28. Sabine
Chapter 28
Sabine
T hree days and not a word exchanged with Basten. Now that he’s an honored guest, he dines in the Hall of Vale—but three tables over. Each evening, I watch longingly from my window as he walks the grounds with my father, making plans. Likewise, I feel his burning gaze when I ride Myst through the Twilight Garden each morning beneath his tower.
Spying each other from afar isn’t enough. We’re twin shadows on the wall, so close and yet never intersecting.
And that barrier’s name?
Vale. He of the fae axe that will separate Basten’s head from his shoulders if we’re caught together again.
I’ve searched for excuses to be near the guest wing, hoping for a glimpse of him, a whispered word, anything to bridge the chasm between us. But the guards’ ever-watchful presence blocks every attempt.
The quiet of the evening settles around me now, the fire in my bedroom’s hearth crackling as I sit with my unease. My fingers toy with his frayed twine ring, pulling at loose threads, while I imagine scenarios in which I could outwit the guards.
It's in this restless silence that I hear a rustling from the fireplace.
I glance up, half-expecting to see nothing.
But there, amidst the cooling ashes, a small shape stirs. The forest mouse, her fur dusted with soot, pokes her head out. She pauses, sniffs the air, and then fixes her bright eyes on me.
Mouse-talker , she chits excitedly. Follow me!
To where? I ask silently, my heart beginning to beat faster.
You shall see! We must make haste—there is a clear path to the kitchen at the moment.
The…kitchen?
She scampers to the door and swiftly picks the lock, then motions for me to open it. I peek out into the hallway, heart fluttering. It’s empty.
Where are the guards? I ask warily.
One of the army captains was married today, she answers. The soldiers were briefly called to the military offices to eat honey cakes. They will be back soon—hurry!
She scampers along the wall so swiftly that I have to jog to keep up. We head down the narrow secondary stairs the servants use, descending until the walls take on the cool air of the basement level, then even further into a stone-lined hallway filled with storage rooms for root vegetables.
A chicken pecks at some loose straw on the floor, bobbing her head to me as I pass.
Ahead, I smell the scent of boar on the rotisserie, as well as rich roasting garlic and rosemary. The chatter of kitchen maids—broken by laughter—spills down the hallway .
Here . the mouse tugs on my skirt. She points her nose toward another storage room. Wait inside. I’ll be back soon.
More questions perch on my lips, but a maid might come down the hall any moment, so I duck inside and close the door.
It’s pitch black—no windows, no lanterns, and I didn’t think to bring a match.
But one whiff, and I don’t need Basten’s senses to know where I am: the castle confectionary.
My stomach growls at the aroma of freshly baked honey cakes. The bakers must have stored the extra wedding treats here. I step backward and accidentally kick over a sack—the tight space fills with a cloud of powdered sugar.
I pat the air until I find shelves, feeling in the dark around crockery pots containing the most amazing-smelling vanilla beans, nutmeg, and cinnamon. I lift the lid off a glass jar, and the rich, buttery scent of caramel sends my mouth watering.
I’m dipping in a finger for a taste when the door creaks open.
I shove the jar back on the shelf, quickly sucking my finger clean, when the forest mouse appears in the crack.
Oh . I let out an exhale. It’s you.
The door opens wider, and Basten’s broad shoulders fill the space.
“Oh!” I cry. “It’s you .”
I pull in a breath laced with the rich sweetness of powdered sugar. I have the briefest glimpse at his handsome face—his hair raked back into a bun at his crown, his velvet-brown eyes simmering—before he closes the door to plunge us back into darkness .
“Sabine.” His voice comes out of the void. “I asked the mouse to find a way to meet. We need to talk about how to get back to Astagnon.” His boots scrape on the floor, stirring up more spilled sugar. “Your father will broker the deal with Kendan Valvere over the next few days. Then, he’ll expect me to leave for Old Coros. I want you to come with me—if you’re willing.”
I blink at the deluge of information, landing on my first question. “Wait. Wait. You asked the mouse?”
A silence stretches, and he huffs a small laugh. When he speaks again, it’s more gentle. “You’d be amazed by how friendly I’ve become with animals since my early days of wanting to stomp on them.” A warmth bleeds into his voice—a teasing that’s so damn familiar I grip the nearest shelf to keep steady.
He continues, “I learned that Tòrr can spell things out with his hoof. It made me think I might be able to communicate with other animals. I showed the mouse your portrait in a locket, and she understood.”
She . It’s the first time I’ve heard Basten refer to any of my animal friends as something other than “it,” and I’m not prepared for how it makes my heart sing.
“Basten, if we’re caught planning to leave together…” I don’t have to finish the sentence.
His heavy boots scuff as he approaches in the dark. My breath lodges in my throat. I know that he can see every detail of the confectionary—of me—as clearly as if we were in daylight.
A shelf groans as he leans over me, bracing his arm, his body heat licking me up and down until my toes curl.
“Are you frightened?” There’s a beat before he adds, “Of being discovered together? I can go. ”
“No!” I suck in a cloud of powdered sugar. It dulls my mind, makes me think only of hunger. Makes me wonder if the sugar in the air would make his skin taste sweet, too.
“We’ve been caught before,” I whisper. “And we’re both still standing.”
His bicep tenses as it brushes against my temple. He breathes in, a hitch there that makes my heart thrum.
“You don’t remember.” My voice is soft, trying to hide my disappointment. “The altar at Lord Berolt’s funeral, when...” I trail off. “Never mind. You’ll remember everything when we get your memories back.”
He thieves another inch closer, his steps echoing. The fabric of his pants rustles as he shifts from foot to foot, and my stomach tightens, sensing something is wrong.
“About that.” His voice is deep. Strangely hollow. “I confronted Iyre. I found the bottle you spoke of, but it contained only blood.” He pauses. “There’s nothing in that tower room but pain. Paz? Her acolyte? His cadaver is there, drained of blood. The Tale of Iyre’s Memory Bottles is a lie. She doesn’t keep stolen memories bottled. She consumes them just like blood.” A hitch sticks in his throat. “My memories are gone. Our past—it’s gone.”
I feel for the shelves behind me, clinging to their sturdiness.
“Oh, Basten,” I breathe, hearing the pain in his voice.
I want to go to him, but there’s still this space between us. This void.
I can’t help but feel that I’m to blame in part. It was me that Iyre was after when she cut a portal into Astagnon. The fact that Basten was there was only bad luck. He was collateral damage. It aches down to my bones to know that every beautiful moment we’ve shared is burned into my brain, and yet, to him, I’m still a stranger.
“It breaks my heart for you,” I whisper, fighting the urge to reach out to him. “If there was anything in my power to?—”
He cuts me off by suddenly cupping my jaw, leaning in.
A gasp cuts across my tongue. It draws in the earthy, deep aroma of honey cakes. Basten towers over me, lips an inch away, as heat floods my lower half to the point that I have to squeeze my legs.
Kiss me. Please. Do it.
I find his shirt collar and bunch the fabric in my fist, feeling the overpowering urge to hold onto him. My arms ache to hold him. I pledged every one of my days to this man. Every night in his bed.
Still—he doesn’t kiss me.
Doesn’t hold me like he used to.
I swallow, hard, easing my grip on his shirt. “We can find another way. A godkissed person with the ability to restore memories, maybe. Or a potion.”
I feel his jaw tense against mine. “They’re gone , Sabine.”
My head falls back against a sack of pears. I swallow the saliva pooling in my mouth as I place both my hands on his chest, needing to feel the steadiness of his heartbeat. Memories flood me like flipping pages of a picture book. All our best days together. For him, now, all those pages are blank.
I whisper, “I don’t want to be a stranger to you.”
He shifts his stance, his knee brushing against my inner thigh. He considers his words carefully. “You aren’t a stranger—you’re just a dream that hasn’t happened yet.”
My toes go numb as all the blood rushes to the apex between my legs. It’s all I can do not to clutch his shirt. If it were up to me, his shirt would be unbuttoned right now, my dress bunched around my waist.
But this is all new to him. He’s grieving his lost memories that can never be recovered. He’s hurt. Give him time.
My head bobs in a nod.
Slowly, his lips brush my temple as he whispers, “I dreamed such things about you. Filthy, sinful dreams. I’ve never hated the gods more than when I saw you bent over one of them, your hot lips against his skin…” He stops short as though he’s spoken out of turn. Clearing his throat, he says more measuredly, “I thought it must be one of my dreams. You can’t fathom how insanely jealous I was to see you like that, to realize it was real.” He hesitates. “Wishing that it was me beneath your mouth.”
My eyelids sink halfway closed, lips aching.
I can feel his breath.
He’s so close.
I slowly slide my hands over his chest, near his shirt collar, where his matching birthmark resides. His skin is hot to the touch. Everything in Volkany is so cold. The wind. The floors. The fae. So, now, feeling his hot blood churning under my palm, I feel warm for the first time in weeks.
“You’ve been in the caramel pot, haven’t you?” he suddenly tuts, and before I can think, he pops my finger in his mouth and sucks off the sticky remnants.
My whole body pulls in a gasp as heat from his mouth radiates straight to my middle, legs squeezing until it aches.
“I skipped breakfast,” I blurt out.
He laughs as he releases my finger and, testingly, trails his lips over the back of my hand. His tongue darts out to lick my knuckle. “You taste like powdered sugar. It’s turning me into a salivating mess. This damn place—the scents are too tempting. I wish you could smell what I can smell. Ripe pears. Cloves. Violets .” He shifts again, his breath rasping. “Listen, Sabine, we don’t have to—to rekindle how we were. If you don’t feel comfortable with me?—”
I twist my hands in his shirt, jerking him forward. My voice is husky as I bark, “I want to.”
The silence stretches, our breaths strained, our muscles tense, wondering who will break the awful tension first.
Quietly, he runs his thumb over my collarbone and purrs, “Tell me—where did I touch you the first time that made you feel good?”
I silence a moan. By the gods, has there been a time he touched me that hasn’t felt good?
My throat constricts. Memories flood me of the first time we met in my family’s courtyard, when Basten lifted me, naked and spitfire-angry, onto Myst. At the time, I tried to ignore the spark. Told myself it was hatred instead of attraction.
I slide my hand over his, intertwining our fingers in the dark.
I murmur, “We were staying together at an inn. I told you I was nervous about my marriage. The wedding night. I asked you for a…bedroom lesson.”
A surprised laugh rolls out of his mouth. “You, in my bed, begging for a tumble? What good deed did I do in my life to earn that ?”
He laughs, but I can hear the pain there, too. The ache of wanting to remember.
I delicately kiss his knuckles one by one. “Well, I was trying to trick you. To escape.”
“Sabine, if you want to escape me, it’s as impossible now as it was then. Now that I have you, you’re mine.” He skims his thumb over my cheek and, achingly close to my lips, shifts into a deeper voice. “Did I give you a good lesson?”
My heart tumbles at the same time that the base of my belly tightens, catching me before I crash into a blubbering mess.
“You said that if I were yours, you would kiss me first here.” I lift his fingers to my lips.
“And then here…” I guide his hand to my jaw.
“And then here.” Our clasped hands hover over my birthmark as my voice grows husky again.
His broad hand slides around the back of my neck as he leans his weight against me, trapping me against the confectionary shelves.
“Do you think that’s a lesson that needs repeating?” he asks.
My breath stalls as he leans in for a kiss.
Our lips connect. Finally . His warmth floods into me, and I moan all the way down to my toes. His left arm encircles my waist, folding me into his body as tight as a button. His other hand roughly cups my cheek, his fingers plunging into my hair near my temple.
The way he kisses is like a storm: a slow rumble, then a crash, then a flood .
My skin snaps with a delicious itch that has me nuzzling my cheek against his, my hands desperately undoing the buttons at his collar so I can breathe in the woodsmoke scent of his bare skin.
Yes. Gods, yes .
It’s been so long apart. So many doubts. Fears. Longing. Suddenly, I’m like a frenzied animal as I trail my lips down his neck, tasting and licking more than kissing.
His head tips back. “Fucking gods . ”
“Powdered…sugar,” I moan breathily as I lick up the rough underside of his chin. “You taste…so good.”
I tug his shirt back over his shoulders, running the flat of my hand over the muscles that might as well be carved from hard oak. He spears his fingers through my hair at my nape and wrenches my head back to face his.
“Little violet.” His voice is husky, hesitant, testing out the nickname. “I dreamed so often about this. Having you. Loving you. For a long time, I didn’t have a damn hope in the world it would come true.”
He kisses the hell out of me, his lips as feral and possessive as I remember, but there’s something different. A thread he’s holding back. He doesn’t bite my lower lip as he knows I like; he doesn’t grind his hips against mine until I’m seeing stars.
I pull back, barely able to keep up with my own breath, and ask, “What’s wrong?”
He braces one arm on the confectionary shelf again, his chest rising and falling hard, his shirt falling loose on either side of his perfect abs.
“Nothing,” he says, but there’s a telltale hitch in his voice. “I just… I don’t know what you like .”
His words hit me like the snap of a breaking branch. How many nights have we spent exploring each other’s bodies, sharing secret desires whispered in the dark? We knew each other’s hearts in ways we’d never shared with anyone else.
But for him, this is our first kiss.
His bicep tenses under my touch, a raw wave of anger building in him, threatening to pull him into some black hole of frustration. I can feel him slipping—losing himself.
I grab his face between my hands, forcing him to meet my eyes in the dark, to stay with me, to not disappear into whatever storm is brewing inside him.
“Look at me,” I whisper, my voice steady even though my heart aches. Stay with me.
But the truth is—it hurts me, too. He’s here, and yet not. It’s like loving someone through dirty glass, when all I want is for him to see us clearly.
I say evenly, “I’ll show you. I’ll guide you this time. You and I, we couldn’t keep our hands off one another. There’s a reason your heart drove you here. We’re fated—hearts, minds, and bodies. You showed me what physical pleasure could be.” On impulse, I plunge my thumb into the open caramel jar and then tease it over his bottom lip as I whisper, “Now let me show you.”
His body shudders with desire. Feverish, he takes my thumb in his mouth. He licks off the liquid caramel with the raw hunger of a feral beast.
“Show me,” he says hoarsely. “Now.”
The stark command does something to me. My body gives a tremor of pleasure, my pussy clenching. It’s all I can do not to rake up my skirt and rub myself all over his leg. But he’s still holding back—literally. An agonizing inch separates our bodies.
With my back pressed against the shelves, I roll my hips enough to brush against the bulge tenting the front of his pants.
I moan at the friction. His hand tightens on the back of my neck. “Fucking hell, little violet.”
“Our first time,” I pant, “You were gentle. You warned me that you wouldn’t always be. That’s what I want now. Don’t treat me like a virgin. Definitely not like a princess. I want you to make love to me on this floor—hard. ”
Live coals burn in the base of my belly as I guide his hand to slide the strap off my shoulder. The front of my dress slumps down to rest above my peaked nipple, which strains through the fabric, begging for his sweet torture.
He shifts his stance, muscles flexing as he grips the shelf behind me harder, and it calls to mind a fighter in the arena, adrenaline and testosterone demanding release in the form of connecting flesh.
His cock strains at his pants—strains at me.
His hand hovers over my breast, hesitant, so slow it’s killing me.
“Stop being so damn respectful,” I growl, picking up his hand and roughly cupping it over my breast.
The fabric slips down another inch, my nipple springing free as it rubs against the hard callouses of his palm. I moan.
“That’s what you want, little violet?” He skims his thumb over the sensitive bud, teasing. His deep voice takes on a wicked lilt that makes all the blood pour straight into my groin. “For me to bend you over one of these sacks and fuck you until you moan?”
Oh . He learns fast .
I’m writhing against the shelves, back arching to drive my nipple harder against his hand. My elbow connects with a clay jar, which crashes to the floor and fills the room with the heady scent of plum sauce.
“Please, Basten,” I beg. “If I don’t feel your mouth on me in the next three seconds, I’m going to burst like a ripe pear.”
I jump as he grips the back of my neck, forcing my head up, his breath ghosting hot and heavy against my cheeks. There —there’s the positively filthy beast I know is prowling behind his veneer of gentlemanly tact.
“It was so fucking hot to see you like that,” he pants. “Cheeks flushed, lips dripping with whiskey, tongue still tasting of that fae bastard’s sweat. I could have killed Artain in that moment—only because I would have traded the entire world to be in his place.”
I murmur, “You can take his place now.”
That does it.
He crushes his lips to mine, and I cling to him around the neck, afraid to let go. Now that he’s here—real, breathing, hot against me—I can’t imagine us ever being apart again.
For a dizzying number of days, I’ve been plunged in this topsy-turvy fae reverie where I don’t know left from right, up from down. I’ve danced with gods. Witnessed feats that until now were reserved for fiction. Felt the crackle of pure, powerful fey.
And all I can think, as our lips meet with a relentless devotion, is how he is a hundred times worthier than the gods. Every drop of blood in his veins is human, and yet the raw power I feel under his skin brings me to my knees.
I vocalize a needy moan, and Basten grabs my breast almost painfully, driving me back against the shelves with one knee thrust between my legs. I drag my skirt around my hips. My thin silk panties are soaked. I straddle his thigh, holding onto his shoulders for leverage while I buck against him.
“Down on your knees,” he barks, voice ragged with desire.
I fumble to the floor in the darkness, hands skimming over the flour sacks. The air is still kissed with powdered sugar, and I lick my lips, salivating.
His boot scuffs as he approaches me from behind, sending a delicious shiver of anticipation to form a chokehold around my heart.
Glass clinks together as he rummages through the shelves, searching for something I can only guess. There’s a scrape as he drags a sack to the door, blocking it—and a wild rush of fear lands hard on me, realizing how dangerous this is.
Under my father’s own roof…
Basten presses a bottle into my hand. “Go ahead, then, little violet. Play your games with me.”
I uncork the bottle and sniff. Whiskey.
As my breath strains, I pat the darkness until my fingers locate his bare chest. He’s leaning back against a flour sack, his legs splayed on the floor. I straddle him, and he groans as I settle myself flush with his hips.
“The Meden Cup is the prize of victors.” I feel down his chest to locate his navel. The scent of ripe pears mixes with the whiskey, the caramel, the sugar…I can barely stop from drooling. “And you won me long ago, Basten Bowborn.”
I slosh the whiskey over the dip in his abdomen, then set the bottle down and lean forward until my hair brushes his bare stomach. His muscles tighten, the liquid seeping down over my fingers. Trying to catch it, I seal my lips over his navel and suck.
His groan roars out of him at the same time that his stomach muscles tense like bowstrings. “That’s it. Fuck. Keep going. Lick me everywhere, you filthy girl.”
I run my tongue over his washboard ridge of muscles, marred by puckered, long-healed scars from countless fights.
Breathing hard, I reach for his belt’s clasp.
“I want to taste you,” I choke out.
His muscles shudder under my fingertips, a ripple that pulses all the way down to the bulge pressing against my hips. Sweat drips down his chest, the saltiness mixing with the earthy tang of whiskey.
His hand in my hair guides my head lower, to the cock that springs free when I finish unbuckling his belt.
In the darkness, I run one hand over its velvet shaft, marveling at the girth of it. My needy pussy throbs, soaking my panties, weakening my knees.
Tentatively, I run my tongue over the tip, swallowing down the first salty drop. His ass flexes as his groin thrusts up at me.
“Take me in your mouth,” he orders hoarsely. “Suck me until you’re choking on my come—and then swallow every drop.”
My skin erupts in goose bumps as I line up my lips with his straining cock.
It’s been a while since I did this, and I feel a flutter of doubt.
This is our new first time together—I want it to be perfect.
I wrap my lips around his cock, gently sucking as I bob my head up and down.
“Oh, fuck,” he moans. “Oh, that’s so fucking sweet.”
I move faster, relaxing my throat to take more of him. My lips still taste like whiskey, and it’s the most alluring, sinful sensation to fill my throat with his cock. His fingers tighten in my hair, guiding my head in a rhythm that matches the thrusts of his hips.
“That’s it. Gods, you have no idea how beautiful you are like this. I wish you could see what I can see. Wish you could taste the air—it’s a mixture of your cunt’s sweet juices and ripe pears. After this, I’m going to lick you until I finally get my fill.”
My swollen pussy throbs harder. My skirt is up around my backside, the cool basement air chilling my damn underclothes. My hips squirm in the air as I lean over Basten, needy and impatient, sucking him.
“Just like that,” he pants, thrusting so deep into me that my eyes water. “I’m going to come now, little violet. Take it. Every drop.”
I brace myself as his cock stiffens before pulsing out a hot ribbon of cum. It hits the back of my throat, making me temporarily gag, but I pull back and swallow.
Breathless, I wipe my lips.
“Good girl,” he growls between breaths. “That’s my good fucking girl. Now—come here.”
He moves fast and confidently in the darkness. Before I know it, I feel the press of the cold stone floor at my back. He pushes my skirt up around my waist with a fevered touch, then traces his fingers worshipfully down my exposed hips until he hooks his thumbs in my panties.
Slowly—torturously—he pulls them down over my thighs.
His ragged sigh falls heavy over the darkness as he kisses my skin. “You. You. You.”
I’ve barely pushed up to my elbows when he buries his face between my legs. The surprise of it makes my hips buck, and his hands come down to grip the curves of my hip bones, holding my lower half steady as he attacks me with his mouth.
“I want to devour you,” he murmurs while his tongue does punishing things to my wet heat. “I want to lick you from the inside out like a cream- filled tart.”
Dear gods.
He takes my swollen clit between his teeth, gently biting down.
“I…missed…you,” I murmur between heaving breaths. “I feared I’d…I’d never see you again. I need to feel you in me. Claim me, Basten…Take me…I want to hear you moan my name so loud that you’ll never forget.”
My muscles are so tightly wound. Every inch of my body demands release. I’m so damn famished, so primed to be taken. I squirm on the floor, knees splayed open like a whore.
“I’ll never forget you now that I have you.” He grips my hips, flipping me over so that I’m draped over a flour sack, my skirt around my waist, my bare ass in the air. Like this, I can’t see him, but everything is only blackness to me anyway.
Still, my bare skin tingles with anticipation.
He delivers a sharp slap to my ass that has me crying out.
“Quiet now.” He positions himself over me, wrapping his big hand around my mouth. With his free hand, he lines up his impatient cock—rock hard again—with my pussy from behind. The tip nudges against my wetness with a slick sound, and I whimper into his palm, wriggling my hips insistently.
There’s a clatter of crockery, and then he thrusts his big middle finger into my mouth. It’s dipped in honey, the sticky-sweetness coating my throat as I suck on his finger.
At the same time, he slides into me from behind.
I’m hit with a burst of pleasure that prickles all the way down to my toes. I’m filled from both ends with him. He thrusts his honeyed finger in and out of my lips in rhythm with the pumping of his hips.
And, gods, I love this. Feeling so full. Having him nearly everywhere he can be.
“I’m going to make you come so hard,” he growls in my ear as a drip of sweat from his brow falls on my bare shoulder. “That you forget there was anything before this moment. The past doesn’t fucking matter, because I’m going to make you come every day from today on. Every night, too.”
He rides me hard, fingers coiled almost painfully against my scalp, thrusting into me from behind with a possessiveness even more wild than ever before. He has more to lose now. He’s lost me once, and he’s determined not to do so again.
“Come, princess,” he coaxes. “You’re ready. You’re nearly there. Your pussy is begging for me to break it apart…but you have to let go.”
He reaches one hand to the place where our bodies connect, wetting his fingers in my juices, then tormenting my swollen clit with his deft fingers. A moan tears out of my throat, barely muffled by his palm against my lips.
Death—that’s what would happen if we’re caught. But for him? I’d risk Woudix’s wrath and more.
I let my eyes sink closed. “Gods, Basten. Yes. That’s it.”
He speeds his thrusts, the friction making me feral as I slam my hips back to meet his. He slaps my ass again—so hard and unexpected—that I break apart.
Gasping, I collapse over the flour sack as waves of pure electricity snap through my body. My muscles tense and pulse before finally going slack.
I suck in deep breaths, dizzy with the aftermath of an orgasm that’s still leaving my knees shaking.
Basten cleans me up with a kitchen towel from one of the shelves, then gathers me back into his arms, gently stroking my hair.
It’s an echo of when we made love in the waterfall cave. My heart tightens at the memory, knowing he doesn’t recall it. Still, I know that we could lose one another in a thousand lifetimes, but we would always find our way back, for another— new —first love.