Elara's heart hadn't stopped racing since the kiss.
Even after her sister left the barn and the door shut behind her with a quiet click, the silence that followed was louder than any scream. She sat on the cold ground, arms loosely wrapped around her knees, watching the shape beneath the canvas tarp rise and fall with each of Kael's labored breaths.
He hadn't said another word.
Neither had she.
Because the kiss had changed everything—and nothing.
Kael was still bleeding. Still poisoned. Still volatile.
But something in the air between them now vibrated. Thicker than smoke. Heavier than desire.
A promise—or a threat.
She didn't know which yet.
That night, Elara crept back into the main house, careful not to wake her sister. The old floorboards betrayed her with every step, but no questions came from the other room.
Still, her hands trembled as she poured water from the well bucket into a basin.
She caught her own reflection in the metal: bruised lips, wild hair, blood dried at the corner of her mouth. Her collarbone was faintly reddened where Kael had breathed, pressed, almost bitten.
She looked like someone she didn't recognize.
Someone feral.
Someone in love with danger.
No, she told herself.
Not love. Survival. Shared blood. Nothing more.
But deep down, the lie scratched against her ribs.
She didn't sleep that night.
Instead, she wrote a note.
"If I'm ever no longer myself, don't grieve. Just remember I chose this."
She folded it carefully and, when dawn came, slipped it beneath Kael's chains—tucked just beside his chest.
And then she left.
She returned at dusk with more bandages and a warm rag. The smell in the barn had worsened—blood, sweat, silver decay, and something more primal. It wasn't rot, not quite.
It was transformation. A body trapped in flux.
Kael lay on his side, the tarp pushed away now, one arm twisted at an unnatural angle, muscles twitching beneath too-tight skin. The veins around his left shoulder had darkened, branching like ink down his chest.
"Kael?" she whispered.
His eyes snapped open.
But they weren't golden anymore.
They were burning red.
"Elara," he rasped, struggling to sit up.
She rushed forward, catching him before he collapsed.
His skin was on fire.
Literally. Tiny threads of heat shimmered along his clavicle, and when she touched them, her fingers blistered.
He didn't flinch.
He just looked at her.
Like he was trying to memorize every freckle. Every scar. Every line of her.
"I saw you," he murmured. "In the flames."
"You're hallucinating," she said, helping him upright. "You have a fever."
"You were burning," he whispered. "And I was too late."
Elara cupped his face. "I'm not burning now. I'm right here."
Kael leaned into her touch, trembling. "I thought I forgot you."
"You didn't," she said. "You called my name last night."
"I did?"
She nodded. "Twice."
A shudder rippled through him.
"Then it's worse than I thought."
"What is?"
"The bond," he said. "It's bleeding more than memory. It's bleeding identity."
She frowned. "You mean… you're becoming me?"
"No," he said. "I mean I don't know where I stop and you begin."
She stayed with him the rest of the evening.
They didn't speak much.
She cleaned the wounds along his back, watching as silver-threaded scars slowly cracked, as if his body were trying to push the metal out by force. He bled when she touched them, but he never complained.
At one point, she reached for his shoulder and he flinched—not from pain, but surprise.
"No one's touched me there since… her."
Elara paused. "Her who?"
Kael shook his head. "Doesn't matter."
But it did.
The way he looked at her afterward—apologetic, regretful, soft—it mattered.
She unrolled the bandages.
"Lift your arm," she said.
He obeyed without sarcasm this time.
Without a smirk.
She wrapped him carefully, her fingers brushing skin that felt hotter than fire, the tension between them coiled like a storm behind her teeth.
When she tied the last knot, Kael caught her wrist.
"You're still here."
"You sound surprised."
"I am."
He pulled her hand to his lips—not kissing, just holding it there, against his mouth.
"You smell like something I'm not supposed to have."
"Good," she whispered. "Because you're not supposed to have me."
He looked up at her.
And smiled.
For real.
"Then why do I feel like I already do?"
Later that night, Elara dozed off in the hay beside him.
She didn't mean to.
She had only meant to rest her eyes.
But when she woke—
Kael was gone.
The chains were broken. The tarp was in tatters.
And blood—
There was blood everywhere.
"Kael?" she called out, voice cracking.
No answer.
She stumbled to her feet, barefoot on cold dirt, following the trail of red across the floor. It led to the far corner of the barn. The old tack room.
She pushed open the door—
And froze.
Kael was crouched in the corner, shirtless, his back to her, left shoulder a ruin of open wounds.
He was biting himself.
Hard.
Teeth sunk deep into the flesh just below his collarbone—tearing through muscle, tearing through something.
"Elara," he choked. "Don't come closer."
But she already had.
Because on the floor beside him…
…was the note she'd written.
Stained in blood.
"If I'm no longer myself, don't grieve."
"You read it," she said softly.
Kael didn't look at her. "I wanted to stop it. The bond. The bleed. I thought if I could tear out the mark—"
"You thought if you destroyed yourself, I'd be safe?"
"Yes."
She stepped forward, kneeling in front of him.
His face was pale, streaked with blood and something dangerously close to tears.
Elara reached for his hand and pressed it to her own chest, above her heartbeat.
"Then feel this," she whispered. "Because you're not leaving me behind."
Kael stared at her.
And then—slowly, brokenly—he pressed his forehead to hers.
"I'm so tired of hurting."
"I know," she said. "So stop."
He let out a strangled laugh. "It's not that easy."
"Then let's make it hard. Together."
They stayed like that for a long time.
Forehead to forehead.
Breath to breath.
Two creatures who should've never met, holding each other together with nothing but blood and fear and fragile promises.
When Elara finally stood, she wrapped a blanket around him and helped him back to the hay.
She bandaged the bite on his shoulder, kissed his brow, and whispered, "Next time you bite someone, let it be me. Not yourself."
Kael closed his eyes.
"I don't deserve you," he murmured.
She leaned in.
"You'll just have to earn me, then."
Outside the barn, snow began to fall.
Thin, quiet.
The first of the season.
Inside, two monsters slept side by side.
Not lovers.
Not enemies.
Something far more dangerous.
Becoming each other.