Chapter 19 #2
“Don’t.” She shook her head, aching. But he held her gaze, eyes burning with a love that hurt. “You are becoming something vast, Eris. Something divine. And I am just a man trying not to lose you to a future where I cannot follow.”
The confession struck like lightning, searing through her soul. She stepped into him, into the fire of his fear, and cradled his face with both trembling hands.
“Look at me,” she whispered, her voice unsteady.
“I do not want a throne if it costs your touch. I do not want power if it means silence where your voice once lived.” Her tears fell freely now, unstoppable.
“There is no prophecy I will fulfill without your hand in mine. No destiny worth walking that does not echo your name beside me.”
She grabbed his collar, desperate, and pulled him down until their foreheads touched. Their breath mingled in that sacred space between heartbreak and vow.
“I do not care what fate wrote before I was born.” Her voice broke, then turned fierce. “I choose you. I will always choose you. And I would burn heaven to keep you.”
Whatever fate had forged between her and Kareon, none of it mattered. Not if it meant losing Stephan.
He was not only the man she loved. He was the reason her heart had learned to beat.
She could not remember a time when his name was not part of her soul.
There was no version of herself without him.
He was her gravity, her breath. Without him, she would be a wound that would never heal. A soul with no home.
And she would not live unwhole. Not for fate. Not for prophecy. Not even for the gods.
Stephan’s heart roared in his chest. His lips parted, words rising, fractured, desperate to reach her. He wanted to tell her everything: how she undid him, how losing her to fate felt like a blade to the chest. But the words never left him, because Eris moved first.
She rose onto her toes, fisted the front of his uniform, and pulled him down.
Her mouth crushed onto his fiercely, burning with defiance.
It was a kiss both feral and sacred, as if her lips could quiet his storms and brand her truth into him.
Her grip twisted in his uniform, grounding them in a gravity that belonged only to them.
She did not kiss him like a woman proving a point; she kissed him like a queen claiming her kingdom, like a sinner pleading for absolution, as if salvation and sacrilege both lived in her mouth.
And gods, he let her.
Because in that moment, there was no Kareon, no prophecy, no war waiting behind the door.
There was only her, only this, only love.
But the moment did not break. It deepened.
She pressed into him, chest to chest, hips brushing in a rhythm just shy of surrender.
Her breath caught on parted lips, and he drank it like air after drowning.
Heat curled low in her belly, a pull that tightened with every second she didn’t touch more of him.
She moaned into his mouth, a soft, wrecked sound that unraveled him.
The kiss turned savage. Lips and teeth and desperate breath. He kissed her like he’d been starved, and she took him like she’d been waiting a lifetime.
She was silk and fire beneath his hands. Her nightgown slid beneath his fingers, whispering off her shoulder like surrender. She looked up through her lashes, bold and burning, a queen who knew exactly what her touch could ruin.
“Look at you, wicked little thing,” he rasped, his voice rough with want. “You’re going to fucking break me.”
She smiled sinfully against his mouth, all heat and command. “Then break for me.”
He cursed under his breath, his grip tightening on the backs of her thighs as her chemise gathered up in frantic folds. “You’re playing with fire.”
She didn’t flinch. Instead, she rolled her hips, slow and devastating against the hard press of him. “I am fire.” She bit his lip, hard enough to make him curse, soft enough to make him beg.
A guttural groan tore from him, as he lifted her off the ground in one urgent motion. Her legs locked around his hips. He pinned her, hard, against the wall. Grinding. Desperate. As if friction alone could save him. She gasped, half-laugh, half-plea, caught between ruin and delight.
“You like that?” she whispered, lips brushing his ear.
His grip tightened, his voice a rasp. “Don’t tease me, Eris,” he growled. “Or I’ll fuck you so hard, your legs won’t remember how to hold you.”
The threat hit like a flame to dry silk; she gasped, hips twitching before she caught herself.
“Then do it,” she whispered, breath fractured. “Make me limp for days.”
That did it.
A sound tore from his throat, half snarl, half moan. She’d dared him, and now he was going to make her feel every second of it.
He carried her to the bed like a man possessed and pinned her down like she belonged beneath him. Then came mouth and hands—everywhere. Demanding. Devoted.
She arched into him, the nightgown twisted, half-forgotten. Her hands fumbled at his shirt, buttons scattering like the last of her control. The silk bunched at her waist. Higher. Higher. Until her thighs were bare, her body opened beneath him like prayer.
“Gods, you’re so fucking beautiful,” he whispered. His mouth moved lower, teeth grazing her inner thigh. She moaned, hips lifting without thought.
Her fingers tangled in his hair. “I want you, Stephan,” she whispered, breath fractured. “All of you.”
His body moved with hers, rolling his hips in slow, deliberate circles that frayed every nerve.
“You drive me fucking mad,” he growled. “Every godsdamned night, I dream of all the filthy, fucking ways I'll tear you apart and make you beg for it.”
"Then fucking take me,” she begged, legs spreading, desperate. “Now.”
His eyes flared, her words tearing through the last of his control. He growled—rough, animal—and dragged her hips hard against his, grinding with ruthless pressure. “Mine,” he breathed, voice shaking. “You’re fucking mine.”
She gasped. There was no mistaking how far gone he was—so big, so urgent, so fucking desperate. Anticipation curled hot between her legs. One more breath and she would have shattered.
Then came a knock, loud and merciless, like the universe itself mocking them.
Eris went still beneath him, her body still pulsing, her mind hazed with pleasure.
Stephan didn’t freeze. Didn’t stop. Didn’t care. His grip tightened. He couldn’t stop tasting her.
“Stephan—the ceremony!”
He barely reacted. Her words didn’t seem to register. His lips dragged lower.
“Stephan.”
Still nothing. He pressed against her, lost in the unbearable need to take her apart.
She cupped his face, fingers trembling, dragging his gaze to hers like it was the last tether to reason. Their breaths collided, desperate.
She said it again, slower this time.
“The ceremony. The Crimson Vow. Move!”
This time, it landed. Agony flashed across his face. Then came the growl. Low. Raw. Torn from the pit of him.
He wrenched himself back, raking a shaking hand through his hair like he could scrape her off his skin. “Damn it.”
Eris scrambled off the bed, already grabbing his clothes, fumbling to shove the fabric into his hands.
“Slow down. I can dress myself,” he muttered, dazed, still drowning in the aftershock of her.
In a breath, he was dressed again, but the heat hadn’t faded. It still scorched the air between them.
She smoothed her robe with trembling fingers, then turned. “You need to go.”
He exhaled hard. “I swear, we always get interrupted at the worst damn moment.”
Eris chuckled, pulling him close, her lips finding his in a slow kiss. “Almost like we’re cursed,” she murmured.
He groaned, his hands lingering at her waist. She pulled open the door, only to find the tailor standing outside, mortified.
Eris flushed. “Stephan, go.”
But he didn’t move yet. He leaned in, his lips brushing her ear. “Tonight, after the vow, I’m going to fuck you like you’re already wearing my crown.”
A violent shiver raced down her spine. She gasped, breathless, then smirked, eyes wicked. “Then crown me properly. I want to feel it everywhere.”
One last look. Then he was gone, hurrying down the stairs, still burning for her.
The tailor stepped inside, visibly tense, as if sensing what she’d just interrupted. Eris fastened her robe with trembling fingers, trying to steady her pulse. The door clicked shut.
She exhaled, lips tingling, heat still pulsing between her thighs.
Tonight they would become one—in body, in vow. And if prophecy rose to tear them apart, let it rise.
She would burn the heavens before she gave him up. Even if it meant setting fire to fate itself.