Epilogue
Alyx
The desert was beautiful at sunset.
It was my favorite time of day to stand on the balcony at the highest room of the tower in the palace at Kelvadan. Kelvar had claimed it as our bedroom as soon as we reached it while exploring the structure for the first time.
From here, I could see the sands stretching endlessly in every direction, full of promise, and the solidity of the mountains protected my back.
Riding across the dunes with Kelvar had made me crave the openness of the horizon, and he had gifted it to me—both the security of a home and the freedom of endless possibilities.
Now I stood with my back to our new room, sparsely furnished as we were still settling in, and looked out at the city below us.
We weren’t the only ones still getting used to our new homes.
The streets were sparsely populated, mostly with a handful of riders from Clans Katal and Padra who had chosen to stay in the new city.
My father had ridden off with the rest of Clan Padra, and a rider Kelvar trusted took command of the remainder of Clan Katal.
Still, more and more clansmen from the other seven clans trickled in by the day.
Some were simply curious, while others had an inkling they would be better suited to a stationary home than their current nomadic situations.
I had even met a few other couples from mixed clan backgrounds when I walked through the city.
Already, I loved wandering the streets and talking to the new citizens, helping them adjust to the new ways of life and lending a healing hand when I could.
Several clans had stopped by the new city and brought me their ill and wounded, and something in me blossomed at the opportunity to serve the desert and all her clans like this.
I could scarcely believe that Kelvar had given me all this.
As if summoned by my thoughts, he joined me on the balcony.
His arms wound around my waist, and I leaned back into his chest. I was glad to feel their strength after spending almost a full day unconscious from healing his injured arm.
Even then, I had insisted on checking it daily, ensuring I had knit his muscles and tendons together just right.
“And how is my queen this evening?” Kelvar asked now, leaning down to speak the words right into the shell of my ear.
I wrinkled my nose, even as the tickle of his breath sent shivers down my spine.
“I still feel odd being called that,” I admitted.
Neither Kelvar nor I had declared ourselves a king or a queen.
We had simply moved into the palace and said any were welcome to call the city home.
But as we began helping the citizens and mediating the inevitable disputes, people began using the titles automatically.
I still blushed and stammered when somebody attached the honorific to my name, and I sensed Kelvar enjoyed it, finding every excuse possible to call me Queen Alyx.
“It’s what you are though,” he insisted now. “You’ve been my queen ever since the first time I laid eyes on you. And now you have a city with which to share your bravery and beauty.”
I shook my head. “I can’t believe you did this for me.”
“I’d rip the foundations of the earth asunder for you if I had to,” he promised. “I still can’t believe you insisted on naming it after me.”
I turned in his arms, putting my hands flat on his chest. “I want everyone to see your greatness when they look at this city. I want this to be a testament to your power—evidence of the beauty of that storm that lives beneath your skin, that everybody will remember for centuries to come.”
“But it’s not.” Kelvar shook his head, using his hand on my lower back to pull me flush against him.
My stomach fluttered despite how often this had happened in the past few weeks.
“This is not a testament to my power but to my love for you. If I had had my way, I would have named it after you. So, a good long while from now, when we pass this same city to our children, and their children, and their children’s children, they will all look at it in awe and say, ‘Never before has a man so loved his wife.’”
“Our children?” I asked with a hitch in my breath.
I did not miss the way Kelvar’s magic shivered as I said the word, and mine twitched in return. The entanglement of our power only seemed to grow deeper by the day, and I had no desire to pull it apart—I wasn’t even sure it would be possible.
Kelvar smiled with mischief, and the warmth that had already been growing in my blood dripped down my spine at the expression.
“Yes,” he insisted, leaning forward and kissing my neck. “Someday, I’ll give you as many children as you desire. And I will enjoy making them immensely.”
The liquid desire pooling in my gut caught fire at the thought. “Show me,” I tried to demand, although my voice came out breathless. “Show me just how much you’ll enjoy it.”
Kelvar nipped at my earlobe, and I felt him smile against my neck. “Of course, my queen.”
The next thing I knew, my feet left the ground, Kelvar’s hands under my thighs hoisting me into the air. I let him carry me, trusting in his strength as I tried to distract him with my lips on his jaw and my hands plunging into his hair.
He huffed against my skin in amusement at my enthusiasm, laced with a hefty amount of his own desire.
Once he deposited me on the bed, he stared down at me for a moment.
My hair spread around me, and I beamed broadly before reaching up for him.
But he shook his head, instead lowering his hands to my thighs where the nightgown I had donned for bed had ridden up.
“I want to see you,” he insisted, sliding it up before lifting it over my head and tossing it to one side.
“You too,” I challenged, raising my chin at him. He wasted no time stripping off his own tunic and pants. In the fiery orange light of the rapidly setting sun, he seemed bathed in fire—all hard lines and lethal grace. He was the dangerous beauty of the desert incarnate, and he was mine.
Now I drew him down to me, and he did not resist, dipping his head to devour my mouth. I sighed as his scent and warmth enveloped me, even as his hard length against my hip lit something primal in me.
I bucked against him, trying to gain friction. Kelvar responded by snaking one hand between us while the other tangled in my hair and held me still.
“You know I’ll take care of you, Flower,” he chided, slowly tracing my sex.
I squirmed, nearly embarrassed by the slickness he found already gathered there.
But he smiled as his fingers slipped through my folds, and if the way his cock strained toward me was any indication, his desire was just as urgent.
Still, he slowly stroked me, to the point I was nearly blind with pleasure before he removed his fingers. Finally, he replaced his hand with his hard length and began sliding inside. I threw my head back and gasped, still made breathless by the stretch.
It was perfect.
When he finally worked himself all the way inside and began to move, I wrapped my legs around his powerful hips, and we both gasped at the way it angled him impossibly deeper.
His hands were everywhere—pushing my hair away from my face, stroking my cheeks, trailing down my sides, and leaving goosebumps in their wake.
It was so much, but I would never have enough of Kelvar.
I closed my eyes and let myself pitch into the flow of magic between us. Even as he moved inside me, his storm danced in my flesh, and my magic bloomed in his own chest.
“Alyx,” he gasped.
“Kelvar,” I echoed back, my voice a broken sob as I hurtled toward the edge.
Our pleasure crested together, reverberating back and forth in our magic in endless waves until nothing was left but sparks skittering over our skin. We gasped for breath as I managed to open my eyes, meeting Kelvar’s as he pressed his forehead to my own.
We stayed like that for long minutes. When Kelvar did eventually pull his length from me and arrange us on our sides, he kept his forehead pressed to mine.
“Forever,” he said, unprompted. “I built this city for you to last forever. And our love will last even longer. Even in eternity, I will not be parted from you.”
I smiled, wrapping my arms around his shoulders and pulling him close. I did not doubt his power to make it so.
“I look forward to eternity.”
Continue the legend of Kelvadan and The Ballan Desert in BLOOD OF THE SANDS.
An exile desperate for belonging. A masked warlord doomed by the magic in his blood. A bond that could save the Ballan Desert—or destroy the world as they know it.