Chapter 24 Violet
Violet
The world dissolved before I could take another breath.
One blink, and the dining hall was gone. The next, cool mist curled around my skin as moonlight fractured over water so still it looked like glass. The Starlight Lagoon stretched before us, glowing that deep, impossible blue, pulsing faintly in time with a heartbeat I kept forgetting was mine.
Sebastian’s shadows still clung to me. They wrapped around my arms, my waist, my ribs as if they knew I might come apart if they let go.
“I didn’t mean to,” I whispered.
“I know.”
“I didn’t—” I swallowed, shaking my head, trying to catch up to myself. “It’s too much.”
That was the truth of it. The fire. The wind. All of it. Every piece stacked on top of the other until there was no room left inside me.
“I can’t—I can’t hold it all.”
The admission scraped something raw out of my chest. I had thought I could handle it. Thought if I just kept pushing, kept controlling, kept pretending it wasn’t bigger than me, that it would settle.
But it wasn’t settling.
It was building.
Every day, it pressed harder against the inside of me, like it was trying to break through skin that wasn’t made to contain it.
“So let me help you,” he said.
“How?”
He didn’t answer with words.
His hand slid up my throat, fingers tracing along my jaw. The scent of water and him wrapped around me until I couldn’t tell which one I was breathing in more of. My magic stirred.
When his mouth found mine, the spark caught instantly.
Heat surged through me, spilling into my hands before I could stop it. Light flickered at my fingertips, small, uncontrolled bursts of flame skittering against his coat.
His shadows moved without hesitation.
They rose around us, curling through the light and swallowing it before it could spread.
I gasped and held my breath, panic locking around my ribs as I tried to shove the heat back down, to force it into something manageable—the way I always had.
He broke the kiss just long enough to press his forehead to mine.
“Breathe,” he murmured.
“I can’t,” I said, the words tearing out sharper than I meant. “If I do, it’ll—”
“You can,” he said.
His hands moved to the hem of my dress and pulled it up and over my head, the rush of cool air doing nothing to quiet the heat burning under my skin.
“Let it out,” he said, softer. “I’ve got you.”
His mouth brushed my neck, and my knees nearly gave out.
“Bash.” I put a hand against his chest, meaning to push him back—to stop this before it got worse—but my fingers curled instead, gripping his shirt and pulling him closer. “I don’t know how to control it.”
His shadows slid up my legs, cool where they touched, easing the sharpest edge of the heat.
“You crowned yourself,” he said against my ear. “Do you remember what happens at a Sovereign’s coronation?”
I swallowed. “Their full power awakens.”
“And you are half Sovereign and half Phoenix. You didn’t just wake a realm. You woke a power that has never existed before. And it isn’t meant to be contained.”
Fear hit fast and clean. “I’m scared,” I admitted. “It’s stronger than me.”
“I know.” His voice softened just enough to ease the tension in my chest. “But forcing it down is what almost got Bronwen hurt. What nearly tore the castle apart. And it will get you killed if someone pushes you hard enough.”
His lips brushed my neck again.
“We tried it your way,” he continued. “Control through restraint. Through fear. It’s not working.”
“Y-you knew?”
“Yes. I also know you well enough to let you prove that to yourself.”
His fingers hooked in my panties, and the pressure in my chest tightened again.
“But now, we’re doing it my way,” he whispered against my ear.
I stiffened. “Bash… I think you’re making it worse.”
His mouth curved faintly against my jaw. “Do you expect me to keep my hands off my mate until she learns control?”
I shook my head.
“Then trust me.” His eyes lifted to mine—steady, endless, anchoring me when everything else felt like it was slipping. “Let me help you draw it out. Until you learn how to stand with it, it’s going to fight you every time you try to bury it.”
My breath caught as his memory brushed mine, just enough for me to feel it.
“Before you knew you were mine,” he said, “I had to hold my shadows back from you. Every second. It felt like tearing something out of myself over and over again.”
My fingers tightened in his shirt. “You did?”
“Yes. Power like this needs release.” His forehead rested against mine again, steady, unyielding. “So let me help you.”
The word slipped out before I could think too hard about it.
“Okay.”
The air shifted the moment I said it.
His coat hit the ground, shadows peeling away from him until only skin and starlight remained. His face was calm—dangerously so—but the dark at his feet writhed, restless, answering the heat rolling off my skin.
He kissed me again—deeper this time, enough to steal what was left of my restraint. The world blurred. Fabric gave way as he ripped my panties off, then his hands gripped my thighs as he lifted me. Instinct took over as my legs wrapped around him as he carried me into the water.
The lagoon’s chill licked over my skin until the heat inside me fought back. Steam curled from the surface, rising around us in pale ribbons. The water that had soothed now shimmered, warming with every breath I took.
He entered me in one strong thrust. My hair sparked, strands glowing gold in the dark until I could see the reflection of my own eyes burning back at me in his.
“Focus it on your hands,” Sebastian said, his voice breaking through the chaos.
My hands gripped his shoulders as he pounded into me.
“I’ll hurt you,” I rasped, the heat rising faster, wilder.
“The only thing that hurts me is watching you in pain,” he said. “Let me take it from you.”
I tried. I did. But the more I reached for control, the more it slipped away—every beat of my heart sending fire through my veins. The pressure built until there was nowhere left for it to go.
Release came like a breaking storm. The air shattered, light searing outward in waves. Heat exploded from my chest, blooming into the night in wild, unrestrained bursts. The lagoon rippled with molten gold.
Sebastian didn’t move away. He didn’t flinch.
He only pulled me closer, as the force field he created around the lagoon kept the fire from reaching the tree line.
His shadows rose high around us, swallowing flame after flame, containing the inferno before it could spread beyond the water’s edge.
We were trapped in our own orbit of fire and shadow colliding.
The surface of the lagoon reflected the storm we’d made—light and dark twisting together, one feeding the other. The air crackled, the world shook, and for one impossible heartbeat, everything was both burning and alive.
When the light dimmed, my body trembled with what was left of it. The fire hadn’t left; it only retreated, coiling beneath my skin, desperate for release.
“Fuck, baby.” Sebastian’s voice was rough. “It’s not enough, is it?”
I shook my head, breathless. “No. I need more.”
He gave me a wicked smile. “Are you sure?”
“Yes.”
Sebastian’s grip stayed tight on my thighs as he remained buried deep inside of me, and a shadow hand gripped my neck. The moan leaving my lips turned into a gasp when another hand snaked from my back to my stomach and a firm chest pressed against my back.
I turned just enough to see a man made entirely of shadows standing behind me.
He had no face—just shifting darkness, swirling endlessly—but his shape held steady, unmistakable.
A mirror of Sebastian.
Because it was Sebastian.
His mouth pressed to one side of my neck while his shadow counterpart claimed the other, the sensation doubling, blurring. My head fell back, my breath catching as his rhythm deepened, faster now, more deliberate.
Hands—too many hands—moved over me.
One pinched my nipple, sharp enough to pull a gasp from my throat. Another traced lower, finding the sensitive spot just above where our bodies met, pressing, circling. A third tightened around my throat, not enough to hurt—just enough to remind me who held control.
I couldn’t tell what was him and what was shadow.
Couldn’t tell where he ended and they began.
Then something new.
A touch—hesitant at first—ghosted lower, circling somewhere untouched, unfamiliar. A shadow finger traced my darkest hole slowly, testing, before pressing again, more certain this time.
My body jolted, a sharp gasp tearing free. “Bash.”
When he lifted his head, his eyes were gone—nothing but black, endless and consuming. Shadows curled along his neck, creeping higher, reaching for his face in a way I’d never seen before.
Unrestrained.
His shadows had taken over completely.
“You remember when you said you wanted all of me?” he murmured, his voice darker now, rougher. “Even the darkest parts?”
“Yes,” I breathed, the word breaking apart as his pace didn’t falter.
“I thought I needed to hide this from you,” he said. “That it would be too much. But now—”
The finger dipped in, and the world tilted. A sharp, unfamiliar pleasure sparked through me, pulling another breathless sound from my lips as the air around us stirred—wind that hadn’t been there before rising and circling.
“I think it’s exactly what you and your power needs.”
My fingers curled into him—into shadow, into skin, I didn’t know which.
I’d never thought about this. Never imagined it.
But with him—
I didn’t want limits.
I nodded, pulse racing. “I want it.”
His gaze sharpened, something darker settling into place.
“You’re going to be good for me, okay?” he murmured, voice low, controlled. “I’m going to make you feel so good and get all of that bottled up power out—but you have to listen.”
He stilled inside of me, and I whimpered from the loss of movement.