Her magic pulsed against him — wild, unsteady, delicious. His shadows did not retreat this time, they curled low around their feet, tasting her light, craving it.
Kael's tunic was ripped loose, her fingers dragging it down his bare shoulder blades, her nails biting at the flesh of his back. His hands were no gentler — pulling at the seams of her gown until silk slipped down her to the floor, forgotten and meaningless.
Buttons tore. Laces snapped. There was no patience. No ritual. Just a wreckage of fine clothes as they devoured each other.
He dragged his gaze over her memorizing ever part of her. Her pale skin bathed in shadow and firelight. The swell of her hips, the soft arc of her breasts, the constellations of bruises painted down her frame like a scripture. Her magic still faintly simmered across her skin.
His arms scooped beneath her thighs, lifting her as if she weighted nothing, as if she was already his burden to bear. His prize.
She gasped as she wrapped her legs around his middle, his length pressing against her — he crossed the way to his chambers with purposeful strides.
Their limbs tangled, breath ragged. She arched into him, whispered his name like sin.
He threw her onto the bed — not rough but with finality.
She looked up at him, wild and waiting. And Kael wanted to burn in her.
He drank her in for one last, agonizing moment. Let his shadows creep along her skin, brushing her like fingertips, teasing the places he hadn't touched let.
Then he began to devour her like she was the only thing in this world that could quiet the chaos inside him. When he entered her, it was slow, searing. Her breath hitching as her body adjusted to him. His length slowly stretched her walls around him.
He was gentle until he wasn't — it became a dance. Rhythmic, then wild. She matched him breath for breath, claw for claw, she was close to her breaking point when Kael withdrew his cock, leaving an ache in his absence. She let out a moan, almost a plea. He cursed the Gods at the sound of her wanting.
He smirked and dropped his warm cruel mouth between her thighs, finding her clit with his tongue rolling in tight circles. He kept her sex pulled tightly to him with a powerful arm wrapped around each thigh.
He glanced up at her with darkened eyes and her body gave way to release, tremors of pleasure consumed her being. Kael released his grip on her after drowning in the sweet reward of her slick core.
He positioned himself back above her, spreading her legs wide and taking her in, the peak of her breast as her onyx hair laid amongst them, her expression full of desire — he then dove back into her with purpose, a pace with one goal in mind, eyes boring into her soul as he found his own release — her body accepting each pulse of his surrender.
Kael’s mouth met hers again softly, gliding over her lips like a thank you and a promise all in one. And for a breathless, eternal moment, he was undone.
Because in that shattering, something shifted inside him.
She wasn’t just his desire.
She was the axis of his world.
They lay tangled in the aftermath, the furs around them a heap of velvet and warmth. Maris rested her head on his chest, her fingers lightly tracing the scars along his side. Kael’s arm tightened around her.
He placed a light kiss to her temple. He offered up a silence prayer that he'd trade his kingdom to have her in this way again."
As if in answer Maris rose above him once more.
Chapter twenty
Prayer in Ruin
-Alarik-
The scent of burning myrrh curled through the high vaulted chamber like a memory left to rot. Alarik stood at the heart of the old sanctum, where no prayers had been answered in a hundred years, and still whispered one anyway.
Not to be heard. But to remember.
Cracked statues of the five gods loomed overhead, their faces worn by time, or perhaps willfully erased by the people who had grown tired of divine torture. The floor beneath him was etched in sacred geometry, the lines long since faded to ash.
He’d been a child when he first learned of the curse, it was taught to him and the other nightbound children. A cautionary tale of how the Gods viewed them as monsters before they even became men.
Calanthe had once been a kingdom of song and light: rich with spring-fed vineyards, golden fields, glitter beaches, sweet warm waters, and fae-spun beauty that dazzled the senses. But no longer. Not in his lifetime.
