Chapter 47
Chapter Forty-Seven
Alice
Abrianna Acosta was the total opposite of Alanna. She cared about everyone—insisting rooms be found for all of us, fussing over Bunny's children, making sure the harpies had space to stretch their wings in the stables.
Havenwood was a castle, but surprisingly, the rooms were luxurious without being gaudy.
Not ornate like Alanna's palace. No garish pink. No cold marble. No cruelty hiding behind gilded frames.
These rooms had a homey feel to them. Dark wood paneling. Overstuffed furniture you could sink into. Thick rugs. Warm fireplaces crackling in every hearth.
This was where Darius grew up.
He was a prince.
I ran my fingers along the carved mantel, trying to picture him as a boy running through these halls. Playing with Armond. Hiding from Lucien. Learning to fly in the mountain air.
No wonder he'd fought so hard to survive. He had this to come back to.
Darius came up behind me and kissed the back of my neck. "Come with me."
He clasped my hand and led me upstairs.
I didn't ask where we were going. I didn't care. As long as I was with him, nothing else mattered.
"Where are we going?"
"To my bedroom."
Uneasiness swept through me. My cheeks heated.
He stopped and turned to face me, his silver eyes soft. "You're my mate." He lifted my hand and kissed the back of my wrist. "Everyone knows that now. Mates don't sleep apart."
He opened a door to a huge room with a king-size bed draped in deep emerald velvet. A picture window dominated one wall, looking over the mountains. Heavy curtains in gold and green framed the view. A glass door led out onto a patio.
I took it all in—the dark wood furniture, the stone fireplace, the paintings of dragons soaring over mountain peaks.
A worn leather chair sat in the corner, a stack of old books beside it.
This was Darius' room. Where he'd slept as a boy.
Where he'd dreamed before he got trapped in the Elder Dimension.
He set his hat on the bed and peeled off his pink jacket with a look of disgust. "Would you like to change? I know I do." He tossed the jacket into the corner. "I'm never wearing pink again."
He turned back to me, his expression softening. He ran his hand down my arm. "My mom is bringing some clothes for you. Your tunic and leggings need to be washed, beautiful."
There was a knock on the door. Abrianna opened it and stepped inside, her arms full of clothing.
"Dinner will be at seven, so you two have time to clean up and get settled." She set down a pair of jeans, a black sweater, and undergarments on the bed. "These are from Raven. The undergarments are new, and I think they'll fit you, Alice."
My throat tightened. Clean clothes. A real bath. After days of filth and blood and dungeon stench, it sounded like heaven.
She crossed the room and pulled me into another hug. "Thank you for returning my son to me." She cupped my cheek gently. "You're family now."
Family. That word meant so much to me and tears welled in my eyes. “Thank you.”
“I’ll see you both at seven.” She closed the door, leaving us alone.
The silence settled around us. I was here. In Darius' home. His family had welcomed me—not as a guest, but as one of them. For the first time in my life, I belonged somewhere.
Darius took my hand and led me into a bathroom I hadn't noticed was there. I stopped in the doorway, my breath catching.
Marble everywhere—floor, walls, counters—all in soft shades of cream and gray. A walk-in shower with multiple heads took up one corner, the glass doors etched with delicate patterns. But the sunken tub stole my attention.
It was enormous, carved into the floor like a small pool, and I could already imagine steam already rising from the water.
Candles lined the edge, and their flames would look beautiful flickering against the stone.
A window looked out over the mountains, the last light of day painting the sky in shades of purple and gold.
“This is your bathroom?”
He shrugged as he turned on the shower—a massive rain head mounted in the ceiling, water cascading down like a warm waterfall. "Home, sweet home."
He ripped off his pink shirt and tossed it on the floor with a look of relief. Like shedding Alanna's hold on him one piece at a time.
I glanced at my appearance in the mirror. Dirt and sweat were plastered to my face. My hair was tangled and matted. Dark circles shadowed my eyes. "I'm a freaking mess."
Darius appeared behind me in the mirror, his silver eyes warm. "You're a beautiful mess." He slowly pulled my tunic up over my head, his fingers trailing against my skin. “My beautiful mess."
With each layer he removed, I felt something else fall away. The dungeon. The chains. The fear. Alanna's cruelty. All of it, peeling off like a second skin I no longer needed.
Steam slowly swirled around the bathroom. Even with the warmth, the cool air made my nipples bud.
No fear. No hesitation. Just him and me and this moment we'd fought so hard to have.
He kissed my shoulder, and I shivered. "Darius."
I turned in his arms to face him. His silver eyes burned into mine as he shed the rest of his clothes—pants, boots, everything—until he stood before me bare. My breath caught. He was beautiful. Scarred and strong and mine.
He hooked his fingers into my leggings and slowly pulled them down. I held onto his shoulders for balance and stepped out of them.
For a moment, we just looked at each other. Skin to skin. Nothing between us.
Darius lifted me into his arms, one hand under my thighs, the other pressed against my back. I wrapped myself around him, feeling the heat of his body, the steady beat of his heart against my chest.
He carried me into the warm shower. Water pulsed against my skin, washing away the dirt, the sweat, the dungeon.
He reached for the shampoo on the shelf and poured some into his palm. "Let me take care of you."
I let out a shaky breath. I'd spent so long fighting. Surviving. Being strong. Maybe, just this once, I could let someone else carry the weight.
I turned my back to him. His fingers slid into my hair, massaging the shampoo into my scalp. Gentle circles. Slow and deliberate.
I closed my eyes and let out a soft moan. No one had ever done this for me. No one had ever taken care of me like this.
"Feel good?"
"Mmm." I couldn't form words. His fingers worked through the tangles, patient and tender. The scent of lavender filled the steam around us.
He tilted my head back under the spray, rinsing the suds away. His hands moved down to my shoulders, kneading the knots that had built up from days of hanging in chains.
Days of chains. It felt like a lifetime ago. And now here I was—safe, warm, and being touched with gentleness instead of cruelty. Tears mingled with the water running down my face.
"You're so tense," he murmured against my ear.
"It's been a rough few days."
He let out a soft laugh. "That's an understatement."
He poured conditioner into his palm and worked it through the ends of my hair, his fingers gentle, unhurried. Like we had all the time in the world. Like Alanna didn't exist. Like it was just us.
But she had existed. And I remembered standing in that throne room, watching him kneel before her. Hearing him reject me. Believing every word.
"I thought I'd lost you," I whispered.
His hands stilled. Then he turned me to face him, water cascading over us both.
His silver eyes searched mine. I traced the lines of his face—the sharp jaw, the cheekbones, the shadows beneath his eyes that hadn't been there before.
He looked exhausted. Haunted. But underneath all of it, he was still my Darius.
"Never." He cupped my face in his hands. "You will never lose me, Alice."
He kissed me softly, his lips warm against mine while his calloused hands traced the curve of my hips, the dip of my waist. I wrapped my arms around his neck, fingers tangling in the damp curls at his nape as I returned his kiss with gentle pressure.
He pulled away, eyes holding mine, and reached for the bottle on the ledge.
The sharp, clean scent of pine filled the steamy air as he poured a generous dollop of emerald soap into his palm.
He ran his hands over me in slow, deliberate circles, the lather building between us, slick and warm against my goosebumped skin.
He slipped his fingers into my core, the pads of his fingertips dragging against my slick inner walls as he inched them in and out with deliberate patience. I gasped, my nails digging into his shoulders. Heat coiled low in my belly, tight and urgent.
Each slow thrust built a delicious pressure that radiated outward from my center. I reached between his legs and cupped his balls, feeling their weight and warmth in my palm, the soft skin tightening under my touch.
Mine. He was mine. Not Alanna's. Never Alanna's. Every touch was proof—every gasp, every shudder. He belonged to me.
“Oh, Alice.” He groaned, a deep, guttural sound that vibrated through his chest and against my skin.
Hearing my name on his lips like that—wrecked, desperate—sent a thrill through me. I did this to him. Me.
He kissed me deeply, his lips tasting of salt and pine. "I want you with me always."
I panted, my breath catching in my throat. "Do you really?"
"Yes, you're mine." He planted kisses down my throat, each one a burning brand against my skin. "And this is your home now, Alice Ravencrest."
Home. The word wrapped around my heart and squeezed.
I'd never had a home. Not really. The coven had never accepted me. Earth had never felt like I belonged. Even the Elder Dimension had been a prison disguised as a fairy tale.
But here, in Darius' arms, with water cascading over us and steam curling around our bodies—I finally understood what home meant.
It wasn't a place. It was a person.
It was him.
"I don't deserve this," I whispered.
He pulled back, his silver eyes fierce. "Don't ever say that. You deserve everything, Fate. Everything."
I wanted to argue. The coven's voices still echoed in my head—worthless, unwanted, a mistake. But the way he looked at me... maybe, just maybe, I could learn to believe him.
I reached up and dragged my fingers through his tangled hair—dark as midnight and coarse from the journey through the portal. Dirt and remnants of the Elder Dimension still clung to him.
"Let me wash your hair," I said softly.
He smiled—a real smile, not the broken one I'd seen in Alanna's court. "You don't have to."
"I want to." I reached for the shampoo. "You took care of me. Now it's my turn."
He turned, and I poured the shampoo into my palm. I worked it through his hair, my fingers massaging his scalp the way he'd done for me. He let out a low groan, his shoulders finally relaxing.
"God, that feels good."
I smiled against his back, pressing a kiss between his shoulder blades. "I know."
We stood there under the warm spray, washing away the nightmare. The dungeon. The betrayal. Alanna's cruelty. All of it swirling down the drain.
Darius turned and pulled me against his chest. His heartbeat was steady under my ear.
"I love you, Alice."
Three words. Simple words. But they filled every hollow place inside me—every crack left by rejection, every wound carved by loneliness. I'd spent my whole life starving for those words. And now they were mine.
Tears pricked my eyes. "I love you too."
“I want you.”
I gave him a crooked smile as his hard, throbbing flesh pressed against my inner thigh, hot as a brand. “Yes, I can feel that.”
But it was more than physical wanting. More than need. He wanted me—all of me. The broken parts. The scared parts. The parts I'd hidden from everyone else. And I wanted to give them to him.
He lifted my trembling thighs with his strong calloused hands, positioning them around his hips as his arousal pressed insistently against me, the heat of him scorching through me like wildfire.
I kissed him deeply, tasting the salt of his skin, breathing in his familiar scent of sweet pine. “Take me, Darius.”
He plunged into me with one powerful thrust, filling me completely, stretching me until pleasure bordered on exquisite pain. My breath caught as sensation rippled through my core, making me gasp his name into the darkness.
My body welcomed him deeper, my fingernails digging into his broad shoulder blades as we moved together.
I rocked my hips, our bodies slick with sweat and droplets of water, meeting his urgent rhythm with my own desperate need.
Pleasure surged through my veins like electricity, hot and insistent, and I arched my back against the slick tile wall as my orgasm crested in waves.
The water from the shower pulsed down on our entwined bodies, steam rising around us in a cloud that made the bathroom feel like another world entirely.
My whole body tingled from my curling toes to my fingertips digging into his shoulders, and I cried out his name as I came undone completely.
Darius' rhythm intensified, his fingers digging into my hips as he drove deeper with each thrust. His muscles tensed beneath my palms, a sheen of sweat making his skin glisten in the dim light.
When he finally threw back his head, the tendons in his neck stood out like cords, his face transformed in that moment of abandon as he cried out—half growl, half my name—and I felt the warm pulse of his release deep within me.
This was different. Before we'd come together in passion, in desperation, in a stolen moment. But this—this was something deeper. We'd almost lost each other. And now every touch, every breath, every whispered word felt like a promise. A vow. A beginning.
“I could get used to doing this every day,” he panted as he stared into my eyes.
I locked my arms around his neck and held his gaze. For a long moment, neither of us spoke. We didn't need to. Everything we felt—the love, the relief, the promise of tomorrow—passed between us in the silence.
Finally, I smiled. "Me too. But don't you think we should get ready for dinner?"
He leaned his forehead against mine, still pumping slowly inside me. “Probably. They’ll all be waiting for us with a thousand questions.”
“The water’s getting cold,” I said.
“I know.” He slowly lowered my trembling thighs and pulled out of me.
I leaned into him, reluctant to let go. We'd have dinner. Questions. Responsibilities. But right now, I just wanted five more minutes of being his—nothing else, no one else, just us.
He turned, positioning his body between me and the cool air as he reached to turn off the water.
We stepped out of the shower, and he wrapped a thick towel around me. For a moment, I let myself sink into the warmth. The safety.
But as I dried off, my nerves tightened again. Dinner with the king and queen of Havenwood. His entire family watching me, judging me.
I couldn't help but think this was a test—like it had always been at the coven. Prove yourself. Earn your place. One wrong move and you're out.
I stared at my reflection in the foggy mirror.
I just hoped I passed.