Chapter 30
Savannah
Dawn curled around the drapes like a hand, slow and probing, prying at my eyelids.
I let it, for once. Last night’s exhaustion was a memory drowned in bourbon and adrenaline, and Menace slept on, the rise and fall of his ribcage the only proof the battle hadn’t been a fever-dream.
In the room’s hush, I catalogued the other evidence: bandages now gone, bruises already faded to the color of old violets, blood scrubbed from the floor by unseen hands.
The only thing they hadn’t erased was the pillowcase, still tacky where I’d wept into the fabric before finally passing out in his arms.
I curled toward him, greedy for the heat, for the fact that he was still breathing.
The fine, silvery line of his jaw with just the right amount of blonde stubble.
He’d cleaned up his beard in the night, probably just before crawling into bed, and the scent of expensive aftershave still clung to his throat.
My mate, the king-killer, looked every bit the hero.
He also looked like a man who’d been devoured and then spat back into the world.
It was the mark on his chest that drew me.
I’d seen it last night—the circle the angel left when he undid Declan’s last cruelty—but in the morning, it had turned a faint, uncanny hue, lighter than the surrounding area.
It pulsed in time with his heart, a living sigil just below the skin.
I let my fingers hover there, afraid to touch it at first, then caving in, the way one always caves to gravity.
The skin was warm, softer than the flesh around it.
He didn’t wake, not even when I leaned in and pressed my lips to it, light as a leaf.
I lay there a while, letting my palm map his ribs, the stories they told: the scar from a childhood where he’d been bucked off of a horse, a dip where a bullet had once splintered bone, the pale ridge from his last tour of duty.
His hand, always so quick, so restless, now twitched only once—curling into a fist before softening again.
I traced the line down, letting it be a prayer of thanks.
I didn’t know I’d have this body to touch again.
I was afraid he’d be taken from me. I was forever grateful he was here.
Below his waist, he was already half-hard, the logic of sleep and survival running on a different clock than the rest of him.
I palmed him through the sheets, careful and slow.
The first touch made him shift, a small sound in his throat.
He didn’t wake, but the cock in my hand twitched, thickening with the promise of a whole new violence.
I let the sheet fall away, exposing the pale arch of his hips, the dusting of blonde that led straight to where I needed him.
I didn’t need to be gentle. But I wanted to be.
There was a reverence in it, a slow unraveling.
I slipped down the bed, nuzzled against the root of it, breathed him in—the mix of sweat, laundry powder, and the faint copper of blood that lingered no matter how much we scrubbed.
I licked a stripe up the shaft, circled my tongue around the head, and tasted him.
He was salt and skin. There was a violence to the size of him, an arrogance in the way his body insisted on being worshiped. I did.
He started to stir then, an intake of air, a flex in the thigh that made my head jerk back just enough to watch his face.
His eyes weren’t open, but his mouth parted, a sigh blooming from his chest. I swallowed him down, let the crown hit the back of my throat, and held it there, breathing through my nose and counting the beats as I sucked.
My hand wrapped around the base, thumb stroking the vein just under the skin, the way I knew would break him if he was conscious.
He was, a moment later. I felt it in the shift of his hips, the shudder down his spine. I looked up and saw him watching me, one hazel eye open, a wolf’s smile flickering in the ruined geometry of his mouth.
“You’re a fucking queen,” he rasped, voice not quite awake but already claiming me.
His hand tangled in my hair. Not rough, but firm enough to make it clear who was in charge.
I let him guide my head, let him set the pace.
Up, down, slow, then quick. I could have died this way, and I think he knew it.
He fucked my mouth. Not with the aggression of a brute, but with the solemnity of a king who knew the world was watching. His breath hitched;gasped every muscle locked. He whispered my name, the real one, not Red, and it was so raw I almost lost my rhythm.
I took him deeper, relaxing my throat, my nose pressed to his belly.
The skin there was still marked, still strange, and I let my fingers roam over it as I sucked, as if the act could heal both of us.
He gasped, louder now, the sound filling the small, cold room.
I felt his body tense; the cock swelling harder, thicker, the warning clear.
“Swallow it,” he ordered. Not a request. Not a plea.
I did.
The cum was bitter, but I held it on my tongue, savoring the way his body jerked, the way his hands knotted in my hair. He groaned, full-throated, animal. I swallowed, then licked him clean, slow and careful, until he softened against my lips.
He didn’t let go of me for a long time.
I crawled back up the bed and curled into his side, head on his shoulder, my hand still tracing idle circles over the healed wound on his chest. He kissed my hair, his breath still ragged, the aftermath of pleasure mingling with the memory of pain.
“Was that a dream?” he asked, voice hoarse.
“No,” I said. “But if it was, I don’t want to wake up.”
He laughed, the sound softer than I’d ever heard. “You’re fucking dangerous, you know that?”
“So are you,” I shot back, and nipped his shoulder, just hard enough to leave a mark.
He pulled me closer, hand splayed over my lower back. “Don’t let anyone on the Council see you do that. They’ll think I’ve gone soft.”
I bit back a smile. “You’re the king now. You can do whatever you want.”
He mulled that, eyes fixed on the ceiling. “You sure you’re okay?” he asked. “After yesterday?”
“Are you?” I countered.
He considered. “Wasn’t ready to die. But if I had to, that would have been the way.”
I propped my chin on his chest, the sheet pooling around my waist. “Can I tell you something?”
“Anything.”
I hesitated, then let it out. “On the call with my mom…”
He raised an eyebrow. “Yeah?”
“She’s… free,” I said, and felt the truth of it. “She never said it, not in front of him, but she hated my father. She said she’s been waiting years for him to die. She wanted to thank you.”
He blinked, surprised. “For what?”
“For saving me. For giving her a reason to keep going. For letting Griffin take the throne and not making her deal with it anymore. Mostly for just… surviving.” I swallowed, the words thick in my throat. “And she’s happy. You know why?”
He shook his head, bemused.
“Because she gets to be with her mate now. Her true mate. He’s been waiting for her for twenty-five years. She told me that last night. First thing she did after getting the news—she ran to him. She gets to be loved finally.”
Menace was silent, letting the words sink in. He wrapped both arms around me and just held on.
I could have wept for my old life, for all the years I’d lost, for the way trauma kept bleeding through the future like dye in water. But instead, I let myself hope for what was to come.
I ran my hand down his body one last time, savoring the shape of him, the miracle of him. I kissed the angel mark on his chest, the place where death had tried and failed.
“Thank you,” I whispered, not for the act, not for the rescue, but for just existing, here, now, alive.
He kissed my forehead, then my lips. “Anytime, Red.”
The day was just beginning, but for the first time in years, it felt like it might not end in tragedy.
We lay there a while, not speaking. Not needing to.
We could have laid there forever, burrowed under the quilt, but the world was nothing if not insistent. At seven a.m. sharp, a knock split the silence—three hard, staccato raps. Not a question, not a suggestion. The day demanded us.
Menace answered, wearing only a towel and a snarl.
The woman on the threshold blinked, caught herself, then handed him a folded parchment.
“Council requests your presence at nine. There will be a formal witness to dress you both.” Her voice was flat, her eyes never dropping below his collarbone, as though acknowledging any part of him might dissolve her professionalism.
She set a lacquered trunk on the carpet, then fled, heels clacking down the corridor like castanets.
Menace whistled, low and mocking, and closed the door. He flicked the parchment open. The wax seal was already broken. “We’re to be in the anteroom at eight for prep,” he read. “Then the crowning at nine. You up for this?”
“I think I am,” I said with a grin.
He smiled back, then peeled away the towel and started digging for fresh clothes. I let myself watch—the lean muscle, the angel mark now faded to the color of a clear sky, the ease with which he wore his own nakedness. He caught me staring and winked.
“Want me to help you get ready?” he asked, the wolf in him still alive and hungry.
“Tempting,” I said, “but the attendant might faint. And you’re supposed to look respectable for once.”
He made a face but didn’t argue. By the time I’d slipped into the bathroom, the air was already steaming with the scent of his shower, water still pelting the tile like rain.
I washed fast, letting the heat bake the knots from my neck, then wrapped myself in one of the guest robes and padded back into the bedroom.
The trunk was open now, and inside, layers of folded fabric—velvet, brocade, the deep, bruised colors of midnight and dried blood. On top, a note: “For the Queen Consort.”