Chapter 26
Dawn and Disaster
ATLAS
Dawn slid into the room like a quiet inhale, soft, airy, almost impossibly gentle for the night we’d torn apart.
Light brushed over her first. Across her shoulder, the curve of her back, the softness of her hair against my chest. She shifted closer in her sleep, a small sound in her throat, fingers curling lightly against my skin as if even unconscious she refused to let me go.
The room felt different, lighter, warmer. Not heavy with magic anymore but eased by it. Her mark glowed faint silver where it rested against my hip, mine responded without permission.
I didn’t dare move.
The world outside could keep its dawn. I wanted this moment, this breath-stealing quiet with her against me to last forever.
But the storm in me wasn’t quiet, it watched her, it reached for her. It wrapped around her like it already remembered the shape of her body, the sound of her breath, the way she’d said mine against my mouth last night.
I dragged my knuckles along her spine once, lightly, unable to stop myself. Her breath lightly hitched, and her body melted even further into me. A soft hum slipped from her throat, the kind that made heat flicker low in my chest.
If she woke like this, gods help me…
I swallowed hard.
I should’ve pulled away. Should’ve tried to climb out of the bed before she opened her eyes and set me on fire all over again.
Instead, I lay there, memorizing every inch of her, the warmth of her skin, the rising and falling of her breath, the faint scent of rain-and-night still clinging to her hair.
Outside, a breeze stirred against the balcony doors. Normally, the Court would echo my moods, my storms. But this dawn, the air held its breath with me.
Her legs tangled with mine, her thigh brushing my hip, and I nearly cursed out loud.
It wasn’t lust, or at least, not only lust.
It was the realization that for one impossible night, someone had chosen me, not my crown, not my storms, not the weight of what I was supposed to be. Just me. And now she slept in my arms like I wasn’t something dangerous at all.
She exhaled slowly, eyelashes fluttering.
Waking.
Close.
I braced before she opened her eyes, not for the storm, but for the way she’d look at me.
Like last night hadn’t been madness.
Like it hadn’t been a mistake.
Like she still wanted me.
Her fingers curled against my ribs again, tighter this time, as if her body felt me pulling back before her mind did.
“Atlas…” she breathed, half-asleep, soft and warm and devastating.
The sound tore through me. I closed my eyes for a heartbeat. If she asked for anything, anything at all, I would give it to her.
Her lashes fluttered again, once, twice, and then she blinked herself awake, pupils dark and unfocused, her cheek still pressed to my chest.
For half a breath, she didn’t move, but then her eyes lifted.
And gods.
There is nothing in this world, no storm, no power, no war that could’ve prepared me for the way she looked at me in that moment —sleepy, warm, lips parted, hair tangled, wearing the memory of last night like a second skin.
Her gaze drifted down to where her hand rested over my ribs, her fingers curled possessively.
Then up again and she met my gaze. Heat cracked through me, sharp and immediate.
“Good morning,” she whispered, voice husky with sleep.
I swallowed. “You’re—”
I had no idea how to finish that sentence without confessing something dangerous.
“—awake.”
She smiled.
“Were you watching me?”
Caught. Absolutely caught.
Her fingers pressed lightly into my skin, like she already knew the answer.
“Yes,” I said quietly. No point in lying. “I was.”
Her breath caught… I felt it.
Her body moved closer, just an inch, but enough to burn through the fragile restraint I’d started piecing back together.
“Why?” she asked, but the way she asked it wasn’t shy.
It was soft, curious, almost teasing.
I didn’t mean to touch her. But my hand lifted, fingers brushing a loose strand of hair from her face, trailing down the line of her jaw with a reverence that bordered on worship.
Her eyes fluttered half-closed. “Because,” I said, voice rougher than I intended, “I didn’t want to miss the moment you opened your eyes.”
Her breath stilled.
Her hand slid up my chest, slow, leaving fire in its wake.
“Atlas…”
Not a warning but a promise.
I shifted, meaning to sit up, to put even an inch of space between us before I lost control again. But her fingers curled in the sheet at my hip, stopping me.
“Don’t,” she said, barely above a whisper.
I froze.
Her palm slid over my abdomen, her thigh tightening around mine as she shifted closer, her chest brushing mine. A soft, devastatingly intimate touch, my body reacted instantly.
So did the shadows.
They rose at the edges of the room, unbidden, unrestrained, curling along the corners, drawn to her like they recognized her warmth even better than I did.
Her eyes flicked toward them, a faint crease forming between her brows.
“Atlas…?” Her voice was curious, not frightened.
I almost lied, I almost said it was just residual magic, almost hid it again like I always had.
But after last night, after everything, I couldn’t.
“They respond to you,” I said quietly. “Even when I don’t tell them to.”
She looked back at me, slow and steady, her hand sliding up my chest until it rested over my heart.
“Then don’t run from them,” she whispered.
“And don’t run from me.”
Something inside me buckled.
The shadows drew in closer, brushing her ankle like a cat marking what it wants. I wasn’t sure which of us gave in first, her mouth brushing my neck or my hand sliding up her spine —
—but the air between us ignited.
Before either of us could speak, a knock thundered against the outer doors.
Then Joren’s voice, muffled but absolutely horrified:
“OPEN THE DAMN DOOR, ATLAS. THE COURTYARD LOOKS LIKE A GODS-DAMNED BATTLEFIELD AND I NEED TO KNOW IF YOU TWO ARE ALIVE OR IF I SHOULD START DIGGING GRAVES.”
Caelira froze against me, I closed my eyes. Of all the times…
She bit her lip.
I groaned. Joren banged again.
And somewhere outside, a tree finished falling.
She was still half on top of me, breath warm against my throat, shadows curling around her ankles like they wanted to drag her closer, when Joren slammed the door again.
“ATLAS. I swear on every god that has ever existed—IF YOU ARE IGNORING ME BECAUSE YOU’RE DEAD, I AM GOING TO BE SO PISSED.”
I exhaled slowly. “This is the part where I kill him.”
She bit her lip to smother a laugh.
I dragged myself out of the bed, grabbed the nearest shirt, and cracked open the door just as Joren nearly fell through it like a man escaping hell.
He barreled inside, dripping water across the stone floor, one boot missing, hair plastered to his skull, holding… was that a basket of fish? He turned, setting the basket down with the gravitas of a man delivering evidence at a murder trial.
“ATLAS,” he said, voice dropping to a low, haunted register, “I need you to look me in the eyes and tell me you didn’t accidentally summon an extinction-level weather event because you finally got laid.”
Caelira made a strangled noise.
I pinched the bridge of my nose.
Joren kept going.
“I have spent the last TWO HOURS wading through the aftermath of whatever… ritualistic natural-disaster situation you two conjured last night.”
He pointed outside. “Do you know what I found? DO YOU?”
No one answered.
“Good. I’ll tell you.” He lifted one finger.
“One: A tree. Split clean down the middle. Still smoldering.”
He didn’t even breathe before the second finger went up.
“Two: a section of the western wall that LOOKS LIKE SOMEONE PUNCHED IT WITH A GOD.”
Caelira’s hand flew to her mouth.
Joren threw up a third finger.
“Three: Twenty-seven”, he held up the number like it personally offended him, “TWENTY-SEVEN dead fish scattered across the courtyard as if the Storm Court had a god-damned seafood festival and forgot to invite me.”
Caelira choked. “Twenty-seven?”
“TWENTY. SEVEN.”
His eyes went wide and feral.
“That’s not rainfall. That’s not lightning. That’s a sign from the gods that someone in this castle had an orgasm strong enough to ALTER LOCAL ECOLOGY.”
My jaw tightened trying to refrain from laughing.
Caelira turned scarlet.
Joren pressed a shaking hand to his heart.
“And finally, my personal favorite… there is a goat. A literal goat. From Embercourt. On the roof. It is screaming. CONSTANTLY. It’s been up there for hours, Atlas.”
He swallowed.
“I think it saw things.”
I closed my eyes. “Joren—”
He whirled on me, outraged.
“NO. You do NOT ‘Joren’ me right now. I would LIKE to have been told. I didn’t put ‘HANDLE MAGICAL ORGASMIC FALLOUT’ in my job description.”
Caelira made a dying, wheezing noise from behind him.
Joren pointed wildly between us.
“You two created a NATURAL DISASTER. A SEX-BASED NATURAL DISASTER. And do you know who had to deal with it this morning? DO YOU?”
He jabbed a thumb at his own chest.
“ME. I did. With one boot. And no dignity.”
He spread his arms at the courtyard behind him.
“So next time, NEXT TIME, you decide to unleash a realm-shaking bonding event that causes aquatic life displacement, structural damage, and poultry-related existential crises…”
Caelira blinked. “Poultry?”
He looked haunted.
“That chicken will NEVER be the same.”
Then he jabbed a finger at me again. “WARN ME, send a note, a signal fire. A polite knock on my door that says, ‘Hey Joren, maybe don’t stand outside tonight unless you want to be swept into the astral plane by a magical orgasm hurricane.’”
Caelira dissolved into full-bodied laughter.
Something in my chest cracked open.
Joren groaned into his hands.
“Gods. He’s doing the face again. ATLAS, STOP DOING THE FACE. Last time you looked at her like that, a goat ended up on the roof.”
He spun on his heel.
“I’m leaving. You two are terrifying. Fix your goat problem. I’m done.”
Joren stormed out muttering something about “damp books” and “emotional support goats.