THIRTY-EIGHT
HOME IS MORE THAN A PLACE
I no longer believe shadow magics are the evil we were taught to fear as children.
The rhymes we chanted in school, which I once dismissed as harmless tradition, now appear to have been designed to reinforce a false history.
Given what I have uncovered in Silas’s journal, I am increasingly convinced that a great deception lies at the root of our understanding.
If I am correct, generations have inherited not truth, but prejudice.
—VALEN’S JOURNAL
AMARA
The water in my bath is still rippling against my skin when I feel it.
A shift. A pull.
A familiar hum of heat creeping into my veins, like a match striking in the dark.
And then the door opens.
Boots against stone. Slow. Deliberate. No rush, just certainty.
The bond between us stirs, anticipation curling low in my stomach. Because Thane has found me.
“Took you long enough,” I tease, keeping my eyes closed.
“The meeting took longer than expected due to . . . interruptions,” he replies coolly.
I bite back a smile.
“Oh, that’s too bad. I hope everything worked out despite all those interruptions.”
I hear him move to the foot of the bathtub, his steps unhurried. Steam curls lazily through the air. The scent of lavender and sandalwood clings to the stone walls, mixing with something deeper and familiar. Crackling fire.
Him.
“You push yourself too hard.” His voice is smooth, but something beneath it makes my pulse stumble.
I exhale and let my head rest against the stone lip of the bath. “So I’ve been told.”
“Then maybe you should listen.”
“Maybe you should stop trying to control me.”
Silence. Then the softest sound of leather sliding against leather.
I crack one eye open.
Thane is undoing his belt and scabbard, his sword hitting the stone floor with a dull thud. His eyes remain fixed on me—cool and controlled, but with fire flickering beneath the surface.
He kneels at the edge of the bath and rolls up his sleeves before dragging his hands through the water. The movement sends ripples across my skin, heat lapping against me in gentle waves.
But it is nothing compared to the way he watches me.
Candles flicker in sconces along the walls, casting soft golden light over the chamber. Across the carved stone of the bath. Across the steam curling through the air. Across the droplets of water gliding down my skin.
And across the man kneeling before me.
“Let me take care of you.”
His voice slides through me like smoke and gravel.
I open my mouth—to tease him, to protest, to say something that will keep this from affecting me quite so much. Then his hands close around my calf and I forget every word.
Thane gently lifts my leg from the water, cradling it in his palm. His grip is firm, strong, and yet gentle. His fingers press into my skin, moving in measured circles, working out the tension I hadn’t even realized was there.
I sag back against the lip of the bath, a shaky breath escapes me.
Gods.
I have pushed my body to its limits. Trained through exhaustion. Ignored pain until it became background noise. But this? This unravels me. Because he isn’t asking anything from me.
He isn’t trying to teach me. Or challenge me. Or push me harder. He’s simply taking care of me.
Thane takes his time. His thumbs press into the arch of my foot first, kneading with the perfect amount of pressure, tracing every curve and hollow. He adjusts, placing one leg back in the bath and gently pulling up the other. His thumb presses into my other foot.
I didn’t realize how sore I was until now, hadn’t realized how much I needed this. I sink farther into the bath, my muscles softening under his touch.
And still, he doesn’t rush. His hands move up my calf, kneading away the lingering ache left behind by hours of training.
The warmth of the water makes his touch effortless. But the way he kneads into the muscle, the certainty in every movement, makes my pulse stutter. Because this isn’t just about touch. This is about him knowing my body better than I do.
My breath catches when his thumb drags along the inside of my knee, lingering there, tracing light circles. His hands are still moving. Higher. My pulse kicks.
I should say something.
I should tease him. Make light of the fact that Thane Caelum—Fire Warlord, feared warrior, respected commander—is kneeling before me.
But I can’t. I’m lost to the quiet of it. To the patience. To him.
His fingers skim the inside of my thigh. His grip shifts, and my skin begins to hum with anticipation. Because I cannot help myself, I shift forward. My fingers skim up his forearm, intent on pulling him closer, on reversing this moment.
He catches my ankle before I get very far. His thumb brushes the hollow of my ankle as his gaze lifts to mine, heavy-lidded and glazed.
“Not today,” he murmurs.
Not a command. A promise.
The look in his eyes makes it difficult to think. I swallow.
“Thane, I—”
“You give,” Thane cuts in. “You always give.”
His other hand trails up my shin. The warm water laps gently against my skin, disturbed by the movement of his touch. Steam curls in thick tendrils around us, wrapping the air in something hazy and intimate.
“Right now, you don’t have to.”
Thane lowers his head, his breath skimming my damp skin as he presses the faintest brush of a kiss against my knee.
“But you don’t—” I begin, but he hushes me with a soft “Shh.”
His hand slides higher, sending shivers of anticipation along my skin.
“You’ve been teasing me all day,” he murmurs, his voice low and husky.
“Oh? You don’t like being toyed with?” I reply, my voice full of mock innocence.
His lips curve into the faintest hint of a smile. Not quite amusement. Not quite surrender. Just the promise of both.
“Doesn’t matter. You could set the realm on fire, and it wouldn’t change a thing.”
His hand moves again, slow, dragging heat along my skin.
“You exist—” His voice drops lower, reverent. “And it ruins me.”
The words steal the breath from my lungs.
Ruins me.
I was ready for a fight. Ready for another teasing remark. Another challenge. Some clever way to turn the conversation back on me. But not this.
This man finds new ways to surprise me every day.
Thane exhales, his breath skimming my damp skin as he drags his lips over my knee again, barely a whisper of a touch. And then he says it. Something so quiet, so raw, that I feel it crack through my chest like a fault line splitting open.
“I want to ruin you like this.”
His hands move higher.
“Not in training. Not in sparring.”
His gaze lifts to mine.
“Like this, Amara.”
The intensity in his eyes pins me in place.
“I want to be the reason you forget the weight of all of it.”
The prophecy.
The war.
The expectations.
Everything.
“I want to be the reason you let it go. At least for a little while.”
His fingers dig into the muscle of my thigh, and I let out a soft, shuddering gasp.
“I want to know what it feels like to have you fall apart beneath me. Just because I willed it.”
I stare at him, unable to speak. Because this isn’t just desire. It isn’t a game. It isn’t about winning. It’s about surrender. And the Fire Warlord does not surrender.
Yet somehow, he has handed me every vulnerable part of himself and trusted me not to break it.
The moment his fingers slide higher, pulling me towards him, the bond flares. He loses the focus to block. It doesn’t come as a whisper or gentle pulse.
It’s a flood. Like a dam breaking, thoughts that are not mine crash through my mind.
“Mine. She’s mine. I can’t—gods, I can’t lose her.”
My breath catches. My fingers tighten around his arm as the full weight of it slams into me.
And then I feel him go rigid. Because he feels me hearing what was never meant to be spoken aloud.
His breath hitches, hands stilling.
He didn’t mean for me to hear that. Didn’t mean to let his shields slip. Didn’t mean to let me see the fear beneath everything else.
My throat tightens.
“Thane, it’s okay,” I whisper.
His eyes lift to mine, burning, torn. Fear flickering behind them. The kind that only comes when you love something enough to lose it.
The connection snaps shut, his shields locking back into place. A wall rebuilt in an instant. As though he can somehow take it back. As though I didn’t hear him.
As though I didn’t understand.
Unhurried, he rises to his feet, his gaze devouring me as I lean back. I see his eyes fall to the fullness of my breasts peeking out from the water. The way he hardens beneath his leathers, the strain undeniable.
Thane moves to the side of the tub and kneels. When he speaks again, his voice is like fire against my skin.
“Now,” he says softly, “I’m going to help you forget the weight of the world for a little while.”
His hand dips back into the water. I feel it slip between my legs, fingers moving with devastating precision.
Teasing. Circling. Stroking.
Dragging me apart with a touch so controlled, so excruciatingly patient, it borders on cruel.
He pushes one finger inside me. Then two. A slow, purposeful rhythm. He gently pulls out, then pushes in again. Over and over.
A moan slips from my lips, my body tightening, trembling. His fingers curl, pressing against that spot. I gasp. He moves them again. And again.
Thane’s other hand tangles in my hair, firm but careful.
“I want you to look at me.”
His fingers tighten slightly as he tilts my head back.
“See what you do to me . . . while I watch you come undone.”
I meet his gaze. The storms in his eyes are darker than I’ve ever seen them.
My body tightens around his fingers, pleasure coiling in my spine, sharp and electric. The pressure builds, cresting. My breath hitches, my nails digging into his flexed arm as I teeter on the edge of oblivion.
And then I shatter.
My cry is swallowed by the air, the heat, the sheer force of what he does to me. And my magics answer.