50. The Consort and Her Witness #3
Her will found his runes, and she yoked their strength to tenderness. She even grazed the dangerous edge of Vargrún. Gentled it with a loving touch, shaping the hunger into focus.
This…this is why you are mine to torment. Touch me again. Take me into you.
You take me into you, Auryn’reh—Kailorien whispered in her thoughts, his Bond voice blurring with Vargrún’s. Every time I love you, I lose myself. You burn me out. You take everything—everything—until only you remain.
Us—she reminded him, unafraid of the wolf—there is only Us. Together. Always.
His grip firmed on her hips. He thrust harder, and she arched into him with a sound that would have shamed the Doctrine.
The dusk-silk slid and pooled; the wall’s cold steadied her; everywhere he touched lit like struck flint.
She bit his shoulder, screamed his name like he was hers, spilling a litany between gasps—more, don’t stop, Kail—and clenched around him when he murmured ruinous praises against her ear.
He shuddered, his restraint crumbling as they tipped into the fall together. His azure breath, her silver Weave, and his essence all spilling together into the Bond between them.
When the quake ebbed, she clung to him, gasping. His forehead tipped to hers. For a moment, neither of them moved. The corridor’s chill returned in a rush. His hands gentled along her sides, steadying, anchoring. The Shields’ faint thrumming slid back into the edge of her awareness.
“You’re glowing,” he said, awed.
She looked down at the constellation she wore scattered across her shoulders and chest. Her freckles had taken light, tiny points pricking through the sheen on her skin.
Strange.
“Beautiful,” he corrected her, vow-soft.
His thumb traced a bright fleck above her heart as if sealing it in. Then, with a grunt that was more a laugh than not, he lifted her again and pressed his hand to the ward at the door beside them. It yielded, and he carried her inside.
The chamber was alight with Polis lanterns freshly tended, warm and rich.
Kailorien set her on the low divan just inside—the one that faced the banked fluxhearth—and followed her down, collapsing in a sprawl beside her.
She rolled, pulled until she was in his arms, and kissed his jaw.
He caught her hand when it went searching, lacing their fingers like a lock.
“That,” she breathed, “was incredible.”
“We could have been seen,” he added, smug and breathless.
“Good. Let them choke on it.” She tipped her face up to look at him, hair wild, lips swollen, eyes bright with triumph and the remains of tears.
“Void, sweetfire,” he said, softer, thumb brushing her lower lip. “It’s almost as though you wanted to be seen.”
“And what if I did?” she asked. “What if I want Krystopolis to know you are mine?”
His pupils widened. “You wore my colors to the Rite. You claimed me in front of all the eyes that matter.”
She hesitated. “I have a fantasy.”
“Oh?” He went very still. “Should I sit up for this, or pray?”
She poked his chest. “The Resh’Agar doesn’t pray.”
“He does.”
She raised a brow.
“To his Sovereign Star.” His voice lowered. “Should I show you again?”
She smiled. “Don’t you want to hear what the Sokar daydreams about in Council?”
This time, his eyebrow tilted upwards. “Do tell.”
“Well.” Heat rose to her cheeks. “You know how Council sometimes gets. Especially when Sevrion starts droning. Or Draevan. They both love to hear themselves preach.”
He nodded.
“Sometimes, when they go on and on, I find myself thinking about the Circle of Rule,” she said.
“About the empty Axis Hall. The doors barred. And you,” her gaze dropped to his mouth, his throat, his hands.
“Take me there. You put me where Doctrine demands I don’t belong and prove that I belong to you instead. ”
For a heartbeat he didn’t breathe. Then he did, and it sounded like a man finding air after holding his breath too long.
“Auryn,” he said, wrecked, reverent, ruined. “Do not bring me to my knees in my own chambers.”
“I thought you enjoyed being on your knees before me,” she teased, and then bit a grin into her lip when he gave her a glare full of promise.
“That table,” he said at last, voice gone low enough to shiver the little hairs at the nape of her neck, “is quite sturdy. It’s stood there since the Lattices were built.”
“Good,” she said. “Then it can survive the Resh’Agar’s fury.”
He shut his eyes and crushed her to his chest, laughter shaking through both of them until it softened into quiet.
He eased back, smoothing the kasara where it had gone crooked, the tender post-battle neatness that always made her chest ache.
He found a shawl and draped it over her shoulders.
She pushed it off and used it as a pillow, tugging him down with her until they were a comfortable, graceless tangle.
For a while, they simply were.
He brushed kisses to her shoulders. Her arms. Her neck.
“Say when,” he said, voice steadying, promise settling into bone. “For the Circle.”
“When,” she grinned, and her smile was wicked and sure.
“Then I’ll plan a war,” he promised.
“Several,” she said.
“Several,” he agreed, and tucked her closer, the Bond a warm, fierce thrum between them.
Take care in voicing such thoughts as amusement, little ember. You know not what the future holds.
Auryn did not answer him, but in her heart she called him a liar.
For she did know.
War would come.
But, for now, she chose to bask in peace.