flames. My chest tightened with fear—and something warmer, something I dared not name.

My eyes drifted shut, though I fought them. Even in sleep, I felt his presence anchoring the room, silent, unyielding. For the first time since my rebirth, I wasn’t alone.

And that terrified me more than the fire ever had.

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