My little doe deserved it.
Chapter 21
Evie
At the baths, Naila had spoken of Kael’s love for the hunt. Despite not being a wood elf, he had learned to move like one, to climb trees as if born to them, to glide through the forest silent like an owl searching for prey.
Somehow, being alone with her made me feel closer to him. I was learning his story, his roots, the parts of him he kept silent at the Court.
Then she said something that stole the breath from my chest.
“With you, he is calm. Like the storm doesn’t matter so much anymore. Like he can forget the destruction that lives in him.”
I only hummed in reply, but inside, butterflies burst through me, wild and dizzy. That was the moment I knew I was falling, for all that he was. For his silence and his fury, for the beauty that thrived in the ruins of him. And call it wishful thinking, but I wanted, oh so dearly, to be the shelter he deserved.
When I entered our chamber at night, I was trembling with that wish. I wanted him to share a bed with me, to end this endless waiting, to let the fire between us burn as it wished. To consume it or let it consumeus.
He said he would sleep on the floor, but I wouldn’t let him.
He looked sculpted in gold beneath the candlelight, his ash-blond hair still wet from the lake. When he pulled off his shirt, the temperature itself shifted. Heat gathered low within me.
The flame caught on the long lines of his body—lean, strong, all sinew and shadow. The tempered frame of a hunter. Muscles shifted beneath his skin like moving rocks, his chest marked by faint scars. When he turned, I saw the largest of them, a pale arm of lightning scrawled across his back, branching to his shoulder like roots of fire long cooled.
Was that where it had begun?
Had the scar made him, or had he been born with it?
He was silent as stone, his jaw tight, the grief of the day coiled in every breath. He had just learned of the death of many of his tribe, his mother among them. I felt foolish to think of surrendering to him then, yet his nearness made every thought burn.
But he wouldn’t talk to me. Not at first. He sat beside me, and I saw the darkness in his eyes. The clouds I had once mistaken for disdain, I now recognized as desire.
And I knew I could have him if I wished.
Never in my life had I felt that kind of certainty. With Kael, it felt like permission, like I was allowed to want, allowed to reach.
Maybe it was the tremor of the day, the way I felt bound to him after hearing his story, or the candlelight that softened him to something human. But the sudden will to please him surged through me, fierce and tender all at once.
I wanted to kneel before him and return the pleasure he had given me, to let him feel the same shiver of yearning he could draw from me with a single glance.
I wanted to show him how wholly I belonged to that moment, how much of myself I was willing to give.
So I kneeled. I undressed him with trembling hands, ready to please the Court Wizard. The thought sent a shiver through me,warmth blooming low in my belly, my breath catching with the force of wanting him.
The sight of his length stole my breath for a moment, but I steadied myself and lifted my gaze to his, seeking permission in the silence between us.
I knew Kael responded to surrender, that obedience could reach places words never could.
I took him in my mouth, as deep as I could. I could only reach halfway, so I used my hand, drawing more shattered breaths from him. I savored his cock, teased it, glided along the shaft while my tongue explored every inch of it. And it drove him insane, I felt it. The twitch in his thighs, the clench of his fingers, the shudder beneath his restraint.
Restraining what?Come now, Kael… Show me how far I should not go.
His hand found my hair, sudden and sure, and I couldn’t move anymore. He thrust into my mouth hard and fast, and I let every muscle of my face go still, yielding to his touch.
“That’s my good girl…”
I moaned. Muffled and raw. It made his cock twitch against my tongue.
Tears spilled freely from the strain, and when our eyes met again, something in him broke.
