“The walls think so.” I set the bowl on a natural shelf, unstopper a canteen, and pour a bead of water across the stone floor. It sizzles, then cools into a protective sigil Rowan taught me—nothing fancy, just a mute buffer against eavesdropping magic. Carmilla watches the swirl of steam rise, satisfied, then steps fully into the chamber.
Closer now, I can see how her cracks have multiplied since afternoon. Lattice lines creep in delicate arcs across collarbone, curling like frost fractals. They glow faintly as her pulse climbs, and the effect is terrible and beautiful, as if her body is becoming a stained-glass reliquary. She notes my gaze, gives the ghost of a smile. “It doesn’t hurt—much.”
“The measure of pain is yours to name, not mine.”
“Then tonight I name it small, and shrinking.”
She is lying—at least about the shrinking—but I choose to accept the momentary reprieve. Instead of arguing I loosen the cloak at her throat, coax it down. The fabric drags across her shoulders, revealing skin already gleaming with humid sheen. Symbols flicker where the cloak held warmth close: faint runic coils written earlier by our combined blood, reacting to the room’s heat. They shift across her like lazy comets.
Her eyes trace me in return. Sweat has glued my shirt to my back; no point in modesty. I unlace the collar, then tug the garment over my head, dropping it beside cloak. The air is hotter than any forge I have worked, yet gooseflesh rises when she lays palm against my sternum.
“We burn already,” she murmurs. “No fire outside us can match this.”
“Then let’s set the terms of the blaze.”
A slow blink, a nod, and the last pieces of caution slough away from both of us. My fingers find the knotted ties of her tunic. I tug one loose, then another, savoring each centimeter of new skin revealed. She helps, movements deliberate. We are not in a hurry; haste belongs to battle. This is something older, threaded with reverence.
When the tunic finally pools at her waist I pause, breath locked in my throat. The lattice sculpts her chest like frost on midnight water, each vein catching the magma light, casting dappled glow on the wall behind her. She watches me watch, half shy, half defiant.
“Say it,” she chides gently.
“Magnificent.” The word rasps out. I lean in, press my lips just below the junction of crystal and flesh. A tremor runs through her, more reaction than pain. The skin is warm, the crystal cool—a contrast that feels like dawn and dusk sharing the same horizon. I kiss downward, mapping ribs, honoring each ridge.
Her hands roam my shoulders, nails grazing scars old and new. She pauses over one freshly pink line earned when a shard exploded near my heart; she kisses that scar, her breath a cool blessing in this furnace air. The tenderness staggers me. I sink to my knees.
Her fingers thread my hair as I mouth the hollow beneath her ribs. Heat rises around us in visible waves; the magma glow brightens, as if the river senses its own reflection in her lattice. I lift her left hand—cracked, bandaged. Carefully I unwrap linen. A gasp leaves her as air hits new fissures, but she lets me, trusting. I draw the injured palm to my lips, plant soft kissesalong each fracture. Where breath meets crystal, tiny sparks skitter across the surface then fade. She exhales shakily.
“Your turn,” she whispers. She tugs at the laces of my trousers. Cloth slips, baring me to the stifling air. When her palm—uninjured—cups me, rough calluses drag sparks of need up my spine. I groan, head falling against her stomach.
She nudges me upward. I rise, meeting her mouth in a kiss that bends time. Tongue brushes tongue. Salt, ash, and something else—star-glass sweetness. Her legs tangle with mine; together we sink onto the polished obsidian floor. Heat radiates up, not painful, simply insistent, reminding us of the power churning beneath.
I lay her down gently, propping cloak beneath her skull for comfort. She stretches, curves a leg over my hip. The crystal veins spill blue light now, mixing with magma red to cast violet shadows. Symbols we wrote earlier respond, blooming pale gold on our chests, our arms, wherever sweat dissolves the ash ink into skin. They match, a living script.
Outside the grotto, faint howls drift—the night patrols venting sandhound spirits from fissures. The notes rise, fall, then harmonize with the pulse in my chest. Through the bond I feel Carmilla hearing them too; her heartbeat syncs, strong despite everything.
I slide fingers along inner thigh, tracing a path slick with heat. She arches slightly, silent plea. I answer by lowering my mouth, tasting salt and copper, reveling in the shiver that runs through her. My name leaves her lips in a sigh that sounds like a spell. Each lick, each gentle suck shapes her breathing into staccato. Her good hand fists in my hair; her cracked one hovers, unsure, then settles on my nape, gentle.
The lattice brightens again, blue edging toward white. I slow, swirling lazy circles, until tremors in her thighs grow firm. She tries to speak—maybe a warning of approaching climax—but thewords break apart under a gasp. I seal lips around her, hum softly, and she shatters, hips quaking against tongue. Crystal flares, then dims to pearl.
I crawl up her body, pausing to nip a hardened nipple, then kiss the base of throat. She cups my jaw, pulls me into kiss tasting of her own arousal. “Inside,” she murmurs. “Slow.”
Slow. I push in by increments, savoring each breathless sound she makes. Heat clenches around me, scorching and velvet. We pause once hips align, foreheads resting together, letting bodies adjust. Outside, the howl chorus peaks, then settles into a low chant—wolves at distant anchor sites linking our rhythms through the leylines. The resonance travels through lava, through stone, through our joined bodies, making the runes on our skin flicker in time.
I rock gently. Her nails scrape my shoulder blades, urging deeper. I comply, inch by inch, until the drag becomes almost too much. She meets each thrust with rising hips, small moans swallowed by my mouth. Sweat beads then runs down both our torsos, pooling under spine, evaporating in bursts of scented steam.
Halfway through the rhythm shifts: her legs lock around my back, pulling me tight, and the slow roll becomes a deeper push, slower still but heavier. Every press grinds pelvis to pelvis, sparking nerve ends. I angle hips to stroke the place inside that makes her cry out; the sound ricochets off obsidian walls, magnified. My name again—ragged, reverent. I answer with hers, voice thick.
She clutches my face between cracked palm and whole, pulls me down so our foreheads meet. In those close inches she forces truth with her eyes. I read despair there—buried but beating. A silent confession of what she hid, of the slate I have yet to discover. I do not call her on it now; I simply pour love into the kiss, telling her wordlessly I am aware and still here.
Pressure builds in my spine, coiling. I slow, fighting rush. She whispers, “Let go. I want to feel it, all of it.”
I do. Release slams through me, dragging a groan from lungs. Heat floods her; in response she convulses a second time, nails leaving crescents in my skin. The runes on our bodies surge gold, then fade, sinking beneath sweat.
We collapse side-by-side, breathing in ragged synchrony. The symbols gleam faint amber before settling invisible. The wolf chorus drifts away into distance. Somewhere above, a tremor shakes stalactites; dust falls like stars, landing on our skin, cooling into mica freckles.
Minutes pass uncounted. Eventually I push onto elbow, retrieve the broth bowl. “Drink a little.” I tip it to her lips. She sips, hums pleasure at the taste.
“Rowan outdid himself,” she says, voice rasped hoarse.
