At the mention of secrets, no one dared to look at Kazimir at the end of the table. But my eyes landed on Lucia. She was resplendent in a crimson sheath dress, black curls wild around her face, lips painted with the same shade as fresh arterial blood.She caught my gaze, held it, then winked. A slow, deliberate movement that caused me to give her a subtle nod of my head.
Savannah returned then, her face streaked but resolute. She slid back into her seat next to me and set her hand over mine. Her grip was cool and unyielding. I was hers, and she was mine, and every person at this table knew it.
The Chairwoman closed her binder, signaling the end of the session. “You have until midnight to decide. If you decline the throne, the Council will appoint. If you accept, your investiture is at dawn. Until then, this castle is yours. Use it wisely.”
The others filed out, murmuring to themselves, the ghosts of old power trailing them like a scent of dead flowers. Bronc and Juliet hung back for a moment, then left together, arms around each other like survivors of a shipwreck. Rafe nodded to me on his way out, a small, private salute.
Lucia lingered at the door, lips parted in a hungry smile. “Congratulations, King,” she said, the word twisting in her mouth like something alive. “May you reign with a heavier hand than the last.”
When the room was finally empty, I turned to Savannah. She was still holding my hand, tighter now. The emerald dress clung to her in all the right ways, but her face held questions and fathomless forevers.
“We did it,” I said, because I didn’t know what else to say.
She let out a breath, the weight of the world deflating with it. “Youdid it,” she echoed, then pressed her lips to my knuckles, a queen in a ruined palace.
There would be a hundred battles tomorrow. But tonight, the world belonged to us.
Chapter 30
Savannah
Dawn curled around the drapes like a hand, slow and probing, prying at my eyelids. I let it, for once. Last night’s exhaustion was a memory drowned in bourbon and adrenaline, and Menace slept on, the rise and fall of his ribcage the only proof the battle hadn’t been a fever-dream. In the room’s hush, I catalogued the other evidence: bandages now gone, bruises already faded to the color of old violets, blood scrubbed from the floor by unseen hands. The only thing they hadn’t erased was the pillowcase, still tacky where I’d wept into the fabric before finally passing out in his arms.
I curled toward him, greedy for the heat, for the fact that he was still breathing. The fine, silvery line of his jaw with just the right amount of blonde stubble. He’d cleaned up his beard in the night, probably just before crawling into bed, and the scent of expensive aftershave still clung to his throat. My mate, the king-killer, looked every bit the hero. He also looked like a man who’d been devoured and then spat back into the world.
It was the mark on his chest that drew me. I’d seen it last night—the circle the angel left when he undid Declan’s last cruelty—but in the morning, it had turned a faint, uncanny hue, lighter than the surrounding area. It pulsed in time with his heart, a living sigil just below the skin. I let my fingers hover there, afraid totouch it at first, then caving in, the way one always caves to gravity. The skin was warm, softer than the flesh around it.
He didn’t wake, not even when I leaned in and pressed my lips to it, light as a leaf.
I lay there a while, letting my palm map his ribs, the stories they told: the scar from a childhood where he’d been bucked off of a horse, a dip where a bullet had once splintered bone, the pale ridge from his last tour of duty. His hand, always so quick, so restless, now twitched only once—curling into a fist before softening again. I traced the line down, letting it be a prayer of thanks. I didn’t know I’d have this body to touch again. I was afraid he’d be taken from me. I was forever grateful he was here.
Below his waist, he was already half-hard, the logic of sleep and survival running on a different clock than the rest of him. I palmed him through the sheets, careful and slow. The first touch made him shift, a small sound in his throat. He didn’t wake, but the cock in my hand twitched, thickening with the promise of a whole new violence. I let the sheet fall away, exposing the pale arch of his hips, the dusting of blonde that led straight to where I needed him.
I didn’t need to be gentle. But I wanted to be. There was a reverence in it, a slow unraveling. I slipped down the bed, nuzzled against the root of it, breathed him in—the mix of sweat, laundry powder, and the faint copper of blood that lingered no matter how much we scrubbed. I licked a stripe up the shaft, circled my tongue around the head, and tasted him. He was salt and skin. There was a violence to the size of him, an arrogance in the way his body insisted on being worshiped. I did.
He started to stir then, an intake of air, a flex in the thigh that made my head jerk back just enough to watch his face. His eyes weren’t open, but his mouth parted, a sigh blooming from his chest. I swallowed him down, let the crown hit the back of my throat, and held it there, breathing through my nose and counting the beats as I sucked. My hand wrapped around the base, thumbstroking the vein just under the skin, the way I knew would break him if he was conscious.
He was, a moment later. I felt it in the shift of his hips, the shudder down his spine. I looked up and saw him watching me, one hazel eye open, a wolf’s smile flickering in the ruined geometry of his mouth.
“You’re a fucking queen,” he rasped, voice not quite awake but already claiming me. His hand tangled in my hair. Not rough, but firm enough to make it clear who was in charge. I let him guide my head, let him set the pace. Up, down, slow, then quick. I could have died this way, and I think he knew it.
He fucked my mouth. Not with the aggression of a brute, but with the solemnity of a king who knew the world was watching. His breath hitched;gasped every muscle locked. He whispered my name, the real one, not Red, and it was so raw I almost lost my rhythm.
I took him deeper, relaxing my throat, my nose pressed to his belly. The skin there was still marked, still strange, and I let my fingers roam over it as I sucked, as if the act could heal both of us. He gasped, louder now, the sound filling the small, cold room. I felt his body tense; the cock swelling harder, thicker, the warning clear.
“Swallow it,” he ordered. Not a request. Not a plea.
I did.
The cum was bitter, but I held it on my tongue, savoring the way his body jerked, the way his hands knotted in my hair. He groaned, full-throated, animal. I swallowed, then licked him clean, slow and careful, until he softened against my lips.
He didn’t let go of me for a long time.
I crawled back up the bed and curled into his side, head on his shoulder, my hand still tracing idle circles over the healed wound on his chest. He kissed my hair, his breath still ragged, the aftermath of pleasure mingling with the memory of pain.
“Was that a dream?” he asked, voice hoarse.
“No,” I said. “But if it was, I don’t want to wake up.”
