Chapter 15 Rurik #2
She freezes. “What’s wrong?”
“Nothing’s wrong.” I brace myself above her, arms trembling with the effort of holding back. “I just have to know—what do you crave? What are you ready for?”
Understanding softens her expression. “You mean the claiming.”
“I mean everything.” I press my forehead to hers. “This doesn’t have to be all or nothing. We can go slow. We can stop whenever you say. I’m not expecting anything. I just want you.”
Her hand comes up to cup my jaw. Her thumb moves across my cheekbone, my scar, the corner of my mouth.
“I want this.” Her tone is steady. Clear. “I want you. Tonight.” She pauses. “Not the claiming. Not yet. But this... I ache for this.”
Relief floods through me. Not because she’s saying yes—though god, yes—but because she’s telling me what she actually wants. Setting boundaries.
Communicating.
Deciding.
“Rurik—“
“I’ve waited so long.” My thumb skims her jaw, the corner of her mouth. “I can wait another few minutes to do this right.”
Her laugh is shaky. Surprised. “You’re impossible.”
“So I’ve been told.” I press a kiss to her temple. Her cheek. The tip of her nose. “Tell me what you ache for.”
“You.” Simple. Certain. “Just you.”
I lower her back against the pillows and let myself fall.
AISLING
For once, I stop planning.
The part of my brain that organizes and categorizes—that part goes quiet. There’s only this. Only him. Only the impossible warmth of his body covering mine, his mouth blazing paths across my skin.
“Beautiful.” He murmurs the word against my collarbone. “You’re so fucking beautiful.”
I should argue. Should cut through the moment with sarcasm. But his hands are sliding beneath my shirt, palms rough and warm, and I can’t remember how to form words.
He pauses at the hem. Waits.
“Yes.” Breathless. Aching. “Please.”
The shirt disappears. His follows. And then there’s skin against skin, his body pressed to mine, and I understand for the first time what it means to burn.
His mouth finds my breast, and I arch off the bed.
“Tell me if you want me to stop.” The words vibrate against my skin. “Any time. Any reason.”
“I don’t.”
“Tell me what you ache for.”
The question cracks me open. Every partner I’ve had—every controlled, predictable encounter in my controlled, predictable life—none of them asked. None of them cared to know. It was always assumption, expectation, obligation.
This is different.
“I—“ My back arches as his tongue circles my nipple. “I ache to feel. I ache to stop thinking. I—“
“This?” His hand slides lower, fingers grazing the waistband of my pants.
“Yes.”
“And this?” Lower still, cupping me through the fabric.
“God, yes.”
He strips me with efficient hands—until I’m bare beneath him. His gaze travels the length of my body, appreciating every scar and imperfection I usually hide.
I should feel vulnerable. Exposed.
Instead, I feel desired.
“You’re perfect.” He says it with conviction. With reverence. “Every inch of you.”
“You’re overdressed.”
His laugh rumbles through me. “Fair point.”
He stands to remove the rest of his clothes, and I let myself look. Take in the planes of his torso, the ridges of his abdomen, the scars that map centuries of battle across his skin. Lower. The evidence of exactly how much he aches for this.
Aches for me.
“Aisling.” My name sounds different in his mouth. Weighted. Precious. “I have to make you understand.”
“What?”
He climbs back onto the bed, settles between my thighs, props himself above me on his forearms. His warmth surrounds me—not just physical, but deeper. Resonating in my bones.
“This isn’t the claiming.” His forehead touches mine. “I crave that too—god, you have no idea how much—but this isn’t that. This is just us. No bonds, no marks, no magic. Just you and me.”
My heart aches with emotion I can’t name. “Why?”
“Because you deserve to be desired for yourself.” His thumb skims my cheekbone. “Not because of prophecy or blood or dragon instinct. Just because you’re you.”
A few weeks ago, I would have laughed at that. Would have pushed him away before he could get too close. Control was safety. Vulnerability was weakness.
But I’m not the same person I was when I arrived here.
“I crave you too.” The words feel like surrender and victory all at once. “For yourself. Not because of fate or instinct. Because you’re insufferable and chaotic and the only person who’s ever seen through my walls and stayed anyway.”
His inhale sharpens.
“Aisling—“
I pull him down and kiss him.
He enters me slowly.
Every inch is deliberate, giving me time to adjust. His forearms bracket my head, muscles trembling with restraint.
“Okay?” The word vibrates through him.
“Yes.” I wrap my legs around his hips. “More.”
He moves.
And it’s nothing like I expected. Nothing like the controlled, predictable encounters I’ve always preferred.
This is fire—literal and metaphorical. My flames rise without permission, dancing across my skin, reaching for him.
His warmth answers, surrounding us both in a cocoon that should be terrifying but feels safe instead.
“God.” He groans into my neck. “You feel—“
“Don’t stop.”
“Couldn’t if I tried.”
His pace builds. Steady. Relentless. Every thrust hits deep inside me, makes my back arch and my fingers claw at his shoulders. The walls I’ve maintained my entire life—the lists, the schedules, the desperate hunger for order—crumble under the weight of sensation.
I feel everything.
His hands gripping my hips. His mouth on my throat. His body moving with mine in a rhythm that seems impossible, inevitable, right in a way nothing has felt right since before the captivity.
“Rurik—“ His name tears from my throat.
“I know.” He shifts angles, hits deeper, and I shatter.
The orgasm rips through me without warning.
Fire explodes across my skin, uncontrolled, consuming.
I hear myself cry out—his name, maybe, or just sound without meaning.
He follows moments later, groaning against my shoulder, his own flames mingling with mine until I can’t tell where I end and he begins.
We stay there, tangled and gasping, for what feels like hours.
Eventually, he rolls to the side, pulls me against him. His heartbeat pounds beneath my ear—fast, irregular, slowly calming.
“You’re incredible.” Rough. Wrecked. “Absolutely incredible.”
“You’re adequate.”
His laugh shakes us both. “Adequate. I’ll take it.”
I map patterns on his torso. Find scars I didn’t notice before—some thin and silvered with age, others thicker, more recent. A record of battles fought and survived. Of a life measured in centuries rather than years.
“How many of these do you have?” My fingers follow a particularly vicious line across his ribs.
“Lost count around the second century.”
“That one looks deep.”
“Rogue ambush. Eighty years ago, give or take.” He catches my hand, brings it to his lips. “Every scar is a lesson learned. A fight survived. A reason to keep going.”
“You make near-death experiences sound romantic.”
“Everything’s romantic when you’re involved.”
I should roll my eyes. Cut through the sentiment. But his tone makes me pause. Makes me look up, meet his gaze.
“I didn’t think I could feel this way again.” The confession slips out before I can stop it. “After everything. I thought that part of me was dead.”
His arm tightens around me. “And now?”
“Now I’m terrified.” A shaky laugh escapes. “But the good kind.”
He presses his lips to my hair. I sense fire building beneath his skin—held back, restrained. The claiming he mentioned, waiting for permission I haven’t given yet.
But I will.
The realization settles into my bones with surprising certainty. I will let him claim me. Will belong to him in the permanent, irreversible way that claiming allows. Not because I’m afraid, or desperate, or backed into a corner.
Because I’m deciding. Because he makes me ache for things I’d given up on.
Not yet. Not quite yet.
But soon.
“Rurik?”
“Mmm?”
“Stay with me.”
His arms tighten. His warmth envelops me. And for the first time in weeks, the brand on my wrist goes quiet.
Valdris’s presence retreats to the edges of my consciousness—not gone, but distant. Drowned out by a force stronger than ancient malice.
This, I think, drowsing in his embrace. This is worth fighting for.
This is worth staying for.
I fall asleep with his heartbeat beneath my ear and fire singing in my blood, already planning how to tell him yes.
Soon.
When I’m ready.
When we both are.