Chapter 49
Chapter Forty-Nine
Aurelia
Rydian’s finger slid inside me, and I shattered into a thousand sparks of light. My back arched against his chest, head falling onto his shoulder as my body clenched around that single point of contact. The water lapped gently at my skin, warm and languid, but everything inside me was fire.
“Gods, you feel so good,” Rydian murmured against my ear, voice like velvet and smoke.
I couldn’t quite form words to respond before his thumb found the sensitive bundle of nerves at my center and all that came out was a broken moan.
His laugh was low, dark, insufferably satisfied. “That's it, Furious. Let me hear you.”
The shadows he’d wrapped around the room pulsed in response—thick ribbons of darkness coating the walls, the window, every crack in the floorboards. No light crept in. No sound crept out. We existed in our own pocket of the world, sealed away from everything and everyone.
His free hand splayed across my stomach, holding me steady as he worked me with devastating patience. One finger became two, stretching me, filling me, curling just so until stars burst behind my eyelids.
“Rydian.” His name came out half prayer, half warning.
“I've got you.” His lips brushed the shell of my pointed ear, breath hot. “I've got you. Just feel.”
So I did.
I let myself sink into the sensation of his body behind me—all hard planes and coiled strength, his erection pressing insistently against my lower back.
The water was cooling now, but I barely noticed, not when his fingers moved in that relentless rhythm, not when his shadows crept along the surface of the water like curious things, trailing over my collarbones, my breasts, everywhere his hands couldn’t reach.
“So responsive,” he said, wonder threading through the roughness of his voice. “Every touch and you light up for me. Do you know how long I’ve wanted this? To see you come undone by my hands?”
I couldn’t answer. Couldn’t think. There was only the building pressure, the impossible tension coiling tighter at my core. My fingers gripped his forearm beneath the water, nails biting into muscle and ink as I chased something I couldn’t name.
“That’s it,” he coaxed. “Don’t hold back. You don’t have to be composed. Not with me.”
The words undid something in my chest—some wall I hadn’t realized I was keeping up.
“Where do I please you, Princess?” he whispered, and gods, I remembered.
I remembered him asking that question before, remembered the smirk on his lips, the challenge in his storm-gray eyes.
Back when we were still pretending we didn’t want this.
Back when the idea of touching him felt like treason against everything I’d been raised to accomplish.
Now his fingers curled inside me, and I answered with a sound I didn’t recognize as my own.
“Here,” he breathed. “Right here. Isn’t it?”
I panted, on the brink of coming apart in his arms.
His thumb pressed harder, circling with devastating precision while his fingers maintained that perfect rhythm. The shadows around us seemed to pulse with his heartbeat—or maybe mine. I couldn’t tell anymore where I ended and he began.
“Come for me, Furious,” he said, and it wasn’t a request. It was a command. A royal decree from the heir to a throne who had chosen to kneel at mine.
I broke.
The release crashed through me like a wave, like wildfire, like the first rays of dawn splitting open a dark horizon.
My body bowed off his chest, muscles seizing, every nerve ending igniting at once.
I heard myself cry out—his name, maybe, or something wordless—and his shadows swallowed the sound whole, kept it just for us in this sanctuary he’d built from darkness and want.
His arms wrapped around me as I trembled through the aftershocks, one hand still pressed between my thighs, gentling me down. His lips found the curve of my neck, pressing soft kisses there while I remembered how to breathe.
“Beautiful,” he murmured against my skin. “Absolutely beautiful.”
I laughed weakly, still trembling. “I don't think I can move.”
“Then don’t.” He turned me in his arms until I was facing him, straddling his lap in the cooling water. His gray eyes were molten in the candlelight, his dark hair curling damply at his temples. “I’ll move you where I want you.”
The promise in those words sent a fresh shiver down my spine. I reached up to brush back his damp hair, my heart already racing again as his erection pressed into my core. His eyes lit with that same awareness, but he didn’t hurry to do anything about it.
Instead, he caught my wrist, bringing my palm to his lips. The tattoos that wound up his forearms seemed to shift in the flickering light—ancient runes of power and protection, a history written in ink. I traced one with my finger, following it up to his bicep, across the hard swell of muscle.
He was beautiful too.
All sharp angles and lethal grace, built like a weapon meant for war and somehow still gentle enough to wash my hair and knead the knots from my shoulders. The contradiction made something ache in my chest.
“Bed,” I said, finding my voice again. “You promised me a bed.”
His smile turned wicked. “Impatient.”
“You made me impatient.” I leaned in, brushing my lips against his jaw. “You made me a lot of things.”
“Good things, I hope.”
“Terrible things,” I corrected. “Distracted during meetings with Spring emissaries. Pretending your touch was merely to help steady me as we cut through a thicket. Prone to staring at your shoulders when you were changing out of your leathers. These last few days have been torture.”
“That was on purpose,” he admitted.
“I know.” I kissed the corner of his mouth. “I hated you for it.”
“No, you didn’t.”
No. I didn't.
He stood in one fluid motion, lifting me like I weighed nothing. Water cascaded off us both, steam curling in the air, and I wrapped my legs around his waist on instinct. The hard length of him pressed against my center, and we both went still, breath catching.
“Bed,” he agreed, voice strained.
He stepped out of the tub, shadows parting for him like loyal subjects, and carried me through the doorway into the adjoining bedroom.
He laid me down like I was something fragile.
Like I might break. Then he knelt at the edge of the bed, dark hair falling across his forehead in wild disarray.
His hands found my ankles, thumbs tracing slow circles.
“What are you doing?” I asked, impatient and aching.
His grin was knowing. “I’m taking my time.” His grip slid higher. Calves. Knees. The soft skin of my inner thighs. His shadows followed, trailing over my skin like phantom caresses, raising goosebumps everywhere they touched.
I let out a sigh.
Then his mouth moved higher, trailing along my thigh, and all thought evaporated like morning mist.
“Rydian—”
“Shh.” His breath ghosted over my center, and my hips jerked off the bed. “Let me worship you properly.”
He was merciless. Thorough. His tongue traced patterns against my most sensitive flesh while his hands pinned my hips to the bed, keeping me exactly where he wanted me. The shadows around us grew thicker, darker, as if responding to his focus, his intensity.
I fisted my hands in the furs beneath me and held on for dear life.
“You taste like sunshine,” he murmured against me, and the vibration of his voice made me gasp. “I thought you would. I dreamed about this. Dreamed about you spread out beneath me, making those sounds, coming apart on my tongue.”
His words should have been obscene. Instead, they felt like poetry.
He sealed his lips around that bundle of nerves and sucked, and I came apart for the second time with a cry that echoed off the shadowed walls.
My fingers found his hair, gripping tight, holding him to me as wave after wave of pleasure crashed through my body.
He worked me through it, gentling gradually, pressing soft kisses to my oversensitive flesh until I stopped shaking.
When he finally lifted his head, his eyes were dark with want, and his lips were wet. He looked like a man who had found exactly what he was searching for.
“Come here,” I breathed, reaching for him.
He crawled up my body, shadows trailing in his wake, until his weight settled over me—solid and warm and real. His forearms braced on either side of my head, caging me in, and I wrapped my arms around his neck to pull him down.
The kiss was deep and desperate and tasted like me.
I felt him position himself at my entrance, the blunt pressure making my breath catch. His forehead dropped to mine.
“Look at me,” he said softly.
I opened my eyes. Found his—gray as storm clouds, bright as lightning, full of something that made my heart clench.
“I love you,” he said. “I should have told you before. Should have told you a hundred times instead of pretending I could let you go.”
Tears pricked at my lashes. “I love you too. Even when you're impossible.”
His laugh was rough.
He slid inside me in one long, slow stroke.
My back arched, a gasp tearing free as my body stretched to accommodate him. He was everywhere—above me, inside me, all around me. His shadows curled along my arms, my waist, threading between my fingers like they wanted to hold me too.
“Okay?” he asked, jaw tight with the effort of staying still.
“More than okay.” I rolled my hips, testing, and we both groaned. “Move. Please.”
He did.
Slowly at first—long, deep strokes that hit something profound inside me. His eyes never left mine, watching every flicker of sensation that crossed my face.
“So tight,” he breathed. “So perfect. Made for me, aren’t you?”
“Yes.” The word spilled out before I could stop them. “Always.”
His rhythm faltered, something raw and reverent flashing in his gaze. Then he kissed me, hard, and began to move faster.
I met him thrust for thrust, my nails raking down his back, over the tattoos that marked his ribs. He made a sound against my mouth—half growl, half prayer—and drove into me deeper.
The pleasure built again, impossible and consuming. Every nerve in my body sang where we were connected. His shadows writhed around us, responding to every catch of breath, every whispered word.
I came with his name on my lips, inner walls clenching around him, and felt him follow me over seconds later—his whole body shuddering, a groan tearing from his chest as he spilled himself inside me.
We stayed tangled together for a long moment afterward, breathing hard, hearts pounding in tandem. His shadows slowly receded from the walls, letting thin threads of moonlight creep back in through the shuttered window.
He rolled to his side, pulling me with him, tucking me against his chest like I belonged there.
“What happens tomorrow?” I asked quietly.
His fingers traced lazy patterns on my hip. “Tomorrow we face whatever comes. Together.”
“And tonight?”
His smile was slow, wicked, full of promise. “Tonight, I’m going to make you scream my name so many times that even my shadows won’t be able to muffle the sound.” He pressed a kiss to my forehead. “Rest up, Princess. We’re just getting started.”