Chapter 15 Faith
FIFTEEN
FAITH
Three days had passed since the fire transformed the town square into a battlefield of smoke and flame, and now Faith found herself curled against the plush velvet of Kovrak’s sitting room couch, her legs tucked beneath her as morning light poured through the floor-to-ceiling windows like liquid gold.
The breakfast spread before them on the low coffee table—delicate pastries, exotic fruits that shimmered with their own inner light, and steaming cups of something that tasted like cinnamon and starlight—seemed almost surreal after the chaos that had nearly claimed her life.
Her right arm bore the fading pink sheen of healing skin where fire had kissed her, the angry blisters now reduced to tender new flesh that pulled slightly when she moved.
Her ankle, wrapped in soft bandages that Kovrak had insisted on changing himself each morning, felt steady beneath her weight again.
But it wasn’t her physical recovery that occupied her thoughts—it was the man beside her, his powerful frame relaxed yet alert as he watched her with those pale ice-blue eyes that seemed to catalog every breath, every movement, and every flicker of expression across her face.
He had not left her side. Not once.
Faith had expected dominance from an Alpha prince, expected him to give orders and delegate her care to servants while he attended to his royal duties and festival obligations.
Instead, she had discovered something that undid her completely: tenderness wrapped in strength.
His hands adjusting her pillows with infinite care.
His voice, low and soothing, as he checked her injuries each morning and evening.
The way he insisted on helping her bathe, his touch clinical yet reverent as he washed her hair and rinsed the soap from her skin as though she were something sacred rather than simply wounded.
“You’re staring,” he murmured, his voice carrying that hint of amusement that made her pulse quicken.
“You’re worth staring at,” she replied, surprising herself with the boldness. Three days of his unwavering attention had stripped away her usual guardedness, leaving something raw and honest in its place.
His mouth curved in that devastating smile that made her forget how to breathe properly. “Careful, Faith. Compliments like that might go to my head.”
“You can handle it.” She reached for a piece of fruit that looked like a cross between a peach and a star. “Besides, I’m just returning the favor. You’ve been watching me like I might disappear if you blink.”
Something shifted in his expression—vulnerability flickering beneath the controlled exterior. “You nearly did disappear,” he said quietly.
The words hung between them, heavy with emotion he rarely allowed himself to express. Faith set down the fruit and turned to face him fully, her heart clenching at the raw honesty in his voice.
“But I didn’t,” she said firmly. “I’m here. I’m healing. And I’m not going anywhere.”
The last words carried more weight than she’d intended, and she watched understanding dawn in his eyes.
During these quiet days of recovery, she had filled pages in her recipe notebook with new dessert concepts, sketching flavor pairings inspired by Nova Aurora’s exotic spices and otherworldly fruits.
But more than that, she had sketched out the shape of a future that no longer felt like sacrifice—it felt like expansion.
“The final day feast,” she said, changing the subject before she lost her nerve entirely. “I want to create something special. Something that represents...” She hesitated, searching for the right words.
“What?” His voice carried gentle command, the tone of a man accustomed to getting answers.
“Union,” she said finally. “Fire and sweetness braided together. Something that tastes like us.”
The intensity in his gaze made her skin flush warm. “Us,” he repeated, the word rolling off his tongue like a prayer.
“Don’t get ahead of yourself, Your Highness.” But her teasing tone couldn’t hide the truth beneath it—she was already thinking in terms of partnership, of shared dreams and intertwined futures.
He leaned closer, his hand finding hers on the cushion between them. “Tell me what you’re planning.”
“No.” She pulled her hand away with a smile that felt lighter than air. “It’s a surprise. You’ll have to wait like everyone else.”
His eyebrows rose in mock outrage. “I am not everyone else. I am your—“
“My what?” The challenge in her voice was playful, but beneath it lay a deeper question that had been building in her chest for days.
Kovrak’s expression grew serious, his pale eyes searching her face with an intensity that made her breath catch. “Your mate,” he said simply. “If you’ll have me.”
The words settled between them like a bridge waiting to be crossed.
Faith felt her heart race as she realized this was the moment—the choice that would reshape everything.
Four days ago, she had nearly died beneath falling timber and flame, and in that suspended moment between breath and darkness she had seen with startling clarity what mattered most.
She wanted him. Not just the safety he offered, but the man who had held her hand through pain and held her close through restless nights. The man who was learning to be vulnerable just as she was learning to trust.
“Kovrak,” she began, her voice steady despite the magnitude of what she was about to say.
Faith paused for a moment and drew a slow, steadying breath as his gaze fixed on her with a burning intensity that felt both protective and possessive.
This was it. The truth she’d been carrying for three days—through his gentle ministrations, his quiet conversations in the dark, his unwavering presence—now pressed against her ribs, demanding release.
“What is it? Is it your arm? Your ankle?”
“No.” She reached out, her fingers brushing over the back of his hand. “It’s not pain. It’s… a decision.”
He went perfectly still. The silence in the sunlit room felt immense.
“I’m ready,” she said, the words clear and sure. “For your mark. For this life. For you. I’m choosing it. All of it.”
For a heartbeat, he simply stared as if she’d spoken in another language. Shock etched lines beside his eyes before his entire face softened, the controlled mask dissolving into something raw and vulnerable.
“Faith.” Her name was a rough exhale. His hand came up to cradle her cheek, his thumb stroking her skin. “This mark… it’s not a contract you can break. It will change you. Bind you to me in ways that are permanent. It will tie your soul to mine. You understand that? Truly?”
She turned her face into his palm, pressing a kiss there. The gesture felt more intimate than anything they’d yet done. “I do. And the only thing more terrifying than that kind of forever is walking away from what this is. From what we are together.”
The smile that broke across his face then was unlike any she’d seen—unfiltered, brilliant, stripping away twenty years of princely restraint. It was the smile of a man who had just been given everything.
Then he was pulling her into his arms, his kiss not claiming but celebrating.
It was relief and devotion and a reverence so fierce it stole the air from her lungs.
His hands slid into her hair, tilting her head back as he deepened the kiss, and she met him with equal fervor, her own hands gripping the hard planes of his shoulders.
When they broke apart, breathless, their bathrobes were already loose. Kovrak didn’t tear the fabric away; he parted it with a deliberate slowness that made her skin hum, his gaze sweeping over her as if memorizing this moment.
Then he leaned in, his lips finding the sensitive hollow of her throat. “My beautiful mate,” he murmured against her skin, the vibration resonating deep within her.
With effortless strength, he gathered her into his arms, cradling her against his chest as he rose from the couch.
He was meticulously careful of her healing injuries, his movement all controlled power.
He carried her the short distance to the massive bed—their bed now, the place where they had shared secrets and quiet laughter and the slow, trusting unraveling of their guards over the past three days.
He laid her down upon the silk sheets as if she were spun glass, his body following hers down, covering her without weight. “Tell me if anything hurts,” he commanded, his voice a low growl that promised both pleasure and protection.
“You won’t hurt me,” she whispered back, arching into him.
His answer was a trail of open-mouthed kisses that mapped a path from her jaw to her collarbone, then lower.
He took one peaked nipple into his mouth, his tongue swirling and sucking until she gasped, her back bowing off the bed.
At the same time, his hand found the heat between her thighs, his fingers sliding through her slick folds with an expertise that made her cry out.
“So responsive and ready,” he praised, his breath hot against her damp skin.
The dual sensations—the sharp pull at her breast and the relentless, circling pressure of his fingers—built a coil of white-hot need deep in her core. Just as the tension threatened to snap, he stilled, pulling back to look down at her, his eyes blazing.
“Take your pleasure from me, Faith,” he murmured. “Take what you need.”
The command, wrapped in an offer of control, undid her completely. With a boldness he alone could summon from her, she pushed at his shoulders. He yielded instantly, rolling onto his back, his gaze locked on hers as she moved over him.
Straddling his hips, she felt his hard cock pressing against her thigh.
She reached between them, guiding him to her slick entrance.
Slowly, she sank down, taking him inch by exquisite inch until he was buried to the hilt inside her.
The fullness was overwhelming, perfect, and a groan tore from her throat.
“Look at you,” he rasped, his hands coming to grip her hips, his fingers pressing into her flesh. “My queen, claiming her king.”
She began to move, setting a rhythm that was both deliberate and desperate.
Her hands braced on the hard wall of his chest as she rode him, each rise and fall stoking the fire higher.
Beneath her, he met every thrust, his hips surging upward to meet her descent, the force of it driving pleasure through her in relentless waves.
The connection was more than physical. It was a humming current in the air between them, the mate bond they had nurtured now glowing like a live wire.
“Faith,” he gritted out, his control fraying. His claws, usually so carefully sheathed, pricked at the skin of her hips. “I’m going to mark you now.”
“Mark me,” was all she could manage, the word a breathless plea.
As her climax gathered, a storm about to break, he shifted his right hand.
The sharp, swift scratch across her hipbone was a bright flare of pain that cut through the pleasure—and then fused with it.
At the exact moment her orgasm shattered through her and his orgasm shuddered through him, the pain transformed, melting into a spreading warmth that bloomed from the mark outward, like sunlight flooding her veins.
In that instant, the world rewired itself. His consciousness wasn’t just beside hers; it was interwoven. She felt the staggering depth of his devotion, the ferocity of his protectiveness, and the humbled awe that she had chosen him. It was all there, a cascade of feeling that was uniquely Kovrak.
As the last tremors subsided, he pulled her down against him, her sweat-slicked skin meeting his. His hand came up to stroke her hair.
Can you hear me? The words formed not in the air, but directly in her mind, his mental voice a deeper, more resonant version of his own.
Her heart skipped, a flutter of nerves at the profound intimacy of it. But the trust they’d built—the trust she had in him, and the trust he had in her—steadied her. She focused, pouring her answer toward that new, shining connection between them.
I hear you.
Faith’s body hummed with a contentment so profound it felt like coming home after years of wandering.
The mate mark on her hip pulsed with warmth, a living brand that seemed to echo the steady rhythm of Kovrak’s heartbeat beneath her cheek.
She traced lazy patterns across his chest, marveling at how perfectly she fit against the solid planes of his body, how natural it felt to be draped over him.
The completed bond between them thrummed quietly—not overwhelming, but present like a second heartbeat. She could sense his satisfaction at the completion, and beneath it all, a wonder that matched her own. They were irrevocably bound now.
“I can feel you thinking,” he murmured, his hand stroking down the length of her spine with possessive gentleness.
“I’m just processing everything.” She pressed a kiss to the hollow of his throat.
“Tell me.” The command was soft but unmistakable.
Faith lifted her head to meet his gaze, those ice-blue eyes studying her with a burning intensity that made her pulse quicken. “I was thinking about how wrong I was about everything.”
His eyebrows rose slightly. “Explain.”
“When I first arrived here and learned about the mate thing, I thought choosing you would mean giving up pieces of myself. Shrinking down to fit into your life.” She shifted, wincing slightly as her healing injuries protested, but his hands immediately steadied her.
“But this doesn’t feel like losing anything.
It feels like... more. Like I’m becoming better than I ever imagined possible. ”
The smile that spread across his face was devastating in its warmth. “My perfect mate,” he said, rolling them carefully so she lay beside him. “You haven’t lost anything. You’ve claimed everything you’ve ever wanted and more—including me.”
The future stretched before them, vast and uncertain. There would be politics to navigate, enemies to face, a kingdom to help rule. But wrapped in his arms, marked and bound and utterly unafraid, Faith knew she was exactly where she always belonged.
“Whatever comes next,” she whispered, pulling him down for a kiss, “we face it together.”
“Together,” he agreed against her lips, the word a vow that sealed their fate.