79. Bastian
Bastian
M y eyelids drifted and I had to force myself to re-read the line.
Supplies in from…
If I had to read another report about suppliers for the royal wedding, I was going to pluck out my own eyeballs.
I sat back and massaged the bridge of my nose.
There was a very real danger of Ascendants trying to sabotage the event, so I had spies on every supplier and guard, the city gates—anything and everything I could think of. So far there was no sign of Sura’s people trying to infiltrate the city.
That didn’t mean they weren’t, though.
Kat was convinced they weren’t behind the Horror attack but she didn’t know our courts like I did. She didn’t know Sura. She wasn’t there for her coup attempt.
So many would’ve died—not just that night, but all the nights after in the war that would’ve followed the queen’s assassination. Some would’ve stood by Sura as the heir, but others would’ve rejected her for killing her own mother.
A subject I knew plenty about. I grunted and scratched the rash on my wrist.
Damned hemlock. I’d been wearing gloves as I’d worked with it, but my sleeve had ridden up and the plant had brushed my skin. I thought I was fine, but later the sun brought out red welts.
They’d calmed over the past couple of days but still itched like mad.
Poison wasn’t an area of expertise for Asher’s healing—he was better with injuries—and no way was I giving Elthea another chance to extract a favour from me.
So, salve it was. I pulled out the jar from my desk and smoothed it over the pink marks.
How had Kat endured consuming poison when I could barely stand touching it?
The door flew open, and there she was, so breathless I was on my feet in an instant. She had an appointment with Elthea tomorrow, but had she brought it forward? Had Elthea hurt her again? “What’s wrong?”
She shook her head, panting like she’d run all the way here, and held up a book. Gold lettering glinted against a deep forest green cover.
I let my muscles relax and chuckled. “Nothing wrong, but you forgot how to knock?”
“Look.” She spread the book on my desk and pointed. “Look!”
I craned over the book. “Your research. You found a reference.”
“Not just that.” She fanned her face, cheeks pink. “We’ve been working from a coded version up until now, right? And potentially a coded version translated from the High Valens.”
I nodded, reading over the passage. Only a brief mention of the Circle of Ash in relation to a King of Death. Not promising.
“And—and whoever wrote that note translated it as ring or circle of ash, yes?”
“ Yes .”
She pointed again at the page, eyes wide. “‘ Coronam cineris .’ Don’t you see? This is one of the books from that special pile—you said they were from ‘Granny’s house.’”
“ Oh .” I checked the cover. “They’re old books.” I still felt a step behind, but her excitement kindled in me along with the fact I’d never seen her so flustered.
“Old, old books. What if this is the original? Or at least closer to the original than the book in Riverton Palace?” She tripped over her words like she wasn’t filtering them, like she was just speaking her mind for once.
“Which would mean? I’m not following your line of thought.”
“ Coronam cineris .” She said it again like it should explain everything. “I checked against your book of High Valens, and it’s the same as Latium. Coronam could mean ring, wreath, diadem, garland. The writer of the note originally translated it as ring or circle. But corona also means crown .”
I straightened. “A crown that could end the king and queen’s Sleep. That makes a lot of sense.” My mind raced over the possibilities. Were there references we’d missed because we’d been looking for the wrong thing?
“That’s not all. Whoever did the original translation from the book in Riverton’s library did a bloody awful job—or maybe they were just trying to keep things vague in case the message was intercepted.
” She shrugged. “Either way, they wrote ash . We thought that meant the tree or its wood. But that would be fraxinus in High Valens.”
“Whereas cinis means ash, as in left behind after a fire.”
She grabbed my sleeve and shook me. “ Exactly . Coronam Cineris means Crown of Ashes.”
I sat on the edge of the desk, staring ahead. “Fuck.”
The room spun.
I had to tell Braea when she woke. This would ease her bad mood over Sepher and Zita’s wedding.
We had an original reference, and a potential lead with the King of Death. “Kat. You’re a genius.” I pushed myself to my feet, chest full. “My beautiful fucking genius.”
Her eyes widened and that pink tone on her cheeks deepened to the one I adored.
I couldn’t help myself. I grabbed her, kissed her, worshipped her with my lips until she made a little moan of want that set me alight. She clutched my shirt and arched against me, tongue tangling with mine. My shadows burst around her, tugging at her gown, pulling her as close as possible.
With a sweep of my arm, the papers scattered from my desk, books thudded to the floor, and I replaced them with the thing that mattered most.
Katherine. My Katherine.
Biting her lip in a way that drove blood to my cock, she glanced at the door. Brynan had gone for a break, but beyond his office the door to the hallway stood open, and guards waited just outside. “Someone might see.”
“Do you care?” I kissed the column of her throat and nipped at her pulse, drawing a gasp from her. “It’s not like you’re married anymore.”
Her fingers threaded into my hair, scraping over my scalp deliciously. “I’m not sure I do.”
“Good. Good .” I slid the gown off her shoulders and trailed kisses down to her chest. My cock twitched at the sight of her—the perfect, overflowing handfuls of her breasts, the brown nipples tight and pointed and begging for attention.
When I slid my arm around her waist and pulled her close, she arched back for me, and I could resist no longer. I sucked first one into my mouth, then the other, humming my approval when she moaned.
How had I waited so long to have this? As soon as she’d forgiven me and made it clear that she did in fact want me, that should’ve been the end of denial and the start of this.
She watched me, lower lip caught between her teeth, eyes dark with desire. She wanted me. She loved me.
I half laughed against her flesh and flicked my tongue over her nipple as she hooked her legs around me. “Come here,” she said in a breathless murmur, reaching for my trousers.
“Love, you forget yourself.” I caught her wrists with my shadows and pulled her hands back to the desk. I let more tendrils whisper over her thighs, pulling her gown up, but it was my fingers I used to grip them and drag her to the edge of the desk.
She let out a yelp, falling back, cheeks now a blazing pink that made me want to take her this instant.
“These thighs… fuck, Katherine, these thighs .” Not wanting to let them go for long, I used my shadows to unfasten my trousers, and peeled off my shirt as quickly as possible, before returning my grip.
Her gaze drifted over my bare chest, trailing over my scar in a way that lifted the hairs at the nape of my neck.
If her look could have that effect on me, what would happen if I gave her free rein to touch ?
It was too much. Sharing space with her, my work, my body, my secrets… it threatened to overwhelm me as it was, but to let her take my control too? I hovered on its edge enough when she was close by.
To hand it over, willingly…
Something bad would follow. It had to. That was how the world worked.
My heart pounded all the harder, making my dick throb as shadows slid my trousers down and freed it.
Without my instruction, shadows had already slid between her legs, working her pussy and back entrance at once, rippling over her clit, leaving her writhing and whimpering before me.
“Fuck. Aren’t you a picture?” I lifted and spread her thighs, getting a better look at her slickness as my shadows disappeared inside. “I’m going to need a whole gallery of all the different ways I get to fuck you.”
She arched under my gaze, teeth digging into her lip until it went pale. Part of her was trying to keep quiet because of the open doors. I’d thought her past that, but hadn’t the world thrown those men at her? A recent reminder of every lesson she was trying to escape.
I ran my cock along her, and the sounds she tried to hold in grew louder. “Please,” she gasped, before going right back to biting her lip.
“Are you asking for this, love?” I slid my dick over her again.
She nodded, every muscle in her growing taut as my shadows and I worked her.
“Ah, but my ember isn’t quiet, remember?” With my thumb, I gently pulled her lower lip from between her teeth. “She has nothing to be ashamed of. She is a fucking queen and she deserves to be heard, doesn’t she?”
“Yes.” Out loud, but not loud enough.
“ Doesn’t she ?” My shadows’ thrusts grew deeper with those two words, and the ones in her pussy curled forward.
“Yes,” she cried out, trembling. “Yes!” Her eyelids fluttered as she came apart in my hold, coating my length in her sweet wetness.
“That’s it. Perfect.” I pulled the shadows from her channel and set myself at her entrance. “Now my forest fire gets what she asked for.”
Movement on the edge of my vision distracted me from the heave of her chest as she sank down from her peak, though I didn’t let my shadows ease up, still inside and around her.
Out in the corridor, a guard passed.
“You might gather an audience, love.”
Half dazed from her orgasm, halfway to the next one, Kat’s gaze turned to the doorway.
I stood ready to have my shadows shut the door, if that was what she asked for.
For a long beat she watched as someone else passed, and I wasn’t sure if she realised her back arched, displaying her curves even better. “Then we’d better give them a show.”
The sight of her, the words, the feel of her trying to push onto me—they sent a jolt of heady, tight pleasure down my spine.
“Yes, we had,” I rasped out, gathering myself. Setting one hand on her belly, I adjusted my grip on her thigh and brought my shadows around the other. “ We had .” It came out firmer this time, and I trusted myself to drive into her.
She cried out, all attempts at quiet forgotten as she clenched around me. The feel of her parting, hot and wet and tight was maddening, soul-tearing, sublime. I set to a fast, deep pace, chasing her pleasure and my own, which rose far too quickly, snapping my hips into hers.
“You’re so good, love,” I told her as she rocked to meet me, and a dazed smile lit her face.
Stars above, I fucking loved her. More than I thought possible. I might’ve said it out loud—I wasn’t sure.
A bone-breaking tension rose in me—a tingling that pulled every muscle more taut and made every thought more fleeting.
With every thrust she let out another cry, each one more breathless than the last, her tits bouncing. The sight of her stole the air from my lungs, the sanity from my mind, and my fingers dug into her as she screwed her eyes shut and lost herself in another writhing climax.
“Fuck. Fuck!” I followed her, balls tightening as electricity exploded inside me and the world disappeared, leaving just the image of her, the feel of her, the sound of her moans.
Just her.
There was only her.
I barely caught myself on the table instead of collapsing on her, my muscles melting into blissful ease.
Shadows ebbed around us as if exhausted.
Freed, she draped her arms over my shoulders and murmured my name.
I kissed her throat, still inside her and yet needing more points of connection as I tried to gather myself.
As I caught my breath, I pressed my forehead to hers and met her sleepy gaze. Her green eyes were the colour of forests and grass and the leaves of the roses she adored so much. She was a thing of life—a goddess of it—and it felt like she’d finally started to live.
With a half smile, she touched my cheek, fingertips brushing my earlobe, sending a ripple of pleasure down my spine.
“Love,” I managed to say, foolishly—not a complete sentence.
But she destroyed me. In the best possible way, she destroyed and re-created me.
Shaking my head, I nuzzled her nose. “I love you, my beautiful genius—I fucking love you.”