Chapter 31
SABLE
Months later, the porch boards beneath my bare feet are warm from afternoon sun, and nobody is bleeding.
It still feels worth noticing.
The new house sits at the edge of a meadow where the grass grows high and gold, rolling down toward a line of pines that darken purple when evening comes.
It is smaller than the old place, sturdier, less dramatic, and so far blessedly uninterested in cracking its windows every time someone has an emotion.
The porch wraps around three sides, broad enough for rocking chairs, drying herbs, stacked firewood, and Rhazek’s ongoing campaign to pretend he does not like domestic arrangements while silently improving every latch, hinge, ward, and chimney stone until the entire structure behaves like a fortress wearing a cottage’s dress.
In the yard, Corin stands with one hand raised, a small gold flame hovering over his palm.
“Again,” Rhazek says.
Corin turns his head slowly. “You have other words. I have heard them.”
“Use your hips.”
“Scandalous instruction before supper.”
“Your stance is uneven.”
“My stance is elegant.”
“Your stance is ornamental.”
Corin looks over at me. “Sable, your demon is bullying me.”
I sip my tea. “He’s right about your stance.”
“Betrayal,” Corin says, and adjusts his footing anyway.
Rhazek circles him with the severe patience of a warlord teaching a prince how not to die.
His hair is tied back today, though several black strands have escaped around his face, and his sleeves are rolled to the forearm.
He looks absurdly handsome in the late sun, which is irritating because I am trying to enjoy a peaceful afternoon without becoming the sort of woman who stares dreamily at a demon king correcting her brother’s posture.
“You are staring,” Rhazek says without looking at me.
“I am observing.”
Corin snorts. “She learned that from you. Horrifying.”
Rhazek glances toward the porch, red-gold eyes bright with amusement. “She uses it better.”
“Flattery,” I call. “Dangerous tactic.”
“Effective tactic,” he says.
Corin groans. “Please don’t flirt while I’m holding fire. It feels unsafe for everyone.”
The flame above his palm stretches into a thin ribbon, then curls back into a controlled sphere.
His pulse regulation has improved enough that I can feel the rhythm from the porch if I let myself listen: not through the bond exactly, but through the shared infernal current that hums at the edge of awareness whenever all three of us are near.
Corin’s note is lighter than Rhazek’s, quicker, still edged with mortal cleverness and human impatience.
It no longer frightens me the way it did at first. Some days it aches.
Some days it feels like a miracle with poor manners. Most days, it is simply Corin.
“Good,” Rhazek says. “Hold it there.”
Corin’s expression shifts, the humor thinning into concentration.
The gold in his eyes brightens faintly, and for a moment the glamour over his horns wavers, showing the delicate shadow of them against the sunlit air.
He breathes in through his nose, slow and steady.
The flame tightens, becoming smaller, denser, cleaner.
Rhazek nods once. “Better.”
Corin’s eyes flick open. “Was that praise?”
“Do not become sentimental.”
“I may faint.”
“Do not do that either.”
The flame vanishes when Corin closes his fist. No smoke. No scorch. No panic. He lowers his hand and flexes his fingers, satisfied despite the theatrics he will no doubt build around pretending otherwise.
“I’m heading into town,” he says. “We are out of coffee, lamp oil, and whatever appalling peppered thing Sable keeps pretending isn’t addictive.”
“It is medicinal,” I say.
“It is pickled violence.”
“Bring two jars.”
Rhazek looks at him. “Take the east road.”
Corin lifts both brows. “Because it is safer, or because you remain constitutionally unable to let me walk ten feet without tactical commentary?”
“Yes.”
“Honest. Annoying, but honest.”
I rise as Corin collects his coat from the porch rail and shrugs into it.
He moves easily now, strong without being showy, confident in a body that changed and became his anyway.
Watching him no longer feels like waiting for disaster to show its teeth.
It feels like watching my brother leave for town on a sunny afternoon because we need coffee, and there is such deep, ridiculous grace in that ordinary sentence that my throat tightens.
Corin notices, because of course he does.
He pauses at the gate. “Don’t look at me like I’m riding into myth. I’m buying lamp oil from a woman named Bess who once threatened me with a broom.”
“She has excellent judgment,” I say.
“Cruel to the end.”
“Come back before dark.”
His smile softens. “I will.”
I watch until he disappears down the east road, coat catching the breeze, shadow behaving itself behind him. When I turn back, Rhazek is already climbing the porch steps with that predatory grace he has never managed to make less distracting.
“You were staring,” he says.
“I was admiring.”
“At Corin?”
“At peace,” I say, then set my tea on the table and catch him by the front of his shirt before he can answer.
He allows me to pull him down, which is generous considering he weighs as much as a cathedral with opinions.
I drag him into my lap as best I can, and he helps just enough to make it seem like my idea remains practical.
The chair creaks beneath the combined insult, but the wards hold.
His arms bracket me against the cushions, and his mouth curves near mine.
“This is undignified,” he murmurs.
“Good.”
“I am a king.”
“You are in my lap.”
“A powerful counterargument.”
I kiss him before he can develop a legal defense.
He tastes like smoke, mint, and the honey he denies putting in his tea.
The bond glows steady between us, warm and deep, without the frantic edge it carried when every touch felt like a spell deciding whether to save us or destroy the nearest wall.
His power brushes mine with familiar heat.
Mine answers, not swallowed, not overshadowed, simply met.
Rhazek draws back enough to look at me. “You are happy.”
“Careful. That sounds like assessment.”
“It is wonder.”
That quiets me more thoroughly than any grand declaration could.
I touch his face, thumb passing along the sharp line of his cheekbone. “Yes,” I say. “I am.”
He closes his eyes for a breath, and the bond fills with such fierce tenderness that I feel it behind my ribs.
The old fear is not gone from him completely.
It never will be. But it no longer drives the carriage, holds the reins, and threatens to leap off cliffs in my honor.
Progress comes in strange, handsome packages.
By the time Corin returns, Rhazek and I are still on the porch, though I have reclaimed some dignity and he has reclaimed none whatsoever. Corin pauses at the steps, takes in the arrangement, and rolls his eyes so hard I’m surprised they remain mortal-shaped.
“Delightful,” he says, dropping a sack of supplies onto the table. “I risked Bess, weather, and a suspicious chicken so the two of you could scandalize furniture.”
Rhazek does not move from beside me. “Was the chicken armed?”
“With judgment.”
“Then it resembled Sable.”
I reach over and pinch his side. He catches my hand, kisses my knuckles, and has the audacity to look pleased with himself.
Corin unpacks coffee, lamp oil, bread, and three jars of pickled peppers because he loves me despite every effort to disguise the fact.
The sun sinks lower, turning the meadow bronze.
Rhazek lights the porch lanterns with a flick of his fingers, and Corin rolls a tiny gold flame over his own palm just to prove he could have done it too.
I eat bread with too much butter, Corin complains about Bess’s broom diplomacy, and Rhazek listens with the solemn attention of a demon king studying a battlefield report.
The infernal current hums softly between us, braided through blood, bond, and choice, no longer a wound or a warning.
Beyond the porch, evening gathers over our new home with lavender shadows and the smell of cooling grass, and for once, nothing in me waits for the world to punish us for being whole.
Corin heads out, and Rhazek grins.
“I thought he would never leave,” he growls, before grabbing my dress at the shoulders with clawed hands. With one downward jerk, he shreds the garment right off my body.
“Rhaz!” I gasp. “I liked that dress--”
He silences me with a fierce kiss, stealiugn my breath and any words that migihit have come after. Rhazek pulls me into his lap now, and I begin kneading his chest like a kitten. He breaks the kiss, his fingers toying with my painfully erect nipples.
“I love your body,” he blurts, hands squeezing and kneading the pliant flesh of my breasts. “These will provide sustenance to our many children--and me with many nights of pleasure.”
He latches onto my right breast, sucking most of it into his huge maw. I sigh, holding him behind the neck, basking in the glow of his attention.
Then, his hand grips my thigh and gently kneads. I allow him to spread my legs and work his fingers upward. He pries my pussy wide open with two fingers, his thumb teasing my clit as I am exposed and vulnerable.
I fumble with his trousers, trying to reach the rock hard staff he’s preparing to impale me with. He assists with the belt buckle, but never stops sucking my breast, his tongue nimbly dancing about and teasing my trapped nipple.
Clawed fingers pinch my clit, tight enough to feel good but not too hard. Just right, like he’s done this his entire existence. I lift my hips and arch my back as best I can until I can settle on his burnished copper cock.
I throw my head back and hiss through gritted teeth as I settle onto him, taking his full length. He places his hand on my lower belly, only walls of flesh separating his fingers from his cock. I’m trapped in the middle and loving every moment of it.
I give as good as I get, maybe better, swiveling my hips and holding onto his shoulders for traction. He grabs my breasts in two huge hands and squeezes, deforming the flesh to his whims. I love it when he enjoys my body like this. I love it when he enjoys me.
“Sable,” he cries as his cock empties itself inside of me. “I love you.”
I open my mouth to respond in kind, but instead of those three words a scream rips from my maw.
I writhe about on his cock, impaled in the best possible way, as I surf wave after wave of climactic delight.
Golden flashes shoot through my nerves and explode into fireworks in my brain.
Unless Corin is leagues away by now he’s going to hear me.
I think the whold of Protheka might hear me, and I don’t care.
I collapse against him, shivering with aftershocks, as he embraces me tightly.
“Mine,” he whispers into my neck.
“Yes,” say between heavy pants. “Yours. Always.”