Chapter 72
Chapter
Seventy-Two
N ight had fallen over Sophos, and the city had come alive. The network of magic-powered lights illuminating the streets was a twinkling mirror of the evening stars. Strategically placed spotlights cast the architecture in bold display, while residents mingled outside to discuss the damage.
Despite the attack, the mood around town was optimistic. Casualties had been few, and the way neighbors had come together to protect each other had bonded this community in a way the easy everyday life of Sophos never could.
As Luther led me through the streets, many stopped to thank us for what we’d done. Others eyed the mark at my neck, gossip buzzing around us like a swarm of pesky flies.
For once, it didn’t bother me. My focus was on my Prince.
“Where are we going now?” I asked him.
His only answer was a gleam in his eyes.
The moment we were back in public, he’d shuttered his emotions and reclaimed his usual stern reserve, but there was an excited bounce to his step. Even Stuart’s appearance in our path didn’t break his stride.
“Diem,” Stuart called out, waving. “Have you eaten dinner? You could join m—”
“She is a Queen,” Luther interrupted. “You will address her as such. And Her Majesty ’s dinner plans are already set.”
I elbowed him in the side. “Forgive my rude Prince, Stuart. Thank you for the offer, but we’re off to the...” I paused, looking up expectantly at Luther. His lips pressed tight, though his eyebrows danced.
“Oh, right, the library,” Stuart said.
“Library?” I repeated.
“One of my friends helped set up the surprise. Everyone’s talking about it.”
“ Surprise? ”
“Not much of a surprise anymore,” Luther growled.
I grinned. “What’s in the library?”
“My friend said—”
“Stop talking,” Luther snapped at him. He glared at me. “And you, stop asking questions.” He leaned in close, his hand sliding to my ass. “Or I’ll have to punish you again right here on the street.”
I bit my lip, my face growing hot.
Stuart frowned at him. “You really shouldn’t talk to Diem like that. She is a Queen, you know.”
My shield sprang up around Stuart a split second before Luther’s aura shot forward in a furious, targeted pulse. I slapped a hand over Luther’s mouth to muffle his snarling.
“You’re very brave, Stuart,” I laughed. “I think my beloved and I should be on our way.”
Luther’s face turned to me and softened.
Stuart shrugged. “Have a good night, Diem.”
I dragged Luther forward before Stuart lost an organ. “Calm down,” I said, half scolding, half mocking. “You’re a handsome, powerful Descended royal. Surely you’re not threatened by a mortal teen.”
“Threatened?” he said incredulously. “You think I’m threa—” His eyes narrowed at the shit-eating grin on my face. “You are absolutely getting punished tonight.”
He swooped me up into his arms, cradling me against his chest as he continued walking. I gave in and hooked my arms around his neck with a laugh, then laid my head on his shoulder, feeling irrepressibly happy.
“So you think I’m handsome,” he rumbled. The faint trace of disbelief in his voice caught me by surprise. Had the man seen himself in a mirror?
Then again, in the vain world of the flawlessly skinned Descended, perhaps what he saw in the mirror was the problem.
“The only face I ever want to wake up to,” I said truthfully.
He let out a purely male, self-satisfied grunt. “That can be arranged.”
He carried me up the steps to the library, where one of Doriel’s attendants was waiting by the door. “Everything’s been prepared the way you asked, sir.” She offered up a large brass key, then glanced at me and smirked, seemingly in on Luther’s secret.
He set me on my feet and pocketed the key. “Do you have the other thing I asked for?”
Her cheeks pinked. She nodded and pulled out a small velvet pouch. I leaned forward to peek inside, but Luther snatched it before I had the chance. She said her goodbyes and scurried off.
His hand rose to my cheek. “Don’t fight my magic,” he warned.
Shadows swirled from his palm to caress my face, a cool mist against my warm skin. My godhood leapt up at its touch, aching to burst through and join with his, then sulking petulantly as I held it back.
“I think my godhood is smitten with yours,” I said as his magic shrouded my vision in darkness.
“You should hear the things mine tells me to do to you.” He took me by the shoulders and guided me forward. “Maybe later I’ll give him what he wants.”
My godhood pulsed eagerly, and Luther’s low chuckle confirmed he’d felt it.
Though I walked blindly, I could sense that we’d entered the spacious center hall. Earlier, Teller had mentioned the library remained open around the clock to provide researchers unfettered access to its knowledge at all times. I wondered what the people studying now thought as they watched a Queen being led blindfolded down its aisles.
“Why are we here?” I whispered. “And why am I not allowed to see?”
I gasped as he swung me to the side and bent me over something low and firm. His palm clapped high on my thigh, the sound echoing through the vaulted hall. My shock intensified the burst of pleasure, and I had to bite down hard to stifle my moan.
“I said no more questions.” His booming voice rolled like thunder through the room. He massaged the place where he’d struck me to smooth away the sting.
My face burned. First, at the thought of everyone watching. Then, at the alarming realization that I didn’t entirely hate it.
“Isn’t my reputation bad enough?” I hissed.
“We could give them something better to talk about.” He pulled me upright, my back arched against his chest. My pulse quickened at the scrape of teeth down my throat. “A reason to put down their books and watch.”
Apparently, they already had. The room had gone eerily silent, though it was hard to be sure over the blood pounding in my ears.
He nuzzled his cheek against mine, overwhelming me in his masculine musk. The prickle of his stubble on my flesh set my nerve endings alight.
My skin felt too-tight and deliciously sensitive. His knuckles skimmed the cliff of my cheekbones, the hollow of my throat, the swell of my breasts.
“Luther,” I gasped, but it was far less protest and far more prayer.
“Tell me to stop,” he said. Teasing fingertips trailed lazy rings at my navel. “If you don’t like this—if you ever don’t like anything I do—one word from you, and it ends.”
He paused, giving me a chance to make my objection. When none came, I felt his smile against my cheek, and his fingers plunged down my center.
I grabbed his wrist, and he stilled.
But I didn’t tell him to stop.
And I didn’t pull his hand away.
“Are they watching?” I whispered.
“Do you want them to be?”
I tried to find an answer I could be certain of—and I failed.
Luther laughed softly. “I didn’t expect that. My Queen is full of surprises.” He kissed my shoulder and dropped his hands. The shadows receded from my eyes, revealing the extravagant reading room... without a person in sight.
If my life had depended on admitting whether I was relieved or disappointed, I would have been a dead woman.
“Where is everyone?”
“The roof took on damage from the dragonfyre, so Doriel closed the library until someone can make sure it’s safe.”
“But they’re letting us in?”
“We’re the someones making sure it’s safe. Tomorrow when it’s daylight, we’ll go up and look. You can stabilize it with your stone magic, if needed. Until then...” He stepped back and tipped his head to the room. “The library is all yours, Your Majesty.”
My eyes swept across the stacks of books, an endless echo of shelves packed to the brim with rare tomes. The network of lights had been shut off, so Luther had cast hundreds of glowing sparks to wash the cavernous room in soft blue Lumnos light.
This wasn’t just any library. The Library of Sophos contained every book that had ever been written in Emarion. Even when the Crowns had decreed that all books on the mortal religions and histories be destroyed, a handful of copies were set aside for the archives here.
All the secrets of my people that I’d previously been deemed unworthy to know now lay before me, waiting to be plucked and devoured like berries on the vine.
I whimpered. “How do I stop time? One night isn’t nearly enough.”
“You have Sophos magic,” he reminded me. “You need only look at a page to remember it forever.”
My eyes went wide. I could flip through hundreds of books tonight and “read” them in my mind later. This was more than the gift of one night. This was months of reading material.
I spun to face him. “This is my surprise?”
He smiled faintly. “It is.”
I nearly squealed. I threw myself at him and flung my arms around his neck. If I wasn’t so obliteratingly overjoyed, I would have burst into tears at how much this meant to me.
That he knew me well enough to understand.
That he cared enough to make the effort.
That he was selfless enough to give me this when I knew what he really wanted.
I pulled back. “But what about our night?”
“What about it?”
“Earlier, you... in your memories, you said...” I swallowed thickly. “Tonight, I thought we might...”
“We still can, if you want. Blessed Mother knows I’m ready. But you and I have a lifetime to be together. We might only have this once.” He set a brief, chaste kiss on my lips. “If finding you has taught me anything, it’s that love is well worth the wait.”
Something shifted in my heart.
Something foundational.
Something permanent.
“Come,” he said, taking my hand. “You haven’t seen the best part.”
We wove through bookshelves and hallways and passed through doors with increasingly strict labels, eventually skirting past a sign reading Crown Access Only . We emerged into a small rotunda that seemed designed to highlight one single, extraordinary door.
The portal was cast from solid bronze and took the form of an enormous tree. It stretched from floor to ceiling with thick roots tangling into steps at its base and jagged branches spreading in a wide embrace across the domed roof. Thousands of glittering red and yellow gemstones set into the metal faintly pulsed with a subtle glow.
“The Everflame,” I breathed.
Luther nodded. “The mortals who built this place claimed it’s lit with embers from the Undying Fire gifted by the Old Gods. Who knows if it’s true, but it’s nice to imagine some part of the Everflame might have survived its destruction. A place we can still visit to pay our respects.”
My eyebrows jumped. “You would honor the Old Gods? Isn’t that blasphemy against Lumnos?”
His expression turned pensive as he admired the shimmering flames. “If mortals and Descended are meant to coexist, why can’t the Kindred and the Old Gods? Why must we choose one and destroy the other? Why can’t there be...” His brows creased. “...balance?”
Balance .
The word echoed in my ear in a voice both foreign and ancient. Too quick to place, but distinctly familiar.
I walked up the steps and ran my hand over the bronze trunk, the metal oddly warm despite the chilly air. My fingertips roamed along a low branch and skimmed the gemstones.
At my touch, the tree sparked to life. The jewels flared with waves of light that engulfed the room in a waltz of flickering, fiery hues. Even the bronze took on a heated shade of red.
Restore the balance, Daughter of the Forgotten.
I ripped my hand away and jerked back, Luther catching me in his arms as I stumbled down the steps. The light instantly faded from the gems.
“My godhood,” I gasped. “It spoke to me.”
Luther walked forward and placed his own palm against the stones. Nothing happened—no show of light, no molten bronze.
“If this place belonged to the Old Gods, why would my godhood react?” I asked.
“I’m not sure... but I think I know where we might find an answer.”
He pressed a knot carved into the metal tree trunk, and thin lines of light appeared within the grooves as the door cracked open.
The room on the other side was remarkably cozy despite the ostentatiousness of its entrance. Bookshelves of varied heights and wooden pedestals bearing ancient artifacts were arranged in an arc around a central sitting area at the base of a stone hearth, complete with a low-burning fire.
On the ceiling, a sweeping mural of the Everflame reminded me of the fragments we’d seen in the rubble of the old mortal temple. The flames were flecked with veins of silver leaf, and a man with vivid red hair leaned casually at the foot of its trunk, chin tipped down and face obscured.
Blankets and cushions had been set out by the fire as well as an arrangement of food, a large wine jug, and a steaming kettle of tea.
“These are the mortal books banned by the first Crowns,” Luther explained. “What little we know of the Old Gods and the ancient mortal ways lives in this room.” He looked at me with a hopeful half-smile. “I thought you might want to start your exploring here.”
Love.
Love.
It detonated in my chest.
It destroyed me, reduced me to bone and ash.
It rebuilt me, a bird of flame and passion.
Love, like I’d never felt. Love, like I’d never believed myself capable of feeling. Love, like I didn’t think existed but in storybooks and dreams.
His eyes darted greedily over my face, savoring every speck of the joy he’d ignited. “I had the librarians pull a few books I thought you might like. They’re stacked there, by the blankets. And the tea is a special blend. The researchers use it to stay awake all night studying. I guessed you might need it, since I doubt you plan on sleeping.”
My hand closed around his forearm, my head reeling. “You arranged all this... for me?”
His chest puffed proudly. “Does it please you?”
Gods.
I loved him.
I’d known it before. I’d meant it before.
But I wasn’t sure I had truly understood it until this moment.
Whatever flimsy tissue of a wall might still have been holding me back, it turned to smoke and vanished in the breeze.
A home, a marriage, a mate—I wanted it all. But only with him.
Whatever that life looked like, whether it was just the two of us growing old alone in a humble seaside cottage, or a life of obligation in a royal palace bursting with family and friends. It didn’t matter, as long as the future had him in it.
I no longer dreaded what I might have to sacrifice. Luther would never demand anything of me I wasn’t willing to give. If the gods did, then so be it. I’d sacrifice it all to keep him at my side.
I no longer feared giving my heart away, either. Gods, I craved it. I wanted to carve out half my heart and nest it inside his ribs, let it beat in rhythm with his own, keep it company, hold it in sorrow, dance with it in delight.
I wanted to wear his mark upon my skin and his ring upon my hand. And I wanted him to wear my Crown upon his head.
How had I ever doubted it? How had the choice ever been anything but clear?
One second, I was staring at him, blinking like a fool and trying to remember how to exist.
The next, I was in his arms. Mouths crashing, hands groping, legs around his waist, fingers knotted in his hair. His body going hard, mine already wet.
For months, this tension had been brewing, the pressure thick in the air like a summer storm. We’d been playing a dangerous game trying to outrun it, and now the tempest was upon us—every growl a clap of thunder, every touch a lightning strike.
I kissed him with a passion that looked more like fury. He grunted as my nails scored lines down his back, and his fingers responded in kind, roaming my flesh with his near-bruising grip. My temper rose in frustration as no touch or taste could sate my relentless need.
Clothes went flying, both of us impatient to get to skin. Luther laid me out on top of a low bookshelf, and my hips bucked as he tore the pants from my legs with so much force the fabric ripped.
“I need you,” I begged.
“The books—”
“ Fuck the books.”
He flashed me a knowing, sinful smirk. “You don’t like them?”
“I love them. I adore them. I want to read every one of them. I—ah... gods, Luther...”
My thoughts fractured as he rolled the sensitive peak of my breast between his teeth.
“Say my name again,” he demanded.
“Luth— fuck ,” I gasped as he nipped harder. I raked my fingers through his hair and arched against his greedy mouth.
There was nothing gentle or delicate in the way we touched. We were frenzied, unmoored. We were rabid carnivores on a fresh kill.
I wanted him inside me. Not just between my legs—I wanted his blood coursing through my veins, his bones fused to mine to make me strong. I wanted to tear myself open and keep a piece of him hidden away inside me from this vicious world that kept trying to tear us apart. My need for him burned in my lungs, hammered in my heart, slicked between my clenching thighs.
“Pants,” I huffed. “ Why are you still wearing pants?”
“As you command, Your Majesty,” he laughed against my skin.
I froze.
He instantly stopped, sensing the shift. His mouth left my body as his gaze snapped up. “What’s wrong?”
I fought to force a shred of clarity into my sex-addled head and pushed myself upright. He started to pull away, and I grabbed his belt and tugged him back, spreading my legs so he could nestle between them. He watched me with a confused mix of foggy eyes and furrowed brows.
“When we’re out there,” I began, speaking haltingly as I panted through my lust, “we have these roles we have to play, with all their obligations and limits. And too many fucking expectations. So we wear our masks, and we play our parts: the Queen and her loyal Prince.”
He frowned, not understanding. “I am your loyal Prince. And you are my Queen.”
I smiled. “I know.” I scraped my nails through the coarse hair dusting his jaw. A throaty rumble rolled out as he pressed closer. “But when we’re alone, I want to be Diem and Luther. Equals in all things. I want you to disagree with me, yell at me, disobey me, fight me. Even, sometimes...” His eyes followed my tongue as I wet my lips. “...dominate me. Make me serve you .”
His hands gripped harder on my thighs.
“Your fealty means the world to me, Luther. But it is not the reason I love you any more than my Crown is the reason you love me. I want more than just the Prince. And I want us to be more than our titles. Even if only when we’re alone.”
The turbulent desire in his expression tempered into a firmer, more lucid love. “Very well. When we are alone, you are not my Queen. You are my heart. And I am yours.”
“Equals?” I asked.
“Equals,” he agreed. He pulled me off the bookshelf so I was standing before him, then took out the velvet pouch Doriel’s attendant had given him. He removed a vial of distinctive green liquid and held my gaze as he emptied its contents in his mouth, a rare gleam of mischief in his eyes.
My heart skipped a beat.
Contraceptive tonic. I’d made enough batches as a healer to recognize it anywhere. No wonder he’d been holding back in the washroom.
“So you didn’t think I’d spend the whole night reading, after all,” I teased.
“A wise soldier prepares for every possible battle.” His eyes ran down my body as he swept away the last drop from his lips with his tongue. Just like that, I was molten all over again.
He tossed the vial aside and quickly dispensed with the rest of his clothes. My skin pebbled—maybe at the cool air, or maybe at the towering god of a man standing naked before me—and I flicked a spark of Ignios magic into the fireplace to send it roaring.
Luther prowled forward. Silhouetted by the leaping flames, he looked like a demon come to devour my flesh and fill my dreams with sin.
He stopped in front of me and caressed my face, his touch achingly light. “Answer me, my heart. How do you wish to beat?” He set a gentle kiss at the corner of my lips. “Do you prefer it soft?”
His lips lingered there as his voice turned dark and his fingers caged my neck. “Or do you prefer it rough?”
I swallowed, and his grip tightened.
“Shall I get on my knees for you?” he murmured against my mouth. “Or would you rather I force you to your knees for myself?”
The tip of his thumb pressed between my lips. My eyes blazed defiantly as I let my tongue swirl around it, then pushed it deeper into my mouth. His throat strained, veins popping along his arms.
“Should I make you beg for your release?” He took my long waves in his fist, wrapping them once around, and dragged my head back. “Or take you so many times, you scream my name loud enough to be heard in every realm?”
He pulled my body to his. “My strong, brave, beautiful heart... tell me what you want.”
His eyes blazed with need as they scoured my face for my answer. Our bodies were trembling like tripwires, the tension between us lighting a dangerous fuse. I leaned up on my toes until my lips hovered a breath away.
And I whispered.
“I want to burn .”
We detonated.
We exploded together, a bomb of lust and love, a devastating inferno that left the world raining fiery debris.
Mouths collided, tongues sparred, each of us laying claim from the inside out. We indulged on the flavor of each other’s skin, tasting until we trembled, biting until we bruised.
He hauled me into his arms and crushed me against a bookshelf. The leatherbound spines dug into my flesh, and my nails repaid the favor, clawing down the granite hills of his powerful arms.
It was violent in the best kind of way—both of us allowing our most savage desires to run free, safe within the bounds of mutual trust. But there was a tenderness in it, too. He’d vowed to worship me, and Luther Corbois always kept his word.
He knelt at my feet and hooked my leg over his shoulder, then held my stare with unrelenting focus as he feasted on me to his, and my, delight.
“I’ve imagined this a thousand times since I knelt for you that day at the palace. I thought you’d taste like the forest.” He laughed darkly, the deep rumble vibrating through every nerve. “But you taste like fire .”
His mouth closed around my clit, and I cried out as I rocked against his face. I laced my fingers in his raven hair, loving his warmth beneath my palm. The scrape of his stubble was kerosene on my flames, each rough stroke of his jaw on my most delicate flesh sending lust scorching through my blood.
Everything we’d been through only heightened my desire. I’d seen him make Crowns tremble and warriors bleed, and I’d seen him guard the defenseless and be a hope to the lost. He was ferocity and heart in equal measures, and now he’d let them both come out to play.
He pinned my bucking hips as he devoured me with lips and teeth and tongue. Long, indulgent strokes danced with teasing flicks that left me shuddering, spots swimming in my eyes.
Pressure built, as exquisite as it was excruciating, and I pulled back, feeling like I might not survive the intense bliss of it. He nipped at me in punishment, and it nearly sent me over the edge.
Soon his fingers joined his tongue. He pumped, deep and unrelenting, stretching me around him and turning my throat raw with my moans. I pleaded for mercy, then prayed it never stopped.
He growled my name between my thighs, and I was lost. My vision splintered into a midnight sky filled with stars and flames and a mischievous silver moon. With eyes and lips shining, he worked me through each cresting wave, all the while murmuring his praise.
I went limp, nearly collapsing to the floor, and he clicked his tongue in playful disappointment. “I’m not nearly done with you yet, Bellator.”
He stood and pulled me into his arms, kissing me slowly, lazily, the taste of me in his mouth. He carried me to the fire and laid me out on the blankets, then sat back on his heels, pausing for a moment to drink me in.
“Look at you,” he breathed, gazing down on me like I was the only thing in the universe worth seeing.
He was a thing of beauty himself. The light from the fireplace played over his wide shoulders, the orange hues and dancing shadows enhancing the defined cut of his frame. Reflections from the silver leaf on the ceiling shimmered across his face and lit up those beloved eyes.
His scar seemed more prominent than ever, as if my affection for it had coaxed it out from its hiding place beneath his skin. I reached up and traced my fingers over its path, beginning low on his hip. His muscles flexed beneath my touch as I worked my way up the rippled planes of his torso.
“You’ve never asked me why I didn’t have it healed away,” he said, watching my hand.
“I didn’t want you to think I wished you had.”
A fleeting smile graced his lips at that.
“Blessed Mother Lumnos offered me a choice that night, and I accepted it. I swore to her I would serve the grey-eyed Queen and fulfill her dream of peace. I kept the scar as a symbol of that promise.” His focus rose to me. “But you are the woman I pledged myself to. And now, this scar is for you.”
He laid his hand over mine to flatten it over the scar’s rippled edge. “Let all those who might try to tear us apart see this and know how far my devotion will go. I will suffer for you, bleed for you, but most of all, I will survive for you. My body can be carved in two, open and dying, and still I will crawl from the ruins of my flesh and fight my way back to your side. Death itself could not keep me away.
“My oath to you is written on my skin. Once, that vow was just to serve you.” He brought my hand to his mouth and kissed my knuckles. “Now, it is everything.”
My throat burned with emotion—not just at his passionate words, but at the precious, fragile hope that we might both survive this war, after all.
He took my other hand, and our fingers wove into knots that he pressed into the blankets on either side of my head. He hovered above me, hips nestled between my thighs. All my senses sharpened on the head of his hard arousal—nudging. Teasing.
Waiting.
He lowered his forehead to mine. “Diem Bellator, you are everything I’ve ever wanted. You are my joy and my salvation. You are perfect . And I promise you this—I will love you for as long as love exists.”
He sealed his pledge with a tender kiss. My heart surged against my chest, desperate to be nearer to his.
“Tell me what you want,” he whispered.
“You,” I breathed. “ All of you.”
He plunged into me in a single, powerful stroke, and it felt like coming home.
I gasped his name, and he twitched inside me with a contented rumble. He waited, allowing me to adjust to the fullness, but I was greedy and impatient. I rolled my hips against him, forcing him deeper, and buried his groan in a ravenous kiss. He pulled out and sank in again and again, moving inside me in tandem with his tongue, both of them claiming me in firm, possessive strokes.
I hooked my ankles around him in a silent plea for more. His pace grew faster, his thrusts more forceful, and I bowed to the ecstasy of surrendering to his desire.
It was fitting that our first time was in Sophos, as Luther made himself a scholar of my pleasure. His eyes never left my face, always learning, always adjusting, shifting my hips just so. No mewl or whimper went unnoticed, and soon he’d found every hidden spot that sent me spiraling.
He gave me everything he’d promised. Soft and sweet, cradled in his arms and showered with kisses. Rough and relentless, my back crushed to his chest, his hand muffling my screams as he pounded into me from behind. He wielded my body like a favorite blade, gripping my flesh in his hands and carving out every last drop of bliss.
But Luther wasn’t the only apex predator in the room, and I made sure he knew it.
I shoved him to his back and settled over him, seating him to the hilt. His hands reached to grab my waist, and a rope of my Lumnos light snarled around his wrists to yank them back.
He glared in protest. Shadows swirled in his palms, ready to strike back, and my pulse skipped in an excited, eager kind of fear. He wasn’t someone used to losing a battle of wills or might.
And neither was I.
I grinned wickedly as I rocked my hips, riding his body to chase my own desire. I taunted him with my hands, running them over my breasts, between my legs, all the places he wanted to touch but couldn’t. Though his scowl burrowed deeper, the sparks and shadows of his magic danced in his eyes as he watched me move. The sight of it sent me wild, and my body stiffened as release edged dangerously close.
“Don’t you fucking dare,” he growled. “Not without me.”
“Then maybe I need to hurry you along,” I purred. I slid off of him, huffing out a sigh at the sudden emptiness, then laid a brief, featherlight kiss on his lips.
“Diem,” he rumbled.
“Yes, my heart?” I said sweetly.
Veins rose beneath his sweat-glistened skin as he pushed at my restraints. “Let me go.”
I set another kiss in the hollow of his throat. “But I’m rather enjoying this.” My lips trailed down the center of his chest and over his chiseled torso. “I think you’re enjoying it, too.”
His skin was warm and remarkably soft despite the steel-strong core that hid beneath it. It was an odd contradiction to who he was—his stony outer facade, so cold and impenetrable, concealing the selfless heart that burned at its center.
“I’d enjoy it more if I could touch you,” he gritted out.
I hummed thoughtfully, then continued my mouth’s torturous path along the line of dark hair that trailed down his stomach.
He went completely still.
“Diem,” he warned again, low and deadly soft.
I took his cock in my hands and swirled my tongue in teasing circles around the glistening head. He hissed, his hips jerking. The movement pushed him into my mouth, and at the salty taste of him on my lips, my thoughts clouded. I lost my focus, my magic flickering, and Luther ripped free from its grip.
His hands flew to my hair. He fisted the ivory strands, tugging my head back and forcing my gaze to his. “You’re going to pay for that.”
“Punish me, then,” I goaded.
I dragged my tongue along him, base to tip, smiling as he twitched against my lips.
His eyes flared at the challenge. His grip on me tightened, the tingle of pain on my scalp setting my skin aflame.
This was quintessentially us , two warriors who craved peace but reveled in the fight. Even when we chose to submit, neither of us ever fully gave in. We were doomed to eternal battle—and I wouldn’t have it any other way.
I parted my lips to let him know what I wanted.
“Wider,” he demanded, and I obeyed.
His eyes lit with something fierce yet reverential as he guided me down his shaft, filling me in a new, thrilling way.
His hands and hips moved in a slow, delicious rhythm. My nails dug into his thighs in encouragement, and his thrusts became harder, deeper, faster, pushing me to my limit—then pushing me even more. I welcomed it with a soft moan that choked off as he brushed against the back of my throat.
“Fuck, Diem,” he breathed, looking like a man undone. He swept a thumb across my cheek. “Do you have any idea how beautiful you are?”
I felt beautiful. More than I ever had in any gown or jewelry. Even on my knees, with messy hair and watery eyes, body battered from the day’s attack, Luther looked at me like I was the most stunning thing he’d ever seen.
He pulled me to his base and nearly unraveled, uttering strangled psalms of worship to my name. The sound of him so out of control had me aching at my core. We were liquid fire and lust incarnate, so overfull with pleasure we might burn ourselves to ash.
He began to thicken in my mouth, and I pulled back, gasping and pleading for more. He sat up and tugged me into his lap, then sank inside me with a growl as he clutched me tight against his chest. He murmured his undying love against my neck in a rough, desperate voice, and with the Everflame watching over us, we tumbled over the cliff together, each other’s names echoing through the library halls.
His godhood slipped its leash with his release, sending sizzling light and prickling darkness tumbling around us. Cords of his magic encircled my body and caressed my skin, coating me in energy that felt so overwhelmingly of him . My godhood pleaded to join it, and I finally let her free.
The whole of the Kindred’s magic shot through the room. Fire and flowers, sparks and snowflakes, billows of wind and hoots from owls nesting outside the roof. The nips and bruises we’d left on each other healed away, and my mind opened to let him feel the love that bloomed inside. His magic melted into me, leaving my skin moon-bright and shimmering, and a distant harmony resonated in my ears.
He sank back onto the cushions and wrapped me in his arms. Neither of us spoke—neither of us could speak—so we simply breathed. Our deep pants slowly merged into a single, quiet pace, and our magic ebbed, the room left mercifully unscathed.
Eventually, Luther kissed my temple, then dragged himself away. I whimpered out a protest, and he smiled fondly and tucked a pile of cushions beneath my head and back. My eyes drooped with a long sigh, my body tired and my heart utterly content.
A few minutes later, a steaming cup of tea nestled into my hand. A plate of food appeared at my side, and a book on the history of mortal queens opened in my lap.
Luther crouched at my legs. “Get to reading.”
I opened my mouth to speak, but no words existed to give life to the feeling blazing in my heart.
It didn’t take long before the thrill of the books restored my energy. I tore eagerly through each one while Luther took care of me. He found warm water and cleaned me up, fussed at me to eat, tended the fire, and covered me with blankets. Then he wedged himself behind me, my back to his chest, stroking my hair as he skimmed the books I discarded.
Every now and then, I’d catch him watching me with his small, grateful smile, and the books would instantly lose their appeal. I’d pounce on him, and we’d stumble around the room, indulging in each other until we were collapsed and gasping once more.
Shortly before dawn, exhaustion caught up with us. Luther drifted to sleep, one arm draped over my hip. I shoved the books aside and curled against his chest. Against the lullaby of his heartbeat, I succumbed to dreams of the future I was finally ready to claim.