Chapter 9 #2
I want to fuck it deeper into her until it's the only thing either of us can remember.
I want to spread her legs and put my mouth on her cunt and feel her shake while she tries to stay quiet, while she fails, while she learns that my hands don't hurt and my mouth doesn't hurt and the only pain I'm interested in giving her is the kind that makes her beg for more.
The tunnel forks. I take the left passage without hesitating, muscle memory and instinct, and the stone underfoot changes from rough to worn—older section, closer to home.
"Coin's going to shit themselves," Renan says, matching my pace. "You know that, right? You just walked into their territory, killed their enforcer, took their property, and walked out again. They're going to call it an act of war."
"Then I kill everyone."
Renan laughs. Low, genuine, the sound bouncing off the tunnel walls and dying in the darkness ahead. "You know what I like about you, Koshin? You're consistent. Completely fucking insane, but consistent."
"Thank you."
"It wasn't a compliment."
"I know. I'm taking it as one anyway."
Iowyn shakes in my arms. A fine tremor, barely visible, running through her shoulders and pooling in her hands where they're still curled in my coat.
Cold. Shock. Both. I pull her tighter, trying to share heat, and her head turns into my throat.
Her lips brush my pulse point—accidental, meaningless, unconscious—and my cock doesn't care about any of those qualifiers.
It pulses against my thigh and I let it. Nothing to do about it now.
"How much farther?" Renan asks.
"Four minutes." My voice sounds wrong. Distant. "Maybe three. Her ribs need attention. Someone needs to look at her throat. The cartilage might be—"
"Koshin."
"—could be damage to the trachea, could be swelling that closes her airway while we're walking, I should check, I should put her down and check—"
"Koshin." Renan's hand on my arm. Firm. "Her color's normal. The shaking is shock, not trauma. Keep walking. Four minutes."
I keep walking.
The second gate looms ahead—iron bars set into stone, rusted with age, thick enough to stop anything short of a god. My elites have already unlocked it. The bars swing open at my approach and close behind us with a heavy clang that echoes down the tunnel.
Discord territory. The air shifts. Warmer. The stone beneath my boots changes from natural formation to carved blocks, worn smooth by centuries of footsteps. Lanterns appear at regular intervals, gold light steady, and I walk faster.
Her body jerks hard against mine and a sound escapes her—small, pained, bitten off before it forms.
I stop.
My hand moves without permission, sliding from under her shoulders to cup the back of her skull. Her hair tangles around my fingers and I smooth it, thread through it, find the heat of her scalp. She's warm. She's real. She's here.
"You're safe." The words come out rough. Wrong. I've never said them to anyone. "You're in Discord. No one's going to touch you."
She doesn't wake, but the tension in her body loosens. The crease between her brows softens. Her head turns further into my palm, pressing into the contact, seeking it even in sleep.
"Touching," Renan says from behind me. "Really. Heartwarming. I might cry."
"You don't have tear ducts."
"Not anymore. You want to keep walking, or should I fetch a blanket and some candles?"
"Do we have candles?"
"Koshin."
I start walking. The private wing is ahead—no one else enters without my permission. No one except Renan has been inside in decades, and even he doesn't come often.
Iowyn will be the first. The first person I've brought here. The first person I've wanted in my space.
Renan reaches past me to open the door. "After you."
I carry her through into the only place in this world that belongs entirely to me.
The bed is in the corner. Absurdly expensive. Silk, down, the whole fucking performance. I've slept in it maybe thirty times in the past decade. Nightmares don't care what you're lying on.
I carry her to the bed and stand there.
Holding her.
Not ready to let go.
Her weight is perfect in my arms. Her breath is warm against my throat. Her body fits against mine in a way that makes my head go quiet and my cock stay hard and my chest go tight, all at once, too much to separate into individual sensations.
I lower her slowly. One hand under her head, guiding it to the pillow.
One hand under her shoulders, easing her down.
Her body sinks into the mattress and her face turns toward the light and I see all of it clearly—split lip swollen dark, bruise spreading across her cheekbone, throat marked with the shape of fingers that are no longer attached to a living hand.
I want to dig him up. I want to kill him again. I want to bring him back and break every bone in his body one by one and then start over with the small ones, the ones in his hands, the ones he used to touch her.
My knees hit the floor before I decide to kneel.
My hand hovers over her face, close enough to feel the heat of her skin, not quite touching.
If I touch her now, I won't stop. I'll strip her dress off and check every inch of her body.
I'll put my mouth on every bruise. I'll spread her legs and taste her and I won't care that she's unconscious, won't care that she can't say yes, won't—
I would care.
I pull my hand back.
I stay on my knees beside the bed and breathe.
Renan appears in the doorway. "Healer's five minutes out. I've already told them not to make eye contact with you. Or her. Or anything in this room."
"Good."
"You need anything else?"
"No one comes in but them."
"Obviously." He pauses. I feel his attention on my back, curious and careful. "Koshin."
"What."
"You did good."
I don't know what to say to that. I don't know what it means.
I killed people. I took her. I carried her through the dark to a place no one else has been.
None of that feels like something I did.
All of it feels like something that happened to me, through me, some force I don't control moving my body toward an outcome I didn't choose.
"She's still breathing," I say instead of answering.
"Yeah." Renan's voice is soft. Almost gentle. I didn't know he could sound gentle. "She is."
He leaves. The door closes.
I stay on my knees.
My hand reaches out and finds her wrist—just fingertips, pressing gently against the inside where the veins run close. Her pulse jumps under my touch. Steady. Strong. Still scared, but fighting.
Good. She should fight. She should keep fighting. I want her angry and alive and looking at me with those green eyes that don't flinch, that don't look away, that see me and don't run.
The night settles outside these walls. Coin is screaming about the breach. Faith is sharpening their legal arguments. War is watching from the edges, calculating angles. The whole divine order is about to shift because I walked into a room and took what I wanted.
I don't care.
I stay on my knees with my fingers on her pulse and I don't care about anything else.
She's in my bed. In my space. The only quiet thing in a world made of noise.
Mine.