Chapter 24 #2
I turned to find Sarp leaning against a pillar, arms crossed, his expression caught somewhere between amusement and long-suffering exhaustion. His dark hair was artfully dishevelled, his smile easy and deliberate. He knew exactly how much trouble he was about to cause.
"Sarp." Hakan's tone held a warning.
"Hakan. Ada." Sarp pushed off the pillar, falling into step beside us with the casual grace of a predator who'd decided not to hunt. "I was beginning to think you'd both died in there. Should I have sent a search party? Perhaps some provisions? A healer to check for chafing?"
My cheeks flamed, but I couldn't help the laugh that escaped. "We were busy."
"Oh, I'm aware. The entire eastern wing is aware.
I believe Lord Cevdet is considering a petition to relocate his chambers to the opposite side of the palace.
" Sarp's grin widened. "Something about 'unholy noises' and 'the sanctity of morning prayers being disturbed by what sounded like a demon being exorcised. '"
"Fuck off, Sarp," Hakan said, but there was no real heat in it.
"Charming as always." Sarp dodged the halfhearted swipe Hakan aimed at his head. "Where are you two lovebirds headed? Please tell me it's somewhere public so I can watch everyone pretend they didn't hear Ada screaming your name loudly enough to wake the ancestors."
"I'm going to see my father," I said. "Hakan is—"
"Accompanying her." Hakan's hand pressed more firmly against my back. "Not that it's any of your business."
"Everything is my business. It's my most charming quality." Sarp fell into step on my other side, completely unbothered by Hakan's glare.
A low growl came from somewhere near my ankles. Sarp looked down and blinked.
Melo sat directly in his path, turquoise eyes blazing, her body a small russet barricade between Sarp and me. She'd been trailing us since we left my chambers — silent, watchful, refusing to let me out of her sight since the night everything changed.
"Oh, hello." Sarp crouched to her level, the way he'd done at the festival months ago. "Still judging, I see. Still got opinions about—"
"If you value that hand," Melo said, "you'll stop reaching for me."
Sarp froze. His eyes went very wide. He looked at me. He looked at Hakan. He looked back at the fox.
"She—" He pointed. "The fox just—"
"Talked, yes." Hakan kept walking. "You get used to it."
"I absolutely will not get used to it." But Sarp was grinning now — the real grin, not the performance one.
He straightened slowly, keeping his hands visible, and gave Melo a bow so exaggerated it bordered on mockery.
"My sincerest apologies, madam. I had no idea I was in such distinguished company. "
Melo's ears flattened. But she didn't growl again. And when Sarp fell back into step with us, she let him walk on my other side without protest — which, from Melo, was practically a declaration of trust.
"Speaking of business—Asif was asking about you at breakfast, Ada. Something about wanting to discuss the upcoming festival arrangements. He seemed very eager to speak with you. Personally. Alone."
The temperature in the corridor dropped several degrees.
I felt Hakan go rigid beside me, his shadows suddenly writhing at his feet like living things. "Asif," he repeated, his voice dangerously soft.
"You remember Asif. Tall, blond, that irritating smile. Son of Lord—"
"I know who Asif is."
I remembered him too. We'd grown up together at court, attended the same tutors, danced at the same festivals.
Before Hakan, there had been whispers that my father might arrange a match between us.
Nothing had ever come of it, but Asif had always looked at me with a particular kind of hunger that made my skin crawl.
"He probably just wants to discuss the decorations," I said, trying to defuse the situation. "His mother is on the planning committee."
"Then his mother can discuss it with you." Hakan's jaw was clenched so tight I could see the muscles jumping. "He doesn't need to speak with you personally. Or alone."
Sarp was watching the exchange with undisguised delight. "You know, I think I saw him heading toward the great hall. He mentioned something about intercepting you on your way to the healers' wing."
"Sarp," I hissed. "You're not helping."
"I'm never helping. I'm observing and commentating. It's far more entertaining."
We rounded the corner into the main corridor—and there was Asif, leaning against the wall as if he'd been waiting. His face lit up when he saw me, and he pushed off the stone to intercept our path.
"Ada! I was hoping to catch you." His smile was wide, practiced, and directed entirely at me. He barely glanced at Hakan. "I've been meaning to speak with you about the midsummer arrangements. Perhaps we could take a walk in the gardens? Like we used to?"
The silence that followed was deafening.
I felt Hakan's shadows expanding before I saw them—tendrils of darkness bleeding from his skin, coiling around his feet, reaching toward Asif with unmistakable menace. The torches along the corridor flickered and dimmed.
Asif finally seemed to notice Hakan's presence. His smile faltered. "Ah. Bürsin. I didn't see you there."
"Clearly." Hakan's voice was ice. "Otherwise you wouldn't have approached my woman and suggested a private walk."
"Your woman?" Asif’s laugh was nervous now, his eyes darting to the shadows pooling at Hakan's feet. "I wasn't aware Ada had become property to be claimed."
"Then allow me to clarify."
Hakan moved faster than I could track. One moment he was beside me; the next, he had Asif pinned against the wall, shadows coiling around the other man's throat like serpents. Asif’s feet dangled several inches off the ground, his face rapidly purpling.
"If you look at her again," Hakan said, his voice terrifyingly calm, "I will remove your eyes.
If you speak to her without my permission, I will remove your tongue.
If you so much as think about touching her—" The shadows tightened, and Asif made a strangled, choking sound.
"I will remove pieces of you that won't grow back. Do we understand each other?"
Asif couldn't respond—couldn't do anything but claw uselessly at the shadows crushing his windpipe.
"Hakan." I stepped forward, placing my hand on his arm. "Enough."
For a moment, I thought he wouldn't listen. The shadows continued to squeeze, and Asif’s lips were turning blue, and there was something in Hakan's eyes that looked almost like pleasure—
Then he released his grip, and Asif crumpled to the floor, gasping and retching.
"Spread the word," Hakan said, looking down at the broken man at his feet with contempt. "Ada is mine. Anyone who forgets that answers to me."
He turned, took my hand, and continued down the corridor as if nothing had happened.
Sarp fell into step behind us, letting out a low whistle. "Well. That was dramatic."
"He touched what's mine." Hakan's voice was still tight with barely leashed violence.
"He looked at what's yours. There's a subtle but important difference." Sarp glanced back at Asif, who was still struggling to breathe on the marble floor. "Though I suspect he won't be making that mistake again. Or speaking. Or eating solid foods for a while."
I should have been horrified. Should have been appalled at the casual brutality, at the possessive rage that had nearly killed a man for the crime of suggesting a walk in the gardens.
Instead, I felt heat coiling low in my belly.
Something was wrong with me. Something was deeply, fundamentally wrong with me that Hakan's violence made me want to drag him into the nearest alcove and let him claim me all over again.
"You're staring," Hakan said without looking at me.
"I'm not."
"You are." Now he did look, and his eyes had gone dark with knowing. "You liked that."
I said nothing.
His smile was sharp as a blade. "Later."
The promise in that single word made me shiver.
My father's chambers were quiet when we arrived. The clusters of anxious healers that had haunted his bedside for weeks were gone, replaced by a single attendant who bowed deeply and withdrew at Gün Ata's gesture.
"Little light." My father's voice was stronger than it had been in days—weeks, perhaps. "And Hakan. Good. I wanted to speak with you both."
He looked better. Gods, he looked so much better. Color had returned to his cheeks, and his divine light glowed steady and sure, no longer the flickering candle flame that had terrified me into sleepless nights. He sat up against the pillows with an ease that would have been impossible a month ago.
"The healers say you're recovering well," I said, taking his hand in both of mine.
"The healers are cautiously optimistic, which is their way of saying they're baffled but pleased." His golden eyes crinkled with something approaching his old humor. "I've decided to take advantage of their confusion before they remember to be worried again."
"What do you mean?"
"Tomorrow, I will call a formal assembly of the council.
" He looked past me to Hakan, and something shifted in his expression—a weighing, a measuring that reminded me this was not just my father but a god who had ruled for millennia.
"I've accepted your relationship in private, but acceptance means nothing if the realm believes I merely tolerate the union.
The council whispers. The nobles scheme.
Lord Serkan has been circling like a vulture, waiting for me to show weakness. "
Hakan's voice was steady. "What are you proposing?"
"Before the full council and the highest nobles of the Light Court, I will name you a Light Lord and grant you a seat among my advisors." Gün Ata paused, letting the weight of those words settle. "You will be the first shadow-wielder to hold such a title in three thousand years."
I forgot how to breathe.
Beside me, Hakan had gone perfectly still—that dangerous stillness I'd learned meant he was feeling something too intensely to show it.
"There will be resistance," my father continued. "Serkan will oppose it. Mehmet will cite scripture. Half the council will claim I've gone mad from illness. But I did not build this realm by bending to the opinions of lesser men."
"Why?" Hakan's voice was rough. "You know what I am. What my father is. Why would you give me this?"
"Because when your power manifested—when you learned what blood truly flows in your veins—you could have fled to your father's realm.
Claimed your birthright among the shadows.
Instead, you stayed. You fought to protect my daughter.
" Gün Ata's gaze was piercing. "You chose her.
You chose light. Now let me ensure that light has a place for you. "
The silence stretched between them.
"I accept." Hakan's voice was controlled, but I heard the emotion buried beneath it. "And I will not give you reason to regret this decision."
"See that you don't." There was warmth beneath my father's warning. "Now go. I need rest before tomorrow's battle with the council, and you both have preparations to make."
I kissed his forehead, my heart so full it ached, and let Hakan lead me from the room.
The moment we were in the corridor, Hakan pulled me into an alcove, his mouth finding mine with desperate intensity.
"A Light Lord," I breathed when he let me surface for air.
"I don't care about the title." His hands framed my face, his eyes burning into mine. "I care that your father just made it possible for me to have you without war. Without hiding. Without anyone being able to claim our union isn't sanctioned."
"And what exactly are you planning to do with this sanction?"
His smile was dark, promising. "Marry you. Fuck you in every room of the palace as your husband instead of your secret. Put my children in you and watch them grow." His thumb traced my lower lip. "Make you so completely mine that the entire realm knows exactly who you belong to."
Heat flooded through me. "That sounds acceptable."
"Acceptable." He laughed against my mouth. "I'll remind you of that word tonight when you're begging me to stop and I don't."
"Promises, promises."
His grip tightened on my waist, shadows curling around us both. "Let's go back to our chambers. I need to be inside you again."
"We just—"
"Now, Ada."
The command in his voice brooked no argument. I didn't try to make one.
We passed Sarp in the corridor, and he took one look at our faces before stepping aside with a dramatic bow.
"And so the celebrations continue," he called after us. "Don't forget to hydrate! And perhaps invest in some soundproofing! Lord Cevdet's heart truly cannot take much more!"
Hakan's only response was a rude gesture thrown over his shoulder.
The door to our chambers had barely closed before he had me pressed against it, his mouth hot on my throat, his hands already working at my gown.
"I'm going to fuck you until you can't walk," he growled against my skin. "Until you can't think of anything but me. Until my name is the only word you remember."
I pulled him closer, surrendering to the flames.
Tomorrow there would be politics and schemes and nobles who wanted us to fail. Tomorrow we would face the council and fight for our future.
But tonight—tonight there was only this. Only us. Only the fierce, consuming love that burned between us like a star going supernova.
For the first time in weeks, everything felt like it might actually be okay.