EIGHTEEN
RATHOK
Ilay her down on my discarded armor—not comfortable, but better than the frigid stone beneath. Her hair spreads across the leather like dark water. Her eyes never leave mine as I strip away her clothing, revealing inch after inch of warm brown skin.
She’s beautiful. Not the polished beauty of nobles or the calculated allure of pleasure-workers—something rawer. Realer. The beauty of someone who’s fought for every breath, survived every hardship, refused to break, no matter how hard the world pushed.
Her fingers trace the wounds on my chest. Still tender, still seeping, but manageable now thanks to her gift. She doesn’t shy away from the damage. Doesn’t pretend it isn’t there.
“Does it hurt?”
“Nothing hurts right now.”
It’s true. With her beneath me, her body warm against my cold skin, the pain has become irrelevant. Distant. The only sensation that matters is the slide of her hands across my shoulders, the hitch of her breath as I lower my mouth to her throat.
I taste her pulse. Feel it racing beneath my lips. My tusks drag across her skin—careful, controlled, leaving marks that aren’t quite wounds. She arches into the touch, a sound escaping her that makes my blood burn.
“Rathok.” My name again. Demand and plea in one.
I work my way down her body. Learning her. Memorizing every gasp, every shiver, every place where my touch makes her come alive. The curve of her waist. The softness of her belly. The way her breath catches when I trace the marks on her arm—the contract script that binds her, that led me to her. Her fingernails scrape across my shoulders—not quite breaking skin, but close. The pain is distant. The pleasure is immediate.
When I reach the juncture of her thighs, she tenses. I look up, meet her gaze, wait.
“Please.” The word is a whisper. But her thighs part, and that’s all the permission I need.
I taste her.
She cries out—a sound that echoes off the bone-stone walls, fills the chamber, breaks the pressing silence. Her hands fist in my hair, pulling me closer as I work her with my tongue. She’s responsive in ways that surprise me—quick to heat, quick to burn, her body answering every touch with urgent need.
The mark glows where it rests against my skull. Warmth floods through me—her gift, responding to the intimacy, to the pleasure building between us. It doesn’t feel like healing this time. It feels like claiming. Like her power is marking me as thoroughly as her nails mark my back.
She shatters.
Her whole body arches off the leather, trembling, a sound torn from her throat that isn’t quite a word. I hold her through it, my mouth gentling, letting her ride the waves. When she finally stills, she’s panting. Flushed. Looking at me with heat and wonder and trust I haven’t earned.
“I need—“ She reaches for me. “I need you.”
I’ve never wanted anything more.
I rise over her, positioning myself between her thighs. She’s small compared to me—human, fragile—and I should be careful. Should go slow. Should?—
She wraps her legs around my hips and pulls me forward.
I sink into her.
The sensation drives every thought from my head. She’s tight, wet, her body gripping mine with fierce welcome. A groan tears from my throat—animal, raw, nothing like the controlled sounds I’ve trained myself to make. She echoes it with a cry of her own, her nails digging into my shoulders, her back arching off the ground.
I hold still. Force myself to wait, to let her adjust. The effort costs me—every instinct screaming to move, to take, to claim.
“Move.” Her voice is hoarse. “Rathok, please?—“
I move.
Slow at first. Testing. Learning her rhythm, her limits, the places where she gasps and the places where she moans. But she doesn’t want slow. Her hips rise to meet mine, demanding more, harder, faster. And I give it to her.
The chamber fills with sound—the slap of flesh, the rasp of breath, the broken noises she makes as I drive into her again and again. The sigil on her palm burns against my chest, bright enough to cast shadows on the walls. Her gift, responding to us. To this. Claiming me with every stroke.
Something shifts in my chest. In my blood. The last traces of the Ledger Master’s magic—remnants of the contracts that bound me for so long—burn away under the force of her truth-speaking. I feel them go. Feel the chains I’ve worn so long I forgot they were there finally, finally break.
