Chapter 45
Its ebb and flow
LORIEN
The water glows silver under the moonlight, shifting with the slow, hypnotic rhythm of the tide.
Jude moves through it effortlessly, his body a shadow against the luminescence of the waves, his magic humming beneath the surface.
He is more than beautiful. He remains untamed and has become eternal. He is a storm that has learned to rest.
I lean against the smooth, black stone at the water’s edge, watching him.
For so long, he fought what he was. He clung to his fear, to the belief that his magic would consume him, that he would become nothing more than a weapon, a creature feared and despised.
But he stands in the water now with ease, the depths welcoming him instead of threatening to swallow him whole.
His magic no longer coils at the edges of him like a beast caged.
It sings to both of us, harmonizing with the tide.
And he is mine.
I’ve never doubted it, not truly.
The Gods joined us and then he chose me again, and I know we are two souls in perfect balance. No matter how uneven our equilibrium, no matter how far apart we are, I know we will always find our way back to each other and always find a balance.
But seeing him like this, when he’s so unafraid and has found peace, settles an ache in my chest. It’s a certainty I hadn’t even realized I was waiting for, and another moment when he has made me whole.
Jude turns his head, catching me watching him. His smile is subtle, knowing. “You’re staring.”
I don’t deny it. “Of course.”
He’s entirely naked except for the cage that I placed on his cock and the piercings that adorn it. Jude wears the gold cage more often than not these days, and it brings us both comfort.
Pleasure too, but mostly relief.
I know he is mine and that I have him under my control, certain he’s submitted to my whims and wants. Jude takes a different pleasure, and I’m convinced the denial eases his frustration and brings him a sense of peace he’s always strived for but never found until now.
Until we found each other.
It’s as if he’s more comfortable now that he’s caged, relieved of the burden of being anything other than mine.
He wades toward me as the water clings to his skin like it can’t bear to let him go. When he reaches me, he leans in, bracing his hands on either side of where I sit. His scent surrounds me, caramel and chestnuts and a smell that’s purely him.
My eyes wander down his body and I follow its lines and curves that I know better than I know my own.
His piercings gleam in the moonlight, their metal threading through the flesh of his cock and still visible beneath the cage that holds them.
His ring and piercings mark our bond, but they were never just an adornment.
They are a vow, a silent promise of devotion and surrender, of pleasure meant only for me.
I used to think his defiance was a challenge I could conquer.
Now, I know better.
Jude was never meant to be tamed. But he is mine, bound to me as surely as I am to him, our souls braided together by the darkness we walked through and the love we bled for.
The love we chose and almost died for. The love that made us what we are now, and in it, let him find the acceptance he didn’t know he was missing.
A shudder runs through me at the sight of him, desire curling low in my stomach. I drag my fingers down his spine, feeling the way his breath stutters beneath my touch.
“What were you thinking about?”
“How much has changed. How much we’ve changed, Lorien.”
I cup the back of his neck, tracing my fingers over the damp strands of his hair. He doesn’t flinch. He never does these days.
His lips part like he’s about to say something, but then he just nods.
Because he knows.
He’s lived it too.
The war, the blood, the betrayals.
Every moment that should have shattered us, but only forged us into what was stronger.
So he exhales, tilting his head so our foreheads press together.
“You’re happy,” I say, though it’s not a question.
“Yeah,” he says softly. “I think I am.”
And Gods, those words.
I could spend lifetimes pulling happiness from him, if only to hear him say it again.
It is a weight and a gift, an impossible thing made real.
He, who once feared he could never be anything but destruction, now speaks of happiness like it is something he has earned. Like it is something he deserves.
And he does.
“Are you?” he asks.
The question catches me off guard.
I don’t answer right away, because for so long, happiness has felt like a distant, fleeting thing. A concept for others, not for me. I have ruled through fire and shadows, through power and pain and expectation, always reaching, never resting.
But Jude has changed that.
I am still vicious. Still dominant. But the sharp edges have softened, not dulled, but honed. I’m more measured. I am content in a way I never thought I would be.
I brush my thumb along the curve of his jaw, considering the answer that comes so easily now.
“Yes,” I say. “I am.”
He smiles and it means everything.
I had to fight my court to make this happen.
Not with swords or even sorcery, but with a much sharper force.
I used command, conviction, the cold force of my will, and I forced them to acquiesce.
They did not want to accept Jude. Not as my concubine and consort, not as my equal, not as anything but an anomaly, a dangerous unknown.
Soren did not resist, his keen mind dissecting the logic of it all.
If there is such a thing as logic in love, he found it, and he accepted that Jude was mine, as if that act alone was enough to make everything right.
It should have been, but others watched carefully, waiting to see if Jude would shatter or break beneath me and my expectations.
He did not.
But it was Varyon who was the last to turn, and he stood as rigid as stone, his hand never far from the hilt of his blade in Jude’s presence. He remained convinced Jude was meant to destroy and could not be persuaded that he would not bring destruction to my shores.
It had taken weeks.
Agonizing weeks when Jude met his gaze and refused to yield, and they circled each other like predators testing the boundaries of shared territory, waiting to see who would bare their throat first. Varyon had tested him, not through open war, but in smaller, crueler ways.
In ways that the rest of court joined in with.
They had pushed, seeking his limits, his weaknesses, the edges of his power.
But Jude did not move, and he held his ground, meeting each challenge with the quiet, measured patience of the ocean.
His magic—wild, shifting, unfathomable—had been the thing that unsettled them most. It was not like mine, not like the court’s.
It did not move in controlled, predictable ways.
Instead, it answered to him like a living thing, responding to his emotions, his will.
He was still learning to wield it, still shaping it into a force that obeyed rather than devoured.
Soren helped him, in his own way. He was less a mentor, more an observer, noting each change, each new discovery. Orlith watched, curiosity warring with calculation. And Varyon, ever the skeptic, waited for the moment it all came undone.
It never did.
Jude did not destroy my court. He conquered them in a different way, by being exactly who he was.
And I have never been prouder.
He’s found his place in my kingdom and in my world, with those around me and in everything I rule.
Jude’s content and calm, and I can’t help but smile to myself, certain that the new quarters I had built for us have done their job.
I knew Jude wasn’t quite happy in my old rooms, but I didn’t realize just how unhappy he was until we moved into the new suite, and it was like a weight lifted off his shoulders.
I’d failed to appreciate just how hard our early days had been for him, and some of what happened was difficult for him to move past.
In fact, I know he hasn’t moved beyond some of it.
It will take time to heal his wounds, and all I can do is support him when he needs it. Whenever I can and even when it’s hard, and especially when he needs it and he doesn’t know it.
Jude doesn’t need to tell me what bothers him for me to know, and I’m well aware that he still has an aversion to the cage.
Of all the things he went through, that night he locked himself away in it haunts him the most, and as much as I want to indulge myself by confining him, it will do more harm than good.
The golden cage I had specifically built for him is a step too far for now.
So I let him avoid it and I haven’t mentioned it.
Not because I don’t want to confine him, not because the thought of him locked away in something of my making doesn’t thrill me—but because I know him.
Because I know that forcing him into this now would only make him fight harder, push me further away.
He needs to come to it on his own.
And he will.
One day, he’ll see that the cage was never meant to hurt him. That I built it not to imprison him, but to keep him safe and give us both pleasure. That the bars were never walls between us, but a way to hold him close.
One day, he’ll step inside willingly.
One day, he’ll be ready. But that day is not today, nor tomorrow, and I must wait until my mate has healed from what I did.
A sharp cry echoes overhead, breaking the stillness and pulling me from my thoughts. I glance up to see a black-winged gull soaring against the moonlit sky, its voice swallowed quickly by the wind. It’s quiet here, peaceful in a way I haven’t felt in a long time. Perhaps ever.
Jude steps back, water lapping at his ankles.
“I got a letter,” he says.
I raise a brow, pretending this is news to me. “A letter?”