Mirelle
Age: 17
The castle's oldest wing was a maze of crumbling arches and faded murals, long abandoned by courtiers who preferred sunlight and polish over dust and truth.
I liked it here.
It felt honest.
Which is probably why I wasn't surprised when I caught Kaelith there—alone, hood drawn low over his face, hand pressed against a tapestry half-burned by magic long before I was born.
"Tairn's restless," he said, without turning.
I leaned against the opposite wall, arms crossed. "So bring him to heel."
His shoulders tensed. "You think I haven't tried?"
There was something ragged in his voice. Something strained and on edge.
"You're not sleeping," I said quietly.
He looked over his shoulder then. Just a glance, but it was enough. The flicker of gold in his eyes told me Tairn was awake.
"Sleep is dangerous now," he said, finally facing me. "He dreams of you."
The silence stretched like a blade between us.
"And you don't?"
He didn't answer.
Didn't have to.
The tension between us had shifted since the vault. It was thicker now, charged. Not just restrained desire, but something older, darker. Feral.
He walked toward me, slowly, as if crossing a line with every step.
"I can't be around you like this," he said. "Tairn wants to claim you. Every time you're near, it gets worse."
I held my ground. "Then why are you?"
His jaw clenched. "Because I'm selfish."
I could feel the heat coming off him—magic roiling beneath his skin, scent spiced with something sharp and addictive. My breath caught.
I should've stepped back.
I stepped forward instead.
"Say it again."
He blinked. "What?"
"That you're selfish."
His eyes dropped to my mouth. "You don't understand what I'm fighting."
"Then explain it."
He didn't move. Didn't speak. Just stared like he was seconds away from breaking apart.
"I can smell you," he finally said. "Feel you. Tairn goes wild when you're close. Every instinct in me screams to mark you, claim you, breed you until you're dripping with my scent and every other male stays the hell away."
My knees nearly gave out.
But he wasn't finished.
"He doesn't care if it ruins you," Kaelith whispered, voice hoarse. "He just wants you mine."
"And you?" I breathed.
His hands were shaking.
"I want the same thing," he said. "But not like this."
A moment passed. Then another.
And still, I didn't move.
Kaelith stared at me like I was both temptation and salvation.
Then—footsteps. Echoing through stone.
The sound of a voice. Male. Laughing.
Kaelith went still.
The approaching figure came into view—lean, charming, too pretty to be threatening. A young lordling I vaguely recognized from court. Lyon, or maybe Lysander. One of the gold-painted jackals that circled power like it was meat.
He bowed low. "Mirelle. I was hoping to find you."
Kaelith said nothing. But I felt the shift.
The darkness.
Subtle at first, like a cloud passing over the sun. Then sharper. The air thinned. The corridor seemed to narrow.
Lysander looked between us and hesitated.
"I thought perhaps you'd join us for a ride tomorrow. The eastern fields are lovely at sunrise, and—"
"No," Kaelith said.
Not a request. A command.
Lysander frowned. "I wasn't asking you, your highness."
That was when it happened.
Kaelith didn't move, but Tairn did. His presence surged forward, leaking through Kaelith's skin like shadow turned molten gold. His pupils blew wide, jaw taut, every breath barely contained violence.
"You'll address her with respect," Kaelith growled.
Lysander paled. "I—of course. I meant no offense—"
"She's not available."
I blinked.
Lysander blinked.
Kaelith stepped between us. Not touching. Not quite. But close enough that the message was clear.
The prince had claimed his ground.
And no one else was welcome.
Lysander stammered out something polite and retreated. Fast.
Kaelith didn't move.
His chest rose and fell in uneven bursts. Hands still clenched. Eyes still burning.
"Kael," I said gently. "Let go."
He turned toward me, shadows licking across his skin like smoke. "I almost killed him."
"But you didn't."
He exhaled, long and slow. "This is what I meant. I'm dangerous."
"You're holding back."
"Barely."
I stepped forward again, slow, steady, deliberate.
He didn't retreat.
"You think I don't feel this too?" I whispered. "You think I don't wake up with your name on my tongue?"
He made a strangled sound.
I touched his chest, right over where his heart thundered. "You're not the only one burning, Kael."
A beat passed. Two.
His hands rose, hovering at my hips—but not touching. Not yet.
Then:
"You need to go."
I swallowed. "Why?"
"Because if you don't, I'll pin you against that wall and do everything Tairn's been dreaming about since the vault."
Heat flooded me.
But I didn't move.
"I trust you."
His voice cracked. "Then run."
But I didn't.
And he didn't touch me.
The moment snapped, tension sheared by restraint, and Kaelith turned away, fists tight at his sides as he disappeared into the shadows like they were part of him.
Perfect! Here's Chapter Four – Part Two of Fangs and Thrones, continuing from where we left off. The tension tightens, Kaelith's control frays, and Mirelle begins to see just how deep the bond with Tairn really runs.
----
I didn't see Kaelith for two days.
Not at training, not in the library, not even in the shadows of the castle halls where he usually lingered like a restless ghost.
He was avoiding me.
And Tairn, I suspected, was barely leashed.
The palace buzzed with gossip, whispers about how Lord Lysander left court unexpectedly, pale and shaken, muttering about monsters in royal clothing. No one dared speak Kaelith's name directly. But I knew.
Everyone felt it.
The change.
The storm.
And somehow, I was the eye of it.
I spent the morning in the eastern courtyard with my sword, driving through forms until sweat soaked my back and my arms trembled. When even that didn't silence the chaos inside me, I turned toward the old ruins again, hoping, foolishly, that maybe he'd be there.
He wasn't.
But someone else was.
A figure in silver and white, lounging against the stones like he belonged in some ancient fresco.
"Looking for the prince?" the Seer asked.
I frowned. "You know I am."
He smiled, teeth flashing beneath sunlit curls. "He's unraveling."
I narrowed my eyes. "You think I don't know that?"
"Do you understand why?"
I didn't answer.
He pushed off the wall and walked toward me, gaze soft but unreadable. "Tairn is not like the others. You think you're dealing with a bonded creature. You're not. You're dealing with a force older than this kingdom."
"You're being cryptic."
"I'm being careful," he said. "Because Kaelith is trying so hard not to hurt you that he's hurting himself instead."
That stopped me.
The Seer folded his hands behind his back, tilting his head. "Do you know what the Varethos does to a host?"
I swallowed. "It… enhances them."
"It transforms them," he corrected. "Turns their instincts into law. Amplifies what was already there. Want becomes need. Protection becomes possessiveness. Lust becomes hunger."
"And love?"
He blinked, taken aback.
Then he smiled again. "That becomes madness."
The air around us shivered.
"He's scared of what he feels for you," the Seer said. "Because it's not just Tairn who wants you. Kaelith does too. But Tairn doesn't wait. He takes."
I turned away. "You think I don't want him too?"
"I think," the Seer said gently, "you don't know what you're asking for."
I didn't respond.
Couldn't.
Because deep down, I knew he was right.
I left before I said something I'd regret, and found myself in the northern watchtower by sunset, legs dangling over the edge, wind in my hair. The cold helped. Cleared my thoughts.
Until I heard the footsteps.
Until I smelled him.
Shadows curled around the tower door as Kaelith stepped into view, cloak billowing, eyes unreadable. But it wasn't the prince I saw first.
It was Tairn.
The way he moved. The hunger in his stare.
I stood.
"You've been avoiding me," I said.
He didn't deny it. "I had to."
"Why?"
His jaw clenched. "Because I nearly broke."
I took a step closer. "Kael—"
"No," he said, voice shaking. "Let me say this. Just once."
I nodded.
He exhaled, breath fogging in the chill.
"You think you understand what you're playing with," he said. "But you don't. Tairn isn't just some ancient beast. He's… everything I try not to be. And when I'm near you, I can't separate him from me. I want to bite you, mark you, drag you to my bed and keep you there until you smell like me."
My breath hitched.
"But worse," he continued, voice ragged, "I want to love you."
The wind stilled.
And I was no longer cold.
"You think that's worse?" I asked.
"For you?" he rasped. "Yes. Because I'm not gentle. I wasn't before Tairn. And now…"
His hands trembled.
I reached for him.
He caught my wrist.
His grip was firm, possessive, but not cruel. The pulse beneath his skin thundered.
"You have no idea what you're doing to me," he said. "Every time you look at me like that, every time you speak my name, I have to fight not to take you."
"Then don't fight."
He stared at me, eyes burning gold.
"You don't understand," he said, voice low. "When a Varethos chooses a mate… we don't just bed them."
I didn't move.
"We claim them. We bite. We bond. It's eternal. There is no undoing it."
"I know."
"No, Mirelle. You don't." He stepped closer, his voice fraying. "I'll know where you are at all times. I'll feel your emotions. If someone touches you, I'll feel it. If someone hurts you, I'll kill them. If you leave me…"
I placed my hand over his chest.
"I'm not leaving."
Something in him shattered.
He kissed me.
Not softly. Not sweetly.
It was a claim.
It was fire and shadow and teeth and need. He kissed like a storm crashing into a mountain, violent, desperate, starving.
I kissed him back with everything I had.
His hands tangled in my hair, my cloak, my waist, everywhere. And when he broke the kiss, panting, eyes wild, he pressed his forehead against mine.
"I can't lose control."
I whispered, "Then give it to me."
He made a broken sound.
And then he stepped back.
Just far enough that I could breathe again.
"I'll come for you," he said, voice hoarse. "When the time is right. When I can give you everything you deserve."
"And if I come first?"
He smiled, a slow, dangerous thing.
"Then Tairn will make sure you never leave my bed again."
I didn't sleep that night.
And somehow, I knew he didn't either.
Kaelith
Age: 21
The walls felt too close.
I had ripped through three shirts by morning, claws shredding through silk when a dream of her skin against mine slipped too far into my bloodstream. Tairn wanted out. No… he wanted her.
And I couldn't deny it anymore.
The ache wasn't just in my bones now. It burned beneath my skin, feral and relentless.
I had tasted her.
I had touched the edge of something I shouldn't have dared want.
And it was destroying me.
My chambers, once untouched by chaos, now bore the evidence of my unraveling, cracked stone along the fireplace, shredded linens, claw marks down the arm of a velvet chair. My guards had stopped speaking to me directly. Even Cassian kept his distance.
Only the Seer dared speak.
"She's not afraid of you," he said that morning, leaning in the doorway like he hadn't watched me nearly gut a visiting dignitary three hours earlier.
"She should be."
He tilted his head. "That's not what this is about."
I didn't respond.
"You think you're doing her a kindness. Keeping your distance. Containing Tairn. But let me ask you this, Kaelith, when has the beast ever let itself be caged?"
"She deserves more than to be tethered to something broken."
"She deserves a choice," he said, and then, more quietly, "and she's already made it."
I turned away.
I couldn't think of her. Not when even her scent—ghosted on the edge of my senses from our kiss—made my control threadbare.
But I thought of her anyway.
Of the way she said my name like a promise. Of the fire in her eyes when she defied me. Of her scent, embers and snow.
And gods help me, I wanted her.
I needed to see her.
Just once.
So I went.
The training courtyard was empty at dusk. Only the sparring dummies remained, and the smell of steel still lingered in the air. But she wasn't here.
I almost turned to leave.
Until I caught her scent.
Fresh.
Close.
I followed it past the stone archways and into the gardens beyond the citadel, a place blooming wild and unruly, abandoned by the court long ago. It was half-ruins, half-forest, and entirely Mirelle.
She stood by an old marble fountain, sword laid across the edge, cheeks flushed from exertion.
She was barefoot.
Gods. She was always barefoot when she didn't think anyone was watching.
I stayed in the shadows.
Watching her.
Wanting her.
And when she turned, like she felt me there, her lips curved.
"I was wondering when you'd come find me."
I stepped out from the trees.
"You knew I would."
"I hoped."
That one word nearly undid me.
"You're not afraid of me," I said.
She lifted her chin. "I'm not afraid of what I know."
I moved closer. "And what do you think you know about me, little wolf?"
"That you're the only one who sees me. All of me."
She wasn't wrong.
I saw the warrior. The girl. The power she barely restrained. The fury she kept beneath her skin.
And the vulnerability no one else bothered to notice.
"You terrify me," I said quietly.
She blinked. "Why?"
"Because I've spent years mastering control. And with you… I don't want it anymore."
I was in front of her now.
So close I could feel her pulse.
She looked up at me. Brave. Open. Wanting.
I dragged my knuckles along her jaw. "Tell me to go, Mirelle. Before I forget who I'm trying to be."
Her hand came to rest against my chest.
"I don't want you to forget."
She kissed me.
Softly.
Slowly.
No fire this time. No hunger.
Just truth.
I curled my hand around her waist, letting the touch linger, anchoring myself in the moment. Her mouth moved with mine, lips parting as her fingers slid up to cup my jaw.
Tairn growled beneath my skin.
But I didn't unleash him.
Not yet.
When she pulled back, breathless, she didn't step away.
Instead, she whispered, "Do you feel it too?"
"The bond?"
She nodded.
I nodded once. "It's more than a thread. It's a tether."
She pressed her forehead against my chest. "I don't want to be afraid of what this is."
"You shouldn't be."
"But you are."
I sighed. "Because I know what comes next."
"Then tell me."
I lifted her face with a finger beneath her chin. "If I mark you… you'll feel me inside your thoughts. Your heart. Your soul. There will be no lying to yourself. No running."
"I'm not running."
"I am."
She grabbed the front of my tunic. "Then stop."
The sound I made wasn't human.
It wasn't beast.
It was Tairn.
I had her against the fountain in a blink, hands on either side of her hips, breath brushing her cheek.
I didn't touch her further.
Didn't dare.
"I can hear your heart," I said. "It races when I'm near."
Her voice trembled. "Because I want you."
My hand slid to her waist, holding her carefully.
Reverently.
She looked up at me with eyes so open it hurt.
And I finally said what I'd been denying for too long.
"I want you too, Mirelle. More than anything. But if I have you… if I mark you… there's no turning back."
She curled her fingers in my shirt.
"Then don't hold back."
The moment shattered with a scream.
Not hers.
Not mine.
Another.
I turned, instincts snapping into place.
A flash of movement. A scent on the air. Blood.
And Mirelle was already moving.
We raced through the undergrowth, her beside me, blades drawn, no hesitation. Tairn roared in approval.
When we found the source, it was a guard.
Slumped against a tree. Pale. Bleeding from the throat.
A dark figure loomed above him—robed and faceless, shadows writhing around its limbs.
Not a rogue.
Not a beast.
Something worse.
It turned toward us.
Hissing.
Mirelle didn't flinch.
I stepped in front of her anyway.
"Stay behind me."
"No."
"Mirelle"
She touched my arm. "Together."
The creature lunged.
We struck as one.
Steel and shadow. Fire and fury.
She moved like a storm. I moved like a weapon.
And when we stood panting above the fallen enemy, its form dissolving into black mist, I looked at herand knew.
There was no stopping this.
Not now.
Not ever.
She was mine.
And soon, I would be hers.
---
Mirelle
The blood on my hands wasn't mine.
That should've comforted me.
It didn't.
The creature Kaelith and I had slain hadn't bled like anything I knew. Its insides weren't flesh but shadows, cold and twisting and wrong. Even now, the lingering remnants curled at the edges of the forest like smoke refusing to leave.
"What the hell was that?" I whispered, wiping my blade on the hem of my tunic.
Kaelith didn't answer right away.
His eyes were still glowing.
Not just a flicker.
Blazing.
His breathing was rough, chest rising and falling like he was holding something back. His claws hadn't retracted. His lips parted as though he wanted to say something but couldn't find the words.
Then his gaze locked on mine.
And I saw it.
Tairn.
Right there,beneath the surface.
Feral. Alert.
Focused solely on me.
"Kaelith…" I said carefully.
"I can smell you," he rasped, voice too low. Too deep.
Oh gods.
My pulse stuttered.
"Kaelith, it's me."
He blinked once.
And then he was gone.
Not physically, but mentally. He stumbled back, dragging a hand down his face, claws slicing into his own cheek.
"I need to go."
"You're bleeding."
"I need to go."
I grabbed his wrist. "Don't run from this."
His muscles trembled beneath my touch.
"You don't understand," he said, voice breaking. "If I stay, if I let go, I'll mark you here. Now. In the dirt. In blood. And I will not be able to stop."
Something primal twisted in my stomach.
Not fear.
Desire.
"I'm not afraid of you," I said softly.
"You should be."
I stepped closer.
He flinched away. "Mirelle, I'm trying. I'm trying to be good."
"I never asked you to be good."
His golden eyes snapped up to mine.
"I asked you to be honest."
Silence stretched.
And then, brokenly, he whispered, "The moment I tasted your blood, I knew."
"Knew what?"
"That I'd never want anyone else."
I swallowed. Hard.
The truth of it hit like a wave. I felt it in my chest, in my bones, in the low thrum of the bond that hadn't stopped humming since that first kiss. Every part of me reached for him. Every part of me ached.
But I couldn't give him my body when his heart was still locked in a cage.
So I said the one thing that would make him pause.
"Then prove it."
His head tilted. "What?"
"Prove it's more than a craving. More than Tairn. Show me you want me. Not just the beast."
He looked as if I'd punched him.
Good.
Because I needed more than instinct.
I needed him to choose me.
Not just feel bound by fate.
He took a breath.
Another.
And then, finally, he said, "Come with me."
He didn't take me to his quarters.
He took me deep beneath the citadel, past the guard posts, past the stone-carved staircases, down into the old war catacombs. No light reached here except what he summoned with a flare of his hand, black fire dancing along the torches.
He stopped at an iron door.
"This was the last sealed chamber," he said. "No one enters without my mark."
He pressed his palm against the stone.
The door shuddered, then creaked open.
Inside… silence.
And a single altar, etched in ancient Varethos script.
I frowned. "This is…"
He turned to face me.
"I'm going to show you something no one's seen in centuries."
The torches flared.
And the walls lit up with images.
Painted in blood. In ash. In magic.
Varethos history.
Our origins.
The first Varethos bond.
I moved slowly, absorbing it, warriors kneeling beside mates who glowed with light, the carving of marks into flesh, the binding of souls.
"This is sacred," I whispered.
He nodded. "We weren't just made to rule. We were made to protect. Our power doesn't come from conquest. It comes from bonding. From choosing a mate who tempers the beast."
I looked at him. "You think I'm supposed to tame you?"
"No." He moved closer. "I think you're the only one who could.
I reached for him without thinking.
And this time, he didn't stop me.
Our mouths met again, and it was different.
Not fire.
Not fury.
But something older. Deeper.
The kind of kiss carved into stone.
I opened beneath him.
And he sank into me—not just with lips, but with his soul.
There was no battle in this moment.
Only surrender.
When we pulled apart, he rested his forehead against mine.
"I'll wait," he said softly.
"For what?"
"For you to choose me."
My heart cracked.
Because for the first time, he wasn't asking me to run.
He was offering to stay.
Later, I stood alone at the edge of the training yard, Kaelith gone to handle the fallout from the shadow creature attack.
I turned the moment I sensed movement behind me.
Not Kaelith.
Cassian.
He looked… haunted.
"Mirelle," he said.
I braced. "What?"
"I found something in the archives. You need to see it."
I followed him in silence.
Down, down, down, into the heart of the ancient library beneath the castle.
He pulled a scroll from a sealed box.
Unfurled it.
My heart stopped.
Because painted there, etched in the same blood-magic as the altar walls, was me.
Not a lookalike.
Not a resemblance.
Me.
Same scar on my brow. Same silver in my eyes.
Cassian looked pale.
"It's a prophecy," he said. "From the first Varethos seer. She called you The Breaking Flame."
"What does it mean?"
He didn't answer.
Because neither of us saw Kaelith enter the room behind us.
And when he did… his eyes locked on the scroll.
And the calm I'd seen in him earlier?
Shattered.
He stepped forward.
Grabbed the scroll.
Read the words in silence.
Then, with a voice colder than winter, he said, "You were never just mine."
"Kaelith—"
He turned away.
And walked into the dark.