Chapter 53
Lyra
I stepped from the washroom, muscles aching, with new gashes that would form scars soon enough.
Roark stood in front of the wardrobe, his trousers low on his hips, revealing more than one of his own scars and bruises across his spine and hips. I tried not to stare at the open wounds covering his body. I didn’t want to think of how close we came to Salur.
Not tonight.
Not ever.
At the sound of the door, he turned, a half grin on his face. Wondered if you’d gotten lost.
I snorted. “I think I could’ve slept in there. In fact, I might go back.”
Really? He abandoned the tunic he’d been selecting in a heap on the floor. Nothing I could do to convince you to stay?
He drifted toward me. His arms encircled my waist. I sank against him, my arms going around his neck. “Maybe I could think of a few things.”
I kissed him. Together we staggered toward the bed, breathless, weary, invigorated.
With a heated gleam in his eyes, Roark scooped me up and dropped me over the mattress. He tugged the simple shift over my head, baring me to him.
With a low rumble in his chest, Roark reared over me, legs and arms tangled.
His mouth trailed the soft curve of my neck.
His fingertips traced over the scrapes and gashes littering my body.
He kissed the bruises across my breasts, sucking and licking away the pain until I arched my spine, my throat bared, pleading for more of him, his mouth, his touch.
Roark slid his palm between my breasts, speaking there. Willing to stay yet?
I moaned when his thumb drifted over the swell of my breast, teasing one hardened nipple. “I might…need more convincing.”
All at once he pulled away from me.
“What do you think you’re doing?” I lifted my head.
Convincing you.
I thought I might scream threats against his life if he did not return until a creeping cold skirted up the inside of my thighs.
Complaints choked off. Ribbons of shadows caressed my legs, then yanked my thighs apart with enough force I cried out in stun.
A frigid breath blew against my core, and I nearly fell apart. Roark held the fractured soul with ease, shifting between his warm, commanding touch and the dangerous frost of Skul Drek.
My eyes rolled back in my head, and I opened myself, letting the dark prince do whatever he wished to me.
Tap. Tap. Tap. Roark moved his hands in the same line down my breastbone, my belly, as his mouth.
I arched my spine, desperate to feel his mouth at the drenched center of my thighs.
He paused, then grinned with a hint of slyness. Do you know that for you I would burn this world?
My breath came out in rough gasps as Roark hooked my legs over his shoulders. His vicious tongue, his wicked shadows licked and caressed my soaked core with the perfect suction and pressure.
I lost my thoughts to a bleary fog.
When the rush of release took me, I screamed his name, uncaring if the whole of the clan heard. Roark’s rough breaths heated my thighs. He curled an arm around my waist and flipped me onto my stomach.
His teeth scraped against my jawline, his fingers circling across my shoulders, one word: Knees.
Limbs trembling, I leveraged onto my hands and knees.
Roark moaned, unashamed, and ran a palm down my spine, giving attention to every divot. Darkness brushed across my cheeks and around my throat, tightening until my body trembled.
Two fingers dragged along my core from behind. Roark hummed in satisfaction, gesturing against my cheek, So wet for me.
“Yes.” I could barely mumble the word.
Roark kissed my throat, his tongue tracing a small scrape—not from anything fearsome but from a damn branch.
He pressed a palm against my shoulders and bent me forward, lowering me to my elbows. He tugged on my hips, angling them higher. The mattress shifted when he kicked off his trousers.
With slow strokes, Roark teased my core with the tip of his length, nudging the crown in and out until I was practically sobbing for all of him.
This is what pulled me back. His words were slow against my spine. Felt, not heard.
“What do you mean?”
When I could not see through the darkness, this is what pulled me back. A life, a future with you.
Emotion tightened in my chest. My chin quivered. Then Roark’s fingers dug into my hips and he slammed into me.
Blood scorched in my veins. Tendrils of darkness tightened around my body, dipping into my core from the front while Roark claimed me from behind. Too much, too perfect. I panted his name. He gripped my jaw, pulled me up, and tilted my head so he could claim my mouth as he pounded into me.
I bucked my hips against his cock. He met my movements with desperate thrusts until I let out a sob of pleasure.
After a moment, he released me. I fell forward again, spreading my knees more, cries muffled in the furs of the bed. The cold sensation of his darkness rolled over my slit, my breasts, my mouth.
I shattered on a strained moan, unable to keep my head upright.
Roark’s heavy breaths heated the bare skin of my back until his length thickened and burst hot streams of his release inside me. Once we caught our breaths, Roark pulled out of me and pressed a kiss to the center of my shoulders.
He tucked me into him, cradling my head against the steady thud of his heart. For a moment, all the broken pieces of our lives felt, at long last, whole.
—
A month after the battles ended, the Draven palace was packed with visiting nobles and royals.
The council of the realms was arranged after the funeral pyres had faded. Jorvans and Myrdans returned to their lands to prepare for the meet. It was the first peace meet since King Vishon summoned lands to discuss the new melder.
This one would end much differently.
I studied my palms. Since that moment in the mirror, there were times when I imagined I could see the threads of the Wanderer’s craft, tempting me to take more, to want more. To claim it all. No one could but me. I was the one with the gift to bind all the veins of craft.
When the thoughts came, I reached for something deeper. Stronger.
More than my sealed bond, there were now strings attached to a bold Jovan prince; a gentle, vicious princess; and a boy and his mother who’d been welcomed into the clan of Dravenmoor before the sunrise after the battle.
Roark slid his arms around my waist from behind and pressed a kiss to my shoulder. His brilliant eyes met mine in the glass of the mirror. Ready?
“No. The idea of dozens of eyes on me at once is making me want to never leave our room.”
He grinned and pressed another kiss to the slope of my throat. No lines, Melder. Say the word and I’ll destroy them for making you uneasy.
I snorted a laugh. “You’re a bit of a fiend.”
Don’t seduce me, wife. We don’t have the time.
Roark led me into the corridors. We’d dressed in our fine clothes. Emi and Brynn helped me braid my hair around a jade circlet Roark found in his mother’s chamber.
As Roark’s wife, I was a Draven princess of sorts, and I had no idea what I was doing. Then again, I wasn’t so certain their prince did either. What we knew was that we had a need to agree on new orders for the lands, new treaties, new royals.
The úlfur chamber was filled. Unfettered Folk lined the room, taking in the fine stone of the walls and the iron sconces and tapestries.
Thane was already seated at the table, two Stav Guard on either side. Across from him Yrsa was seated beside Emi and the Myrdan queen.
He spoke with Emi, both looking at their palms, and the prince wore a bright grin as he flexed and extended his fingers.
Mere days after the chaos of the battles had ended, Thane grew feverish, insisting his blood was boiling. It took time, more than one healer, and a drop of his blood for Yrsa to test to realize that bone craft had taken hold in the prince.
Whatever curses had stolen craft from the royal line of Jorvandal had been destroyed after I’d taken the ancient vein to destroy Fadey. Like a dormant seed of power had burst into full bloom at long last, Thane was a bone crafter.
And it appeared that he would be a powerful one.
In the time since, Emi and Kael had taken great pleasure teaching the prince how to recognize the taste, the rush of craft, and how to summon it for his use—be it for brutality or healing.
Jordis kept trying to get Sindri to stop fidgeting in a finely made tunic embroidered with the double-headed raven.
When we entered the room, the úlfur councilmen rose. Their heads were topped in fox head furs or pelts. Runes inked their fingers for wisdom in an official council, and they did not sneer as they had the first time they sat with the melder.
Once Roark and I were seated at the head of the table, Yanson spoke. “We gather as a meet of realms to repair what was broken over the centuries. To find peace and agreements in how our realms move forward. Jorvans, what say you?”
Thane sat straighter. “Jorvandal recognizes the destructive hand it has played in these battles.”
I wanted to argue that it was not Thane, but he was the resounding voice, the king of Jorvandal, and the actions of those before him would be his to shoulder.
He shouldered them well.
“I wish it to be known Stonegate will henceforth be an ally to not only the kingdom of Myrda, but also to Dravenmoor.” Thane shot a sly sort of grin my way. “As for our Myrdan alliance, our friendship and support will always be yours, but not through marriage.”
Murmurs traveled through the Myrdan nobles, and a few of the Jorvans.
We had already expected this.
Thane held up a palm and smiled across the table at Yrsa.
“You are one of my truest friends, I love you with all my heart, and I desire nothing but your happiness. If there is to be a marital alliance, let it be with Princess Yrsa and Emi Nightlark of Dravenmoor. I expect to be invited, of course, not like those sods.”
He waved a hand at me and Roark, drawing a few laughs from the úlfur.