43. The Gift #2
“You are the stars above the world, the Nine Rivers running through its veins. You are the heart of me.”
Their noses touched. She smelled sweet wine on his breath. Minerals on his skin. Her magic, too, coursing through his veins. Her fingers traced Kenaz on his brow once again, mana pouring into him.
“Then let me pay homage to you,” she begged. “If there was ever anyone deserving of worship, of love, of everything I am—it is you, Kailorien.”
With that affirmation bolstering her courage, she kissed down his chest once more. Only when her lips reached the base of his stomach did he draw in a sharp breath.
Her eyes lifted, catching his, and in that moment, the air between them felt fragile enough to shatter.
Her pulse thundered in her ears, the Bond catching that rush and sending it back to her in doubled waves, until she could barely tell which heartbeat was hers.
She wrapped her mouth around his length, taking him as she’d dreamed of since the first time she’d ever seen this part of him.
Every movement was unhurried, deliberate—as though she was learning the shape of him by memory alone.
He held himself still for her, though she could feel the coil of his strength beneath the surface—that tight, thrumming energy pressing at the edges of his restraint.
The Bond surged and flared, his pleasure lancing into her core like molten light, spilling through her in a pooling of heat and need so fierce her knees trembled beneath the water.
His hand moved as if to touch her, but she caught it, twined their fingers, and pressed it flat to the stone beside him—her silent way of saying let me.
“Starlight,” he rasped. The word wasn’t just sound—it brushed through the Bond like a warm breath at the hollow of her throat, making her skin prickle with awareness.
The sound he made next was low, torn from somewhere deep in his chest. She kept her pace steady, loving, her fingers tracing Raidō on his thigh and Weaving peace into its core.
The rune pulsed under her touch, its magic softening, yielding.
Every line and curve within her reach was mapped with devotion. Veneration.
His grip tensed in her hair, and the Bond sparked with it, a rush of want so sharp her own breath caught.
“I must have imagined this a thousand times,” he gasped. “But never like this. Never.”
His hand curled into a fist at his side, the faint scrape of calloused skin against the stone betraying the edge of his restraint. A ragged sound slipped from him, part groan, part plea.
She hummed, taking him deeper, enthralled that she could make his voice thread like that. Fascinated as she watched his head tip back and his abdomen ripple beneath her palm.
The Bond snapped wide open, unbidden, unshielded.
She felt it all: the flood of devotion so fierce it hurt, the bone-deep certainty that she was the only one who had ever touched him like this, and the unshakable truth that he would follow her into the Void itself.
It was too much, too beautiful, and her throat tightened with it.
When he broke, the Bond went incandescent, her senses flooding with his release; the surge of heat, the quiver in his thighs, the helpless throb of his pleasure winding through her own body.
Her eyes fluttered closed, and she lost herself in him.
In his heady taste, his euphoric scent, and the silken brush of the hairs on his thighs against her cheek—each stroke carrying a pulse of his pleasure through the Bond like a warm ripple across her skin.
Heat surrounded her. Like sinking into an ocean warmed by the sun.
Never pressing. Always shielding. Protecting. Cherishing.
Just as she wished she could cherish him for the rest of her days.
Their eyes met, but they did not exchange a single word.
Not even in the Bond. She simply guided him back into the water to rest against her chest and continued to Weave.
Her hands traced every inch of him she could touch until his breath steadied again.
Her fingers stroked his hair in the slow rhythm of undulating waves.
Around them, Lustrals hummed. In the air, the thrum of the Shields buzzed, ever present.
Auryn kissed the crown of his head, and at last, words found her again.
“I love you,” she told him. “While I live, you shall never be alone again.”
“Nor you,” he swore, his voice distant and soft with sleep.
With time, his weight grew heavy, sleep claiming him at last.
And Auryn stayed.
Because he was her home.
Her hearth.
Her everything.
Steam still curled in the corners of the chamber, clinging to her skin as Auryn came back to the world once again.
She didn’t know how much time had passed, only that she’d sat cradling her dark-haired warrior in her arms as long as the world would allow.
When the water cooled, she warmed it with magic.
When the Lustrals faded, she Wove more life into them again.
During that time, Lu’ma had come in carrying a tray of food. It lay untouched beside her, the contents now cold.
She didn’t dare to move.
Didn’t dare to disturb her Resh’Agar’s repose.
Not out of duty, but out of love. Out of the ache that pierced her chest when she thought back to all the times he returned from battle, covered in blood and ash and dirt, only to steal a quick bath and sit down at his desk to sift through papers that needed his attention.
He carried the Shields, and so he carried the People. Their safety. Their stability.
These stolen moments of deep sleep were more precious than Gleams, or gold, or any of the treasures hidden in the Umbral Archives. Kailorien slept so very rarely, and when he did, she guarded his rest with the fierce devotion of a dragon in its nest.
Unfortunate that you cannot guard him from me, emberling. Do not forget. He carries the wolf inside of him, howling in his ear, reminding him that he has no right to mortality when he bleeds gold and growls with my voice.
Auryn flinched, but did not answer. Vargrún loved to catch her at her weakest moments, though lately he at least had the decency to keep his silence when she and Kailorien cut out time for one another.
Decency? You speak of me as though I have a will. A purpose. Yet, the world would call me madness. Ruin. You alone believe there is more to me than cruelty.
Auryn gritted her teeth. When he began to speak this way, there was no escaping him. With utmost reluctance, she moved.
But Kailorien did not stir. Sleep had taken him in full—his weight heavy, his breathing deep—and for another long moment she simply sat, watching the lines of his face in the lamplight.
Time slipped again, and the magic of the Lustrals thinned to a faint mist when she finally coaxed Kailorien from the water.
He was heavy with reluctance, pliant in her hands as she toweled his hair and guided him to the chair by the window.
She held him there, his head tipped back, breath slow and even, wanting so desperately to stay in this quiet forever.
The city could tear itself apart with politics and silken lies.
Councilors could weave hypocrisy into ceremony and call it grace.
But here, in her arms, there was nothing of that. Only the man. Only the truth.
And me, little ember. I am his truth. And yours.
With that reminder came other memories. Of the ceremony earlier. The lavish balconies, the feasting, and the music. The scent of Sahtra smoke still clung to the walls, the faint echo of the crowd from the Pouring of Grace creeping in through the stone.
The world would not wait for her to be ready to face it.
She brushed her lips against Kailorien’s cheek and let him return to the world at his own pace, padding back to her wardrobe.
Her hair was still braided and tied up in intricate tight ropes atop her head.
She stepped to the mirror and began undoing all of Lu’ma’s hard work, pulling on a comfortable silk robe and clean underthings.
By the time she had dressed and worked through most of the knots, memories of the murmurs of the guests at the Pouring pressed at the edges of her mind in an unbearable swell, her thoughts replaying every hesitant step the new Companion had taken toward the Resh’Agar.
She glanced over. Kailorien was still in the chair by the window, the Polis light casting gold and emerald flickers over his bare chest. The runes on his skin still shimmered white. Still hers.
He’d donned a pair of loose black trousers, but didn’t seem to be in a hurry to continue dressing.
Dark hair fell over his brow as he leaned back.
He could look impossibly still when he wanted to, like the room was built around him.
Like he’d arrived long before anything else in the world knew what shape to take.
Auryn hesitated, then, “She’s terrified of you. The new Companion.”
He turned his head towards her, his eyes still soft. His brow lifted, a slow, deliberate motion. “As I said before, you are the only one that isn’t.”
“That’s different.” She crossed the room, hands curling at her sides. “She’s young. Naive. If someone doesn’t shield her, she’ll be devoured.”
He leaned forward, resting his forearms on his knees. “You want me to intervene.”
“I want you to show her subtle favor,” she said. “Nothing blatant. A token, a gift. Something the others will recognize.”
The corner of his mouth curved, predatory and amused. Her heart skipped at the heat in his eyes. “And you’re certain you want that? You’re all right with me putting my mark on another woman?”
Auryn stepped between his knees without breaking eye contact.
“I never said a mark,” she frowned. “Just a gift.”
“My question stands,” he insisted, slipping a hand to her waist.
She shivered, couldn’t help remembering the waves of pleasure the Bond had let her experience along with him.