Chapter 9
Thorne
Lord Thorne’s Bedchamber, Ashfell
All the trifles of my youth burn to ash.
Every conquest.
Every fleeting body.
Every night I mistook for meaning.
None of it compares to this woman kneeling between my legs, looking at my cock as if it holds the meaning of the world.
“Do you see something you like, Shula?”
She nods, licks her lips, and before I can enjoy this little exchange—she leans forward and takes me inside her hot little mouth.
“Fuck!” I shout.
My entire body arches, my thighs part wider making room for her, and I hiss as her tiny hands run up my legs to cup my balls and squeeze the base of my shaft.
She moans around my head, sucking on it, and I can’t stop watching her like this. She looks so good. Sexy, vibrant. My brave little spark. My Shula.
But I won’t finish like this.
“Enough. I want to taste you. Need you coming on my tongue before I finish inside your tight little slit, Shula,” I growl and reach for her.
She gasps as I pull her off my cock, but she makes no move to stop me. And no wonder. I can scent her arousal.
I know how needy she is for me.
I lay back and don’t stop pulling until my hands are fastened to the plump globes of her ass as I fit my tongue to her slit.
“Oh, God!” she cries out.
Her hands grab at my forearms, searching for purchase.
Her taste is tangy. Salty. Hot. Delia is—in a word—delicious.
She bucks against me, begging for a release I am only too anxious to give.
My powers dance along my skin, every fiber of my being intent on this—on her.
More than anything I want to bring pleasure to my viyella. To seal the vow we made in front of witnesses. To form a zareth bond with my Shula.
I know it’s fake. It’s scripted.
But I hope—that is, there is inside of me a spark of hope. And it burns and yearns for this, for us, to be real.
Delia’s back arches, her climax takes hold, flooding my senses, and I use my powers to flip us gently.
I continue to lap at her, licking every last drop of her pleasure until I’m sliding up her smooth, soft body and fitting my cock to her slick sex.
Fuck, she’s warm against me—real, breathing, heart racing so fast I can feel it through the thin barrier of willpower I must cling to.
But she fits against me with a terrifying kind of rightness, as if my body has been waiting centuries for this exact shape, this exact fire.
So what if I fall? A dark part of me whispers.
So what if I give in to a true zareth?
My bed silks whisper softly beneath us as I move us to the center of it, every movement deliberate, measured.
If I let instinct take over, I would overwhelm her in a heartbeat.
Fire does not know moderation. It knows only hunger.
And gods, do I hunger.
Her hands curl into my shoulders, fingers digging in as if she’s afraid I’ll disappear.
The thought cleaves something open in my chest.
I hover over her, bracing my weight on my arms, forcing myself to breathe.
She smells like salt and caramel and heat.
Like courage.
Like temptation.
This is not a ceremony anymore.
This is not strategy.
This is danger.
Because somewhere between the vows and the wine and the way she came apart on my mouth and looked at me like I was something more than a monster, I have become serious.
Deadly serious.
About wanting her for real.
Not as a tool.
Not as a boon.
Not as a means to an end.
A true viyella.
The thought is a boy’s dream—soft, foolish, impossible. I am not a boy. I am a man carved from flame and war.
I cannot have everything.
Nightfall has taught me that lesson over and over again in blood and ash.
But this night?
This night I can take.
I can bind her to me in fire and promise and flesh.
I can brand this moment into my memory so deeply it will never fade, no matter what comes after.
Maybe after the war…
Maybe after the crown is safe…
Maybe after The Ember Vein is no longer under threat…
We shall see.
I lower my forehead to hers, our breaths mingling, my voice rough with a restraint I have never practiced before.
“Delia,” I murmur, not as a command, not as a claim—but as a truth.
Her name is fire in my mouth.
“Thorne,” she responds, instantly, bravely.
“Now, it happens now,” I grunt and nudge her thighs apart wider.
The moment I drive into her, fully, finally, the world fractures.
I flex my hips and she takes me—all of me—her body so hot and tight and impossibly welcoming.
The sensation detonates through my spine, a scorching rush that steals the breath from my lungs and sets my blood alight.
Flame answers flame.
Pleasure licks over my skin in waves so fierce I nearly lose my footing.
I burn for her—there is no other truth now.
Her face is a storm of sensation. Wonder. Shock. Want.
Those wide, luminous brown eyes lock onto mine, and for a heartbeat I swear I could drown there—sink gladly into whatever she is becoming beneath me.
I move again.
Once.
Twice.
Then restraint shatters.
I thrust into her on pure instinct, need overriding thought as her body grips me like she was made to hold fire.
She clutches at me, nails digging in, and the sound she makes—low and broken—unravels something ancient in my chest.
She’s so tight, so responsive, that I haul her closer, lifting her almost entirely from the bed as I drive into her again and again, the rhythm relentless, consuming.
“Close,” she moans.
The word is a gift.
Pride surges through me, wild and feral, and a low, rough sound tears from my throat before I can stop it.
Pleasure crests so sharply it borders on pain, but I welcome it—need it—as I roll my hips, grinding deep, finding that perfect place that makes her cry out.
Every movement draws us tighter together. Every measured slide binds more than flesh—it aligns our hearts, our breath, our very essence.
I grip her hips, my hands roaming the soft, powerful curves of her body with reckless devotion.
Mine.
She is mine.
I quicken, driving into her in a hard, demanding rhythm, the bed creaking beneath us, the air thick with heat and breath and the crackle of barely restrained magic.
“Now!” she cries.
The sound breaks me.
I surge forward, claim her in the only way my kind knows—my Demon’s fangs sinking into the soft flesh at her shoulder, biting deep, drawing her warmth into me.
Her blood is fire-spiced and intoxicating, and the bond snaps tight with a blinding force.
She shudders violently, her body locking around me as her release crashes through her, and the sensation drags me over the edge with her.
I come undone in a white-hot inferno.
Flame consumes us both—pure, obliterating, eternal.
And if this is all I am allowed—tonight, this one night with this woman, this single moment—then I will burn it into eternity.
Permanently.
Reverently.
And gods help anyone who dares reach for her when dawn comes—because I will reduce this world, and maybe all the others too, to ash before I let her be taken from me.