Chapter 29
The vicious, smoldering anger caged inside Imani’s chest flared the moment they crossed the threshold.
Their heavy door clicked shut behind them, severing the square’s noise and leaving the chamber thick with everything left unsaid.
The manor’s stone walls, low firelight, and narrow windows created a suffocatingly quiet space.
Imani refused to step any further into the room. Moving would require a level of composure she was unwilling to maintain. Her stance stayed stiff—shoulders squared, chin raised—while she clenched her fists. The restraint she had maintained during the celebration dissolved in this private moment.
Ellisar stopped a step behind her, his presence a heavy anchor in the silence.
“Imani—” he started.
She whipped around, eyes blazing. “You don’t answer a question about an Heir Apparent like our children are already a decided fact,” she said.
“You didn’t raise the subject. They did.
But you were the one who told them what our children would inherit before you ever asked whether children were part of what I wanted from this. ”
Ellisar sighed, an exasperated sound. “I was answering a political question.”
“You were answering a personal one in political language.”
He let his eyes fall shut for a second, then leveled her with an unreadable look. “They needed to hear stability, and an Heir Apparent is part of that. Given what we’ve seen across the realm, uncertainty is the one thing we cannot afford.”
“Necessity doesn’t give you the right to present it as final,” Imani hissed. “I know you want a family, but you’re defining something we hadn’t discussed. I’m not objecting to the future, Ellisar. I’m objecting to the assumption that you can name it before we’ve chosen it.”
A flicker of unease passed across Ellisar’s face, then he pinched the bridge of his nose.
“I’m not deciding for you. I’m preparing the ground for what the kingdom will demand the moment they ask what comes next.
” He stepped closer, refusing to retreat.
“They’re not watching for sentiment, Imani.
They’re watching for permanence. An Heir Apparent removes doubt, stabilizes your rule, and closes the questions we’ve seen in every region we’ve crossed.
It makes us harder to challenge, together, in a way nothing else will. ”
The tension pulled taut until it quivered.
“Everything you’re describing builds a fortress around a relationship that hasn’t even had space to exist,” she said, crossing her arms. “You’re outlining permanence, stability, legacy, before we’ve even figured out what we are when no one is watching.
You’re asking me to let the kingdom define us, and just trust that we’ll find our way into it afterward. ”
Imani blew a piece of her hair out of her eyes before adding, “I agreed to bond with you because the alliance made sense. That gave us a bodily bond and a public commitment. It didn’t promise you would have my love.
It did not promise sex whenever politics required it.
It did not promise children. And it did not make you king because the magic chose you.
” She pointed to her chest. “I made you king.”
His expression darkened, but he let her continue.
“You rule beside me because I chose to place authority in your hands. We share power because I trust how you use it. Those are political decisions. Whatever happens between us when no one is watching is something else entirely.” She motioned between them.
“Bonding is one thing. Wanting you is another. Loving you would be another. Having your children would be another. None of those gets to become inevitable because a council prefers a simpler story.”
Ellisar put his hands on his hips. “I know the mating did not grant me your Crown of Life. I know you made me king. And I know children are not owed to me.”
“Then why speak as if they already exist in our future?” Her voice sounded shrill.
“Because they were not asking whether we had discussed children over breakfast,” he said. “They were asking whether we intend to let this reign end with us. I answered the question they meant.”
“With my body.” He shook his head, but she cut him off.
“Yes,” she said. “That is the part you keep dressing up as succession.” The air warmed with their mutual stubbornness.
Imani stepped closer, shoving a finger toward his face.
“You don’t get to decide what we are just because the kingdom wants it defined. ”
He allowed the words to sink in, his brow furrowed.
With the pause, the flow of the argument faltered.
His nostrils flared, and he gave her a once-over, as if he no longer cared about winning the debate.
His gaze crawled over her like he was evaluating her, observing her defiant stance…
and heat burst behind his eyes. Despite her fury, a hot blush stained Imani’s cheeks.
“Stop looking at me like that,” she muttered, dipping her head slightly.
“Like what?”
“You know what.”
The room had grown unbearably hot, though the fire remained low. Imani wiped sweat from her brow.
“This isn’t only about Essenheim anymore,” she breathed, the edge still harsh in her voice.
“It never was.”
“And that’s exactly the problem.”
Ellisar froze.
Imani could only stare at the fierce look on his face.
“Do you want me?”
Her stomach dropped at his question, but she lifted her chin as her face drifted dangerously close to his. Desire had become tangled through the argument, but Imani refused to let him confuse wanting him now with agreeing to the future he had described outside.
“Why would you ask me that?” she demanded, their noses nearly brushing. “What do you think would change?”
It was pure arrogance, a refusal to give him the answer he wanted. Ellisar cocked his head… then his hands found her waist, pulling her flush against him.
His mouth crashed into hers in a crushing kiss.
It was a blade, severing the argument and carrying the same violent intensity as their exchange. Imani didn’t pull away. She met him with equal force, her hands fisting in his shirt, dragging him closer as the unresolved conflict poured straight into the connection.
Their mouths crashed together, breath catching as his tongue pressed in and hers answered.
Her hands slid up his chest, gripping fabric, while his hold on her waist tightened, anchoring her to him.
The kiss encapsulated weeks of words unsaid, desires buried and abandoned, fears not quite conquered but now at last ignored.
It was sweeter than the first taste of wine and gave her just as much of a rush.
Imani indulged this needy, shameless side of her that she worked so hard to ignore because there was always work to be done. A part of her that Ellisar ignited at the party without even trying to.
The tension shattered into frantic, urgent motion.
Imani’s fingers tore at the fastenings of his coat, pushing it down his arms until it dropped to the stone floor. His hands found the ties at her back, violently loosening the structured bodice that had held her posture so perfectly all evening. The fabric gave way under impatient hands.
She forced the buttons of his shirt free, pushing the linen from his chest, while he stripped the heavy weight of her outer layers until only the thinnest silk remained against her skin.
Their argument heightened into physical need as Imani’s hand slid into his hair, gripping hard enough to pull his head back before dragging his mouth down to hers. His response was to plant a rough kiss against her lips, one hand bracing her spine while the other locked her hips to his.
Her nails scored down his back. He sucked in a hitching breath against her mouth.
Panting, Imani stopped pulling at his clothes and simply looked at him.
She had seen Ellisar armored, dirty, formally dressed, and carrying the authority of the High Sentinel, but never this unguarded. Without the coat and structured layers that usually sharpened his silhouette, his shoulders and chest seemed heavier, his strength less ceremonial and more physical.
Pale scars crossed his skin in irregular lines, some old enough to have faded nearly silver, and she found herself tracing their paths without touching them. His short silver hair had fallen out of place beneath her hands, leaving the longer strands on top disordered across his forehead.
The severity she associated with him had loosened too.
His lips were swollen from kissing her, his breathing deeper than usual, and the composed general she had spent weeks trying to understand suddenly looked intensely, unmistakably like a man who wanted her.
The thought sent another rush of heat through her, but another truth swirled deeper.
One she didn’t want to examine too long.
She liked looking at him, and more dangerously, she liked being allowed to see him this way.
Ellisar’s hands stopped at her waist, and his attention traveled over her without the appraisal he used in council chambers or on battlefields.
The loosened silk no longer held her in the rigid shape the court expected.
Her silver hair had fallen around her shoulders, her cheeks were flushed, and the careful arrangement she had worn to the celebration had been ruined by both of them.
Imani almost covered herself out of instinct, but a hard look from him stopped her.
There was hunger in it, certainly, but also an open appreciation that made her feel more exposed than nakedness could have.
He took in the strength of her body, the curve of her waist beneath the thin fabric, the Crown of Life still alive above the hair he had tangled, and finally her face.
His thumb brushed once along her cheek.
“You’re beautiful,” he said.
Imani’s heart stuttered at the simplicity.
She lifted her chin and studied his face in return. “So are you,” she rasped, hardly able to find the words.
His eyebrows rose. “That sounded painful.”