Chapter 28
Kael
The doors to my quarters swung open, one push of my magic rippling through the halls as tiny bolts of lightning melted into the walls. Evie clung to me so she wouldn’t fall as I pushed her inside.
I kissed her again and again, as if she had become the breath I needed. Her lips, soft and burning against mine, were a new craft I hungered to master. Her tongue brushed mine, the taste of her slipping through me like a potent draught. That was the taste of acceptance.
Her hands ached to undress me, but I caught her in my arms and she could hardly move.
I, however, had perfect command over her robe and slid it from her shoulders in a breath.
One quick work of my fingers and I loosened her breeches, easing them down her legs.
Every piece of clothing she wore pooled at our feet.
She stood there, naked, wrapped in that delicious scent of roses in the heart of the solar.
Moonlight seeped through the great windows that opened to the ocean and wrapped her in silver.
She was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. Her legs trembled as my gaze traveled over her. Her hair, loose, fell to the small of her back and covered her swollen breasts. Through the dark brown curls, I could still see her nipples, hardened by the cold of the castle, peaking through.
She looked around briefly, likely thinking that though my quarters were fit for a king in size, they were empty and bare. Nothing like hers, where she’d made a proper home.
That was right. I had been to her quarters. I’d seen the careful drape of blankets, the furniture placed with quiet intention, the small touches that made the room hers. She just hadn’t seen me standing there.
I brushed her hair aside and took a nipple in my mouth, swirling my tongue in circles to pull those delicious gasps from her. Her hands tried to undress me again, and I released a pulse of magic to keep her in place.
Which she echoed right back to me.
Now I was trapped by my own spell, immobilized.
That’s new.
She smiled, surprise and pride mingling in her eyes.
She went down on her knees, slid the breeches and the rest off me, and took my cock in her hands.
I couldn’t move. Couldn’t lace my fingers through her hair and pull.
Couldn’t touch her. Couldn’t slap that beautiful face so she’d know she was all mine.
All I could do was get hard.
She took my hard length in her mouth and sent my blood boiling. The rush of pleasure made me twitch.
The storm was quiet after the battle, but the rest of me wasn’t.
She glided along my shaft with her sweet mouth, starting a fire inside me that I felt would burn forever.
She was slow, teasing, her eyes trapping mine and not letting go.
Oh, I was going to punish her for this. I was going to fuck her in every corner, every shadow of this place.
I was going to make her scream for me to stop and beg for me to continue.
One push of magic through my skin and I broke free.
I ran my fingers through her hair and pulled her off me, drawing her back to her feet.
I flipped her over, holding her by the neck, and led her to my dining table, where I bent her over and entered her.
She screamed as I tore through her in rapid thrusts.
With one hand, I slid between her thighs and worked my fingers around the bud of pleasure that would be my obsession for the next moments.
I swirled, faster and faster the louder she moaned.
“Kael…” she barely uttered between breaths. “I’m going to… I’m going to… ah…”
Harder. I fucked her harder. “I know, my love. Come apart for me.”
And she did. Screaming my name and twitching like she was possessed.
“Good girl,” I said, stroking her back.
I reached for her hair again and pulled her up. I slipped out of her, turned her around, and lifted her. We’d go to the sofa next.
I laid her gently on the warm, dark blue velvet. I kissed her, biting into her lips until she wriggled beneath me. I glided down her body, kissing, licking, biting every inch of her, then I buried my face between her thighs and worked to shatter her again.
She screamed my name again, writhing and arching her back from what I did to her.
It got me harder than I’d ever been.
I rose back on top of her and entered her with one swift thrust, her insides still clenching around my cock from the second orgasm I’d just given her.
I fucked her again, hard. She held on to me, arms wrapped around my neck, holding on for dear life.
I fucked her so hard we both fell to the floor, onto the carpet that made a bed of white lilies. I kept fucking her—on my knees, holding her by the waist while I thrust inside her hard and deep. She could barely scream, her voice broken, her lips quivering.
She was a sight to behold.
After she came apart again, I withdrew from her, though it pained me, and helped her back to her feet.
She could barely walk at this point.
I lifted her up and carried her the way a prince carries his bride after a wedding, toward the canopy bed in my bedchamber. I walked slowly, drawing out the anticipation. Her lips explored my neck, pebbling my skin, and if she kept on like this, the storm would surely rise again.
“Kael?” she whispered, voice strained.
“Yes, my love?” I looked at her. Her eyes sparkled in the moonlight.
“I’m going back to the mountain tomorrow.”
My heart stumbled. I frowned. Was she truly thinking of that now? I needed to fuck the idea out of her before it rooted itself into a plan.
“I can’t let it lie,” she insisted. “I can keep silent, but we ought to do something. And you know it.”
I knew it all too well, but I didn’t want to think of it now. I wanted her for myself. I wanted the world to stop existing so there would be only us.
I set her down, her feet finding the floor. We stood there, naked in the moonlight, facing each other.
“How do you expect to lift the curse?” I asked, knowing she had no real notion of what to do and that we were improvising more than anything else.
She crossed her arms, hiding her chest. “I don’t know… yet. But I think I’ll know once we’re there.”
I scoffed. All I wanted was to pry her arms open so I could see those beautiful breasts. “So you’ll go to the most dangerous place in the kingdom without a plan?”
I expected her to snap at me, but she only looked up at me, lips parted, trembling slightly. “The most dangerous place in the kingdom is you, Kael.”
Touché.
She lifted her chin. “I’m a wizard, archmage, and magister. I’m pretty confident I can make sense of this.”
Confident Evie was the most beautiful thing to behold.
I closed the distance and seized her, forcing her to face me fully, my grip tight as if she might vanish. My mind was made in that moment. I would let her go, but I wouldn’t let her go alone. I would come with her.
“You are not to step where I cannot hear your heartbeat.” The words rumbled from my chest like thunder. Not a plea. A command. I pressed my forehead to hers. “If you leave, I will follow. If you fall, I will fall with you. Do you understand me?”
Evie nodded.
“We leave at dawn tomorrow,” I said. “Now let me make love to you on that bed.”
“Love?” The word slipped from her, shy and soft, and she seemed to regret it the moment it fell.
Yes, she’d heard it right. And I admitted it to myself now, fully and without escape. Because I loved Evangelina Corvo, and I had loved her for years.
I didn’t respond. The words would be frail and unready. She deserved better. More.
I would show her instead.
Our lips met again, and I carried her to the bed.
She parted her legs for me, a silent offering I answered with a low rumble in my throat.
I entered her deeply. My grip seized the headboard, a lever to plunge deeper with every thrust. One hand on her neck, I squeezed and squeezed until her eyes turned white.
I sent her everything, all of me, knowing she would catch my echoes and praying she would see all that I was.
I wanted her to see me as I was, as I had been, for her acceptance was the very breath that sent life through my soul.
Her eyes rolled up and closed, and for a fleeting moment, her heartbeat faltered. When she returned to me, I took her lips, a silent thanks for her surrender.
I made love to her until we both shattered, then I crumbled beside her and held her in my arms until sleep claimed her, her body so weary from what I had wrought.
I did not wish to sleep. I wished to savor this moment beside her and bask in the warm light of being truly seen.
Footsteps approached my quarters, dragging me back to reality after hours spent contemplating my beautiful doe.
I slipped away from the bed as silently as I could so I wouldn’t wake little snoring Evie. I also wanted to reach the door before a knock could come.
By the time I made it there, I already knew who stood on the other side. I opened it, stepped out, and closed it behind me before facing her.
She stood wrapped in a gray wool coat, two leather suitcases at her feet. Her blonde hair was pulled into a tight knot, and she carried the look of a woman leaving a place she would never return to.
“Hello, Kael.”
“Hello, Selena.”
“The siege is over, thanks to you. They’ve already begun rebuilding the gatehouse.” She drew a breath. “I wanted to see you before I…”
“Before you left.”
Perhaps it was this strange new elation that had unlocked old chambers in my mind, but when I looked at Selena, I didn’t see the woman I’d grown to despise.
I saw the choices we’d made. The things that had eaten us alive.
I saw the pain beneath the cold mask she wore.
I remembered the girl who cried for each death, who sat beside the dying in hospices and soothed their minds, who buried herself beneath a false righteousness we had all been forced to wear.
I saw what Drachenfels Keep had taken from her.
I saw the friend I’d lost…
“I’m sorry,” I said. “For everything.”
Surprise softened her face, and she smiled. “She’s really changing you. Foolish of me to think the Court Wizard was mine to change, when the gods had written another name beside yours.”
So she knew about Evie. Her eyes drifted to the door as if she could see straight through it. Then her smile faded, leaving only wistfulness in its wake.
I was about to apologize again, unsure why.
Maybe for everything that had happened. Maybe for not being the man she’d wanted.
But she stopped me with a raised hand. “I always knew, Kael. And I knew the moment I saw her at the Court that she’d always been the one.
The one you ran to when you vanished from your duties.
The one who filled your thoughts while you played the merciful hand of the king. ”
A pause. A single tear slipped down her cheek. But it was not sadness.
It was resolve.
“Selena…” I didn’t know what to say. I never did in moments like these. This was all new to me. “The night of the ball, I used you—”
“No, Kael,” she cut in. “I used you. I thought enough pain might drown the screams. But I was wrong.” She brushed the tear away.
“That’s why I’m leaving. There’s work I need to do if I want any peace, and I can’t find it here.
Not after everything that happened and everything that I did.
This place is my past. I must go find where my future lies. ”
“Where will you go?”
“I don’t know. And maybe that’s what’s most exciting.” She smiled, then lifted both suitcases. Before turning away, she added, “She sees the very best in you, Kael. For the sake of the entire kingdom, do not disappoint her.”
I smiled. “I’ll do my best.”
“Goodbye, Kael.”
“Goodbye, Selena.”
And she disappeared into the torch-lit shadows of the halls.
I returned to my bed, where Evie still lay sleeping. She had turned onto her side. I slipped beneath the covers and spooned her.
I couldn’t promise I would never disappoint her, but I could promise I’d try not to.
I stroked her long, dark brown curls and whispered into her ear, “I love you, Evangelina.”
She didn’t hear me.