Kael entered me slowly, pushing all the way until I swallowed him whole.
“You take it so well, my love,” he breathed into my ear.
The words hit like a spark to dry tinder. My breath caught, my pulse stuttered, and for a heartbeat I forgot the world was burning. I thought I’d imagined it—a trick of breath and madness. But the words lingered,my love, spreading through me like a haze that refused to fade.
He moved inside me, his arms clutching me tightly, increasing the pace with every breath. As I closed my eyes, I released the chains and let my power flow. I expected echoes to flood through me, but this time they came gently, like spring rain instead of a storm. Acceptance dulled their claws. The moment I’d stopped fighting them, they’d stopped fighting me.
The darkness was still there, whispering beneath the surface, but its grip loosened. In that moment, there was only us, two souls entwined, bound by powers older than the gods, caught in a storm of our own making.
My moans echoed against the walls of the keep. Soon, they were matched by the storm inside him, releasing fully, uncontrolled and untamed. Lightning crashed against the stones, thunder rolled inside, but it was neither blinding nor deafening. It was beautiful, wild and alive, the storm answering the rhythm of our bodies, lighting the darkness that consumed this place. It dimmed the screams, the agony, the groans until we both could no longer hear them. For once, neither of us restrained what we were. His chaos met my surrender, and in that collision, there was peace. Finally.
Kael seized me again, lifting me up and flipping me over. Ashis cock left me, the world turned ice cold. He pressed gently on my back, guiding me to bend over the table. Then he entered me once more, bringing warmth back to my bones, reaching even deeper than before. So deep that it hurt, yet I savored every strike of pain deep within me.
I moaned, or rather, screamed, as he thrust, pushed, and pressed faster. Our skin met in slaps, my wetness echoing his movements. The sound of the music we made merged with the sound of a storm, rising stronger.
His fingers laced through my hair, and he clenched. He yanked me once, forcing me to look ahead. One hand in my hair, one hand digging deep into my hip, he took me harder and harder.
I felt it, the promise of release again, my blood boiling as the storm tore through me. Drachenfels flared to life, Kael's lightning striking the vines until they hissed, the blackness receding, swallowed by the storm.
Suddenly, he withdrew and flipped me over to face him. He lifted me onto the table, burying himself inside me once more. “I want to see your face break when you come apart on my cock.”
Yet he did not move just then. Instead, he hooked his arms under my knees, set his hands under my thighs for support, and lifted me while still inside me. He carried me, moving again, thrusting hard as we stood at the center of the keep, bathed in white lightning.
My head lolled back as I moaned, screamed his name, and uttered incoherent sounds. He reached so deep it felt like he would tear me apart, and that was exactly what drove me to release.
I dug my fingers into his shoulders, sending bolts of energy back and forth between our hearts. My vision slowly turned white. I looked at him, and for the first time, I saw right through him—the real him. His eyes blazed with light, spilling from their sockets. His skin had taken on the color of storm clouds, alive and shifting. Lightning crackled around us, striking the walls, the floor, my skin. And then he was gone, or maybe everywhere at once. Nolonger a man, but the storm itself, and I was completely at his mercy as I came apart.
I was gently laid on the ground, writhing and moaning as the orgasm still rippled through me in waves of raw pleasure. When it left me, the echoes of faces flashed through my eyes. All forgotten people, forgotten whispers. I saw pain, disarray, and souls screaming to be heard, longing desperately to be acknowledged. And somehow, it felt important, like a clue on how to banish the blight.
Strong arms enveloped me as the storm faded. Kael, still inside me, came apart, holding me, kissing me. Strands of his seed leaked at my deepest, and I dug my nails into his back. The last of his light dimmed as we lay entwined on the floor of Drachenfels, submerged in darkness once more. When the storm finally stilled, all that remained was truth. Raw, bare, and binding. No more walls, no more masks.
In the hush that followed, we finally met, not as storm, echoes, and flesh, but as ourselves.
Chapter 25
Kael
Guards swarmed the courtyard, armed to the teeth. Cannons thundered onto the parapets, wheels screeching over stone. Archers filled their quivers, bows already drawn. The city was about to shatter.
Now, what did we miss?
We had returned to Stenhalla, where Evie had washed the tar from her skin and clothes while I had fetched my horse. Then we rode back to the capital, Evie set on a futile mission to tell the king what she had learned. When I saw the smoke rising above the city, I knew. Dereck Throne was coming. It was too early for him to move, yet here we were.
Back in the castle, we were summoned to an emergency council by Lionel himself. The audience hall seethed with voices, magisters and chancellors gathered like ravens in stormlight. Shadows clung to our robes as if they knew what was coming.
I was ordered to take the gates, to stand ready should Dereck Thorne’s horde breach the walls. The king’s final card, his hidden blade. As always, I was his weapon, his merciful hand, one he had never used enough.
Dereck Thorne had declared war. He was coming for the castle, his militias ready to crawl from the gutters and march toward the gates, torches and weapons brandished. One night away had been enough for the glass to spill.
“My men raided the Iron Rat last night,” Alaric said, his voice flat as stone. The tavern lay beneath the gutters, a pit where Thorne’s dogs drank and plotted. “What began as a cease and desist turned into a slaughter. They struck from the shadows, knives flashing, blood thick on the walls. One cadet drove his blade into their spokesman’s throat before they cut him down. They took his head and sent it back at dawn, rolled it down the castle steps like an offering.”
General Alaric von Brecht stood fully armored, two swords at his hips, a shield hooked to his back. He looked ready for battle.
Thalen followed, wearing the leathers of battlemages. His quarterstaff of wood and metal, hooked like a claw, sat solid in his hand.
“You all know we will win this battle, right?” I asked. I was certain that one breath could reduce his army to ash, though Lionel would stop at nothing to avoid that choice.
I looked at him, upright but weary on his throne, the crown heavy and too perfect for a broken man.
