Chapter Forty-Two #2
His rhythm increases, and a primal growl tears from his throat.
Gods.
Her pleasure crests, like it’s reaching for something.
“Just not this one,” she whimpers.
A moan rips free, and she grinds her hips, driving into the balls of her feet, lifting her ass high for perfect access. Instinct. Primal, raw, desperate instinct takes over.
“Come for me, Seren. Take your pleasure,” Teddy encourages.
And the words push her to the brink of her pleasure. She teeters on the edge of rapture, and then he says the one thing that tips her over—
“You deserve every pleasure, Seren. Take it from me.”
She does.
And bliss detonates.
It tears through her like light through darkness—too bright, too much, too real to contain.
Wild, whirling, heady bliss floods her. Blooming out from her core like an electrical charge with too much force. Her back bows off the bed in ecstasy, her nails pressing into the soft flesh of her breasts.
Teddy’s rough hands grip her hips, and that’s when she realizes:
He’s losing himself, too.
She tightens around him, her pleasure wringing him out, just as he did for her.
He shudders, hips bucking and jerking of their own accord. He moans deeply, all ruin and relief, and the sound drags her final pleasure from her.
“You feel so good, Seren. Gods,” he groans, shaking his head like he’s thoroughly undone by her.
Her muscles soften, relaxing, wringing herself out, letting herself go.
He spills inside of her, wet warmth filling her, as he leans forward, forehead pressing against hers like devastation and devotion in a single motion.
For a moment, neither of them moves, like they are both quietly grieving something not yet gone. As if stillness might hold this together just a little longer. As if he’s realizing what this means. As if he’s realizing this is the end for them.
He kisses her forehead, but it feels different. Not affection, this time.
No—this feels heavier.
More final.
Because this is goodbye.
His eyes are closed as their foreheads rest against each other.
She already knows what he’s going to say. She’s known from the beginning.
“I made a vow, Seren,” he breathes, like the words say a thousand words he’ll never be able to give voice to.
“I know,” she replies. A devastated sigh slips from her lips. Her hands thread through his hair, caressing him. Because fuck—every part of her wishes he never made that godsdamned vow, and she hates herself for wishing it.
“I love you for the man you are, Teddy. The kind of man whose word is sacred,” she murmurs low. “But I hate that it’s also the reason we’ll never have anything beyond this moment.”
He huffs a short, pained breath. “I’m sorry I cannot give you what you deserve,” he breathes, his voice broken and jagged.
“I know,” she admits, though it breaks her heart to say it. “But thank you for giving me this.”
Teddy rolls himself off, lying beside her, and pulling her into the nook of his shoulder.
“I don’t deserve your gratitude, Seren.”
Seren looks up at him, brushing her golden curls from her face. “I know you cannot give me your heart, Teddy. But will you give me something else?”
“Anything,” he promises with no hesitation.
Her hands cup his face. “I know you would die for your family, your friends… but will you live for them? Will you live for me?”
He stills. The words steal Teddy’s breath. Silence deafens the room.
So Seren continues. “Forgive yourself. Making mistakes does not condemn you to a life of self sacrifice. You do not need to put yourself at the bottom of your own life. Your life matters, Teddy. You matter.”
Teddy’s fingers draw circles on her arm. He does not speak for a long time. Just lies with her in his arms.
“I think… somewhere along the way, I forgot I was allowed to.” The words slip from his lips like confession.
Devastation floods Seren’s chest for the man who feels so unworthy of a life that he hands it over to everyone else—his protection, duty, service. But she understands, too. That he is a man who was never able to survive becoming half of himself.
“You make me want things again, Seren. Dangerous things. Futures. Peace. You,” Teddy admits. “You make me remember there’s more to life than surviving it.”
Seren’s not sure if her heart breaks or mends. She’s the one he loves, and the one he can’t choose.
“But I can’t,” Teddy admits. “Not until we’ve won. Not until I see my people safe.”
Her heart chooses—it breaks.
Seren nods.
Because despite herself, she understands that loving Teddy means loving the parts of him forged by loss, too.
“Then go get your sister, Teddy. We need to prepare for the conclave,” Seren says coolly. Not unkindly, just with the kind of efficiency that comes with certainty. The kind of efficiency that comes with belonging only to herself.
She knows what they are now: a moment. Not a future. They will never be. And somehow, that doesn’t undo what this was. It only makes it sharper. More real. More devastating. And that truth lodges in her chest like a splinter.
She pushes herself up to sit, and moves to gather her discarded leathers.
“I’ll meet you back here when the sun is setting. I’ll gather all of our allies, and take us to The Perils. And when I leave this room, the door on us is closed. I won’t wait for you, Teddy. This is the end for us,” she says, strength finding its way back into her voice.
“Okay,” he acknowledges, like a soldier receiving orders.
So Seren says the only thing that can justify love unlived. “I belong to myself.”
And it feels like enough.