Chapter 30
Blake’s room was not at all what I’d envisioned it to be.
Dark stone walls were warmed by the flickering glow of an enormous wrought iron fireplace, its flames licking over split logs.
Woven mats and thick pelts lay draped across the floor.
A heavy rosewood desk sat against one wall, strewn with maps, tactical plans, and a handful of weapons polished to a gleam. A worn leather chair stood beside it.
The single bookshelf was filled with not just military texts but also stories, poetry, books bound in fine leather with gilded spines.
His bed was large and covered in dark navy and black quilts, thick furs thrown over the foot of it for warmth, rumpled and unmade.
The headboard was metal, but hand-cast, and I briefly wondered if he’d made it.
The scent of him was everywhere. Cedar, woodsmoke, something deep and rich that was uniquely Blake.
“You can bathe first,” he said, grabbing a coin off the side of his desk.
No, not a coin. Another heat glyph, just like the one he’d given me.
I didn’t argue or insist, just stood with my arms wrapped around myself, nearly too tired to consider bathing. But I was covered in blood and muck from the evening’s fighting.
Once the adjoining bathroom’s tub was heated with water—smaller and more common than my bathing room at the palace—Blake left me alone, going to wash up in a different room.
The water was warm, not as startlingly hot as I’d found I preferred, but enough to rest my muscles and release the tension I still carried in my body.
It was only after I’d thoroughly cleaned myself and even washed my hair that I realized I didn’t have sleep clothes or anything but the filthy blood-soaked garments I’d been wearing.
So, I took the liberty of searching through the chest of drawers on the far side of the wall.
It was mostly filled with black clothing—including several masks, exact replicas of the one Blake had been wearing mere hours ago as the Ravager.
I ghosted my finger over all the swaths of fabric until I found the tunics.
I slipped one on before covering my shoulders with a thick fur off the end of the bed, settling there with one foot tucked up underneath my opposite thigh.
The door opened mere moments later, Blake reappearing.
My stomach churned again, like being tossed on an ocean wave, at the sight of him.
He was damp and naked from the waist up, where a towel was loosely wrapped and held with a knot at his side. Water droplets rolled down his chest, my eyes tracing them as they made patterns on the ridges of his abdominal muscles, swirling to the sharp cut of his waist.
He was looking at me, too, his eyes dark in the glowing light.
“Why is it you never have adequate sleep clothes?” he asked.
“You’re one to talk,” I shot back.
His eyes started to smolder then as he gathered a pair of soft fabric pants from one of his drawers and quickly shucked them on beneath his towel before tossing it into a pile of what seemed to be his dirty laundry.
It made me smile more, to see something so messy from the king of duty and responsibility. I wondered then if this version of Blake Axefire—reckless and boyish—was truer to who he had been before becoming the king’s Twin Blade.
He seemed younger here, different. The lines of his face not so stark. Something softer in his cheeks.
“I’ll take the floor,” he declared, before nodding behind me. “Mind handing me a pillow?”
Even covered in furs, the floor would be hard on his body, though I knew, as Ambush Master, a soldier and warrior himself, Blake had slept in far worse conditions than the floor of his own bedroom.
But something in me stopped him.
“It’s fine,” I whispered, like I didn’t dare make my protestations too loud. “We can share the bed.”
His eyes flared, although he said nothing.
We both tucked into the soft mattress, Blake shucking up the furs around me, as if he wanted to tuck me in and make sure I was warm, but didn’t know how.
Exhaustion sawed through me, cutting down the distraction of the warmth of his body next to me, the dangers of him half naked, inches away.
I was asleep before he blew out the light.
—
As my eyelids flickered open, I saw the lanterns were dark, but the low fire seemed to magically burn at the perfect level, unfed.
It took me a moment to realize I felt so hot because my entire body was pressed to Blake’s, my head on his chest, his heartbeat steady beneath my ear.
I waited a moment, like I might pretend I was still asleep, continue to lie in his arms, but when he made no move, I tilted my chin up to check he was asleep and met his blue eyes, more sapphire than frost in this light.
“I’m sorry,” he said, voice gruff. “I just needed to hold you.”
His confession winded me. His eyes were wide, shadowed, like he’d not closed them once.
“Why aren’t you sleeping?” I asked, my own voice gentle to match his.
He sighed deeply, his hand tightening lightly on my back.
“I can’t stop thinking of those people, the citizens of our capital. How many were injured and killed.” His voice was vulnerable, unspooling like a ribbon and wrapping around me tightly. “It is…very difficult for me to sleep after any type of battle, much less one like tonight.”
“You feel responsible.”
Blake nodded, before his arm tightened around me again, pulling me closer to him. “Rubi, I—”
Again, his soft, warm voice stuttered off into nothing, jaw tightening. As if he’d been awake the last few hours trying to work up the nerve for what he was going to say.
“I haven’t properly thanked you for what you did for my sister and for Poppy. I find it difficult, I think, to speak about it because I’m so torn over the entire thing.”
I stayed silent.
“Part of me is grateful for your willingness to sacrifice and defend them, a true warrior. Believe me, it means everything to me.” He sighed heavier then, blowing an audible breath out that ruffled my hair around my face. “But part of me is furious at your complete disregard for your own life.”
“I was fine—”
“I don’t believe you. I am not often afraid.” He huffed a laugh with no humor. His hand rose to tuck a lock of blue-green hair behind my ear. “But I was…tonight. Of losing you—of you hurt. And…”
Then I felt it. Just barely. A kiss, light and soft, to the top of my head. Gentle.
So tender I felt my throat catch.
“Blake,” I whispered soothingly as I turned my chin up to look at him, “I’m all right. Everyone is okay—you saved so many tonight. It wasn’t your fault.”
I traced the lines of his saddened smile with my fingers carefully.
“I didn’t know I needed to hear that until you said it,” he whispered back. “Thank you, Rubi.”
His hand reached up to rest atop mine where it lay against his cheek.
Both of us were still for a moment then.
His throat bobbed, a hard swallow as he moved closer. “Rubi…can I—”
I wasn’t sure who moved first, but we were nearly sharing breath now, lips just barely touching, before—
Blake’s lips were on mine, soft and supple but unyielding. Words disappeared from my mind along with the ability to think. My body awakened despite the exhaustion. My pulse roared in my ears.
There was nothing but him. The wild taste of him, the heat of him, the way his lips moved against mine like he’d been waiting for this, needing this.
My heart raced, my hands sinking into the skin of his shoulders as I pulled him closer, as if I could somehow anchor myself to him, keep from getting lost in the storm he’d unleashed inside me.
Blake’s hands slid up to cup my face, his touch rough but gentle, and the way he kissed me…
goddess, it was like he was pouring everything into it, like he’d been holding back for so long and now that he’d let go, there was no stopping him.
His lips were firm, demanding, but there was a tenderness there, too, a softness that made my chest ache.
My lips were just as desperate, just as hungry, my hands moving up to tangle in his hair, pulling him closer, deeper. The warmth inside me surged, the heat between us building until it felt like the air itself was burning.
His breath hitched when I stroked my tongue against his, making my body pulse with need, every inch humming with the tension between us.
My magic flared beneath my skin, rushing like fire through my veins, answering something deep, magnetic, and wild in him. It was like my magic recognized him, like it had been waiting for this. Waiting for him.
When we finally broke apart, gasping for breath, Blake rested his forehead against mine, his eyes closed, his chest rising and falling in time with mine. I could still feel the heat of his lips on mine, the way his fingers had trembled slightly when he touched my face.
The moment was tense, and I waited for one of us to break it, before Blake’s mouth opened again, as if looking for something to say.
He didn’t find it, stumbling, cheeks heating as he stuttered out. “We—we should Pair.”
Everything warm in my stomach swirled out. “I—what?”
“Pairing. Our magic. Before the Culling.” He cleared his throat. “Perhaps it will aid us both through the gods’ test. Make us stronger.”
I couldn’t deny that it hurt. For him to change on me, for this to be about power rather than whatever crackling intensity had been forming between us for weeks.
“Blake—” I cut myself off, massaging my temple as I pressed back from his chest. “I don’t…That wasn’t what this was.”
A roaring anger burst in me, sudden and furious. I sat up slightly, hands pushing on his chest.
“I’m not trying to syphon power from you or to use you in any way. I’ll do just fine in the Culling.”
I watched my words land.
Blake sat up on his elbows, brow furrowed. “That wasn’t—”
“If it’s about power and survival, then Pair with Malissa, whether she’s your type or not,” I said, bitter and not bothering to hide it. “I’m sure she would love nothing more.”
“Rubi,” he snapped, eyes flaring, hands gripping my shoulders as he rolled me beneath him. His body was heavy over me, energy suddenly intense and alive, singing to my blood in some way. “Stop.”
“No.”
“Rubi. Your integrity, your bravery, your—everything calls to me. You are a songbird and your song…it’s irresistible. Ties me up in gods-damned knots, as if you’ve wrapped me in your ribbons. And I don’t want to be untethered from you.”
Blake waited, watching me carefully, before gently lowering his swollen lips to my temple and whispering, his breath making me shiver, “Now let me worship your skin the way I’ve been dreaming about since we met.”
His mouth dipped then, to the hollow of my throat, teeth grazing my skin, and I wondered briefly if he might bite me where the demon did earlier. If he would replace the pain with something more intense.
“But you said about Pairing—”
“Forget what I said. I’m a forgefool, remember?”
I blushed then, unable to stop my attraction to this playful side of him I’d never seen before tonight.
“Let me kiss you. Let me have you, any way you’ll allow, just for tonight.” He tucked his hand on the outside of my bare thigh, fingers pressing to the skin there, before hiking my leg up his side and rolling between them. I felt the thick length of him then, against where I needed him most.
“Please, Rubi.” It was almost a whimper.
I unfurled for him then, impossible to resist the steady power in his hands. Like I was the metal, and he was reshaping me piece by piece. The fear and anger and terror from tonight melting away into nothing but this warmth.
He kissed me as we pressed into each other’s bodies, finding a seductive rhythm, dangerously walking the line I wasn’t yet ready to cross.
Eventually he pulled me atop him again, his body settling into the mattress as I worked myself against him, tunic hiked around my waist. He unlaced the top portion and slipped it from my shoulders, his eyes almost worshipful as he took in my breasts.
His hands lifted to tweak and roll my nipples between his fingers; then he lifted his head and placed his wet mouth on a peak, and I exhaled sharply at the pleasure.
His tongue swirled and then his teeth nipped gently and I pressed myself harder against him, the thin fabric of his pants all that separated us.
“When I pictured it, it was always like this,” he breathed as he lay back, his hips pumping up, searching for the friction I was just as desperate for. The relief.
“Blake,” I breathed, working myself over him, twirling my hips as I sought the friction I needed.
Even with that slip of cloth between us, the rigid length of him pressed at my center, pleasure swirling up and through me.
He had one hand at my breast, rolling my nipple between his strong fingers, and the other spanned my rib cage, then my stomach, moving lower until his thumb flicked against my bud and my breath hitched, pleasure overcoming me.
I slumped over him as my muscles gave out, my breasts flattened against his muscled chest. He planted his hands on my hips and moved me over and over.
“That’s it, songbird. Sing for me.”
He helped me ride it out, stars bursting behind my eyes as my body bent and tugged. I collapsed completely on his chest, his fingers trailing a soothing pattern on my back, up and down against my glistening skin, until my panting breaths turned slower.
His lips pressed to the skin of my neck and shoulder over and over again, quietly whispering words of gratitude as he lulled me to oblivion.
The next time I woke, Blake Axefire was sleeping, a pleased smile across his lips. I closed my eyes again, savoring this moment before the dawn came, along with all our troubles.