Chapter 50 #2
I felt the full weight of what he carried. Every decision, every loss, every impossible choice that came with the crown. Then I felt the exact moment he let himself be vulnerable, let himself be just a man who needed comfort.
This was trust in its purest form.
“We got there in time,” he said, his voice ruffling my hair. “Or not in time, because we didn’t save everyone. There were…so many of them. A swarm. A horde. Pure devastation.”
I could feel the vibration of his words through his chest, the way his voice broke with grief and exhaustion. My magic responded to his pain, wind currents stirring around us.
I stroked his back, letting him get it all out.
“We fought. Killed so many I lost count. Gavelle tore through them, Lakast burned them to ash. But they kept coming. Cresting the horizon. Screaming as they swarmed through the village. They plucked up one terrified villager after another, sucking them dry before I could reach them. And I tried. Fates know how I tried. But I couldn’t kill them all.
Couldn’t kill enough to keep them from…” His swallow took a long time to go down.
“My soldiers fought until the ground was slick with their own blood.” His arms tightened around me.
“Every scream, every life lost is on me.” His voice broke on the words. “A king who can’t protect his people is no king at all.”
Something fierce and protective roared to life in my chest. “You’re the best king I’ve ever known. Don’t you dare diminish that because evil exists in this world.”
I wished there was something I could do to ease his pain.
“Then they stopped.” His voice went quiet.
“All at once. They turned and fled back across the plain. We gave chase. We always do. We don’t stop as long as there’s even one left to kill.
But they disappeared into the wasteland, oozing into the muck and slinking through the dense jungle.
Too few villagers were left alive. Somehow, most of my army made it through, but the village…
” He leaned back and cupped my face, staring into my eyes.
“Isi, that village held three hundred people. And now there are less than a hundred left. Their cries of pain will haunt me forever.”
A log shifted in the hearth, and the crackles grew louder. My heart thudded, each word painting a devastating image in my mind.
“Why did they stop?” I asked.
He shook his head and leaned forward, his forehead brushing mine. “I don’t know. We chased them, but they’re fast. And you don’t follow Skathes into the wasteland if you want to come back.”
I could hear what he wasn’t saying, that he’d wanted to give chase anyway.
His golden gaze caught mine, and my chest squeezed tight.
“Every time I see the wasteland, it’s bigger.
A mass of rotting logs, vines, mud, and boiling filth.
Wherever the Skathe go, they leave a trail of themselves behind.
The land doesn’t only die, it forgets it ever lived.
It’s as if it’s been scrubbed out of this world. ”
I stroked his jaw. “You came back.”
“I had to.” His gaze flicked to my mouth before dragging back up. “You’re here.”
The air between us went still, charged with energy. My heartbeat tripped over itself.
“I was worried about you.” Emotions filled me too much to pretend otherwise. “I thought—” The words got caught in my throat, and I shook my head. “Never mind.”
“No.” His hands framed my face with his warm hands. “Say it.”
“I was worried they might’ve killed you.”
His mouth curved. Not quite a smile, but something that tried. “I won’t allow the Skathes to take me from you.”
“Don’t joke.”
“I’m not.” He stroked my cheekbones with his thumbs. “I wasn’t afraid of dying out there. I was afraid of not getting back here to you.”
The words stole the air from my lungs. This man, this king, who faced down armies and monsters, had been terrified. Not of death, but of leaving me.
“I’ve been a king since I was fifteen, Isi. But I’ve never been just a man until you.”
And there it was. The moment my heart completely surrendered to his.
My heart stopped. Restarted. Forgot how to beat at a normal rhythm. “Trew—”
I could lie to myself and call this relief, or gratitude, or court politics tangled into something messier. But it wasn’t. I knew what it was. I’d known for a while, if I was honest.
Love.
The word settled into my bones like it had been carved there from birth, waiting for this moment and this man to bring it to life.
This wasn’t the gentle affection of fairy tales or the desperate passion of tragic ballads.
This was something primal and eternal, the recognition of a soul meeting its match across lifetimes.
I’d spent my whole life being the perfect princess, the dutiful daughter, the controlled heir. But loving Trew felt like finally becoming who I was always meant to be.
Falling felt like flying at the same time. It felt inevitable, like the slow bend of a river carving a canyon. Patient. Unstoppable.
His gaze searched mine, and I found something raw and hopeful there.
“Stay with me?” he asked, his voice cratering.
The question held everything he couldn’t say. I need you. Don’t leave me alone with these ghosts. Help me remember that some things are worth fighting for.
“Always,” I whispered, and I meant it in every possible way. “Never doubt. You’re everything.”
I slid my hand down to take his. His fingers curled around mine, and I started to lead him to the bathing chamber.
“I washed before I returned.”
With a nod, I led him to the bed.
Gavelle ruffled his feathers and settled on his perch, Pherin was already asleep, her body tilted into his.
At the bed, I unfastened the buckles holding his sword to his back and slid it away from him, gently placing it on a nearby chair.
He slumped on the bed and sat there, staring at the fire.
I ached. Oh, how I ached for this man.
I tugged at his tunic, helping him lift it up and over his head, before I tossed it onto the floor in the corner.
Firelight painted golden strokes across the planes of his chest, highlighting every scar, every ridge of muscle earned through years of battle. Flame shadows danced across his skin, turning him into living art. I had to resist the urge to trace each line with my fingertips.
He was beautiful in the way that made poets weep and kingdoms fall. But it wasn’t his physical perfection that stole my breath. It was the trust in his eyes as he let me see him completely bare, body and soul.
After loosening his belt, I slid that away as well, laying his matching blades in their sheaths near his sword. Other smaller knives followed. I divested him of his armor while shielding him with my own, wrapping it around us both. Daring anyone to try to get past it.
Each piece revealed more skin kissed by firelight, from the strong column of his throat to the broad expanse of his shoulders, to the lean tapering of his waist. The healing wounds on his chest he’d gotten while protecting me only made me admire him more.
The warm glow turned his skin to burnished bronze, and I wondered if I’d ever seen anything more beautiful than this broken king letting me tend to his emotional wounds.
“Pants,” I croaked. Each button I released was a barrier between us falling away. “Let me take care of you.”
Something in his golden eyes cracked open like a door he’d kept locked for years.
Each piece of armor I removed felt like peeling away the weight of his crown, revealing the man beneath the king.
“You’re safe now. You’re home.” In my arms, he could just be Trew.
“Knew you wanted to touch me,” he quipped, but there was no heat in it. Only endless sadness.
“One of these days, maybe.”
He stroked his fingertip along my jawline, stopping at my chin to tilt it up. “No maybe about it. You’re mine, Isi.” His voice dropped to that commanding tone that made other courts kneel and my body come alive. “I don’t give things back.”
The possessiveness should’ve made me bristle. I was a crown princess, not a thing to be claimed. But the way he said it, like I was something precious he’d fight wars to keep, sent liquid fire through my veins.
“I haven’t agreed to that,” I said, though we both knew it was a lie.
“You will.” His thumb traced my bottom lip with devastating gentleness.
“Because you were made for me, just as I was for you. Some things are just inevitable.” Firelight caught the flames in his eyes, and I saw myself reflected there.
This wasn’t the princess I’d been born, but the woman I was becoming.
“You don’t want to admit it, and I understand.
We hurt each other. We’re basically enemies. ”
“Not any longer.”
Nothing and no one would ever convince me that this man had known about my sister’s death and kept it from me. He might be holding things back, but I’d bet anything he did so only to keep from hurting me. Never to be conniving or sly.
“Up,” I said, tugging on the top of his pants.
He stood. “It’s alright to admit you’re mine because I will always belong solely to you, Minx. Truly.”
My throat hurt so much it was all I could do to swallow. “Now you tell me.”
I tugged his pants down over his hips, trying not to stare at his long, thick length.
“You’re stripping off my clothing. Seemed like a good time to declare myself.”
“You’re in pain. I’m giving you comfort. You might change your mind about this by morning.”
“Do you think that’s all this is?” He shucked his pants off, sending them flying to the corner, and straightened, latching onto my arms and tugging me fully against him. Holding me. “I’ve fought for my people my whole life. But you’re the first thing I’ve wanted just for me.”
“I’ve never been afraid to lose before. Not until you.”
“Minx,” he breathed, stroking my face. “They can call me king, rebel, monster. Whatever they want. But you’re the only one who gets to call me hers.”
If he kept speaking, I was going to cry.
I flung the covers back and gestured. “Into the bed.”
“See?” His lips quirked up on one side, but the smile held too much pain.
“What I see is a man who needs to sleep.”
“The Skathes must’ve known I would’ve followed them into the wasteland if it meant getting back to you. That’s why they fled. I would’ve torn apart reality with my bare hands. I’d burn the veil itself to keep you in my arms, and the fates know it. You ruin me in the very best way.”
He knelt on the bed and tumbled down, turning onto his back, looking up at me with lazy seduction in his eyes. His cock twitched. “Come to bed with me, Minx.”
This was the voice of a man who commanded armies. Who ruled every bit of the land in all directions.
Like he ruled my heart.
He watched as I stripped down to my undergarments.
Cool air bit my skin as I joined him, shifting over until my entire frame could be pressed against his.
He turned to face me, and we lay there, holding each other.
Everything about this moment felt precious, from the soft luxury surrounding us to the warm weight of him beside me.
His skin was fever-warm against mine, and I could feel his pulse everywhere we touched.
In his throat, his wrist, and in the strong steady beat of his heart beneath my palm.
I swore Pherin snored. That Gavelle watched over her with patience.
The fire dimmed, the shifting logs a quiet reminder that even in the silence, we weren’t alone.
He scooted lower and rested his head against my collarbone, his arm heavy across my waist.
I held this man I’d fallen in love with, tracing my fingertips up and down the tense line of his spine, whispering into his hair. “You are the only one I’ll never turn my back on, no matter the cost.”
This was what love felt like. Not grand gestures, but this quiet intimacy. The privilege of holding a king while he slept, of being the one person in the world he trusted enough to show his wounds.
I was ruined for anyone else.
Completely, irrevocably ruined.
And completely, irrevocably his.
A tear slipped from the corner of my eye and trickled down my temple.
It vanished into my hair.