Chapter 33
Thirty-Three
Obsidian Court
The afternoon sun had faded, and stars twinkled in the dark until dawn crawled across the sky. I had spent hours tangled in the bedsheets with my captor. Every inch of me was sore and warm with the memory of him. I had never felt so satisfied and confused at once.
I pressed my fingers into my temple, willing the dull ache to fade. I had offered my hand in marriage to the Fae ruler to unite the Kingdoms and then slept with his Commander. I couldn’t deal with that.
Pale sunlight spilled through the broken window, refracting against shards of glass and casting scattered rainbows across the heavy book open before me.
The Commander had left earlier to meet with the town’s leader and help with the burials of their lost people.
I hadn’t gone. Their pain might have broken me completely. So, I hid. And I read.
My fingers trembled as I skimmed page after page, searching for anything useful. A way into the heavens, a weakness in the Gods, a description of the monster who wrote this journal. Nothing. Until something caught my eye.
No matter how hard I try, I cannot remember Helion’s face. I know he created me, I know he cursed me. I must have seen his face.
I found a mage; he looked through my memories and told me the god had stolen them to hide his identity. Fucking coward.
I could not find him, but the other Gods could. I took it upon myself to tell the other Gods about what truly happened to Maraveth. Only a god is strong enough to kill another god, even though it is against their laws.
They were not kind to my creator, but they were not cruel enough. The other Gods merely stripped of Helion his throne and broke his claim to the sun.
The best torture was putting the god who craved light into the darkest pits of hell.
That’s how the Sun God fell into the dark.
The Hells were rising. The beasts slipping through the Mourning Woods weren’t just random horrors, they were Helion’s creations, hunting me.
The Nightbourne flashed into my head. They had wounded me. But then they had dragged me as though they were taking me somewhere. My grip tightened on the book. The room felt suddenly smaller, the air colder. Were they trying to kill me? Or take me to Helion himself?
A soft creak cut through the silence, and I knew without looking that it was the Commander. My heartbeat stumbled, nerves fluttering in my stomach. I closed the book slowly, my palms damp against the worn cover.
Dirt smudged the edge of the Commander’s sharp jaw, his eyes dark and weary. The burial rites had taken their toll. His chest rose in a sharp inhale, as though the sight of me in this bed was something he hadn’t expected.
“You didn’t run,” he murmured, voice laced with exhaustion and something softer.
“I couldn’t even if I tried,” I admitted with a smirk.
His gaze dropped, lingering on the blanket pooled around my hips where bruises in the shape of his hands marked my skin beneath the thin slip he had given me. He took in the faint tremble in my fingers that held onto the book. His jaw flexed. “You’re hurt—”
“I’m sore,” I corrected, cutting him off as a blush crept up my face. “But in the most perfect way.” His eyes darkened, shadows viciously pulling at his skin and burying inside of him.
“Your shadows—why do they hurt you when you are near me?” I wondered out loud.
“You are very observant, Little Drownling,” he chuckled. “Do not worry, it is worth the pain.”
My stomach fluttered, eyes roaming his body with open hunger. “When you drink my blood, it makes the shadows less… volatile, doesn’t it?” His eyebrows raised. Perhaps he was surprised that I had noticed such a small detail. But the truth was, I noticed everything about him.
“Yes, it gives me relief,” he admitted.
I hummed softly, pushing the journal aside. “You can drink from me whenever you want.”
He crossed the room in three strides before catching himself, stopping short of touching me. The muscles in his shoulders tightened, a visible effort not to reach out. To bite into my skin. “How has your reading been?” he asked quietly instead, controlling his urges.
My shoulder dropped and I tried not to frown at the question.
“Horrible, actually. It is a tragic story,” I said, unable to hide the disdain from my voice.
“Helion’s monsters are hunting me. But were they not designed to kill me?
The Nightbourne acted like they were trying to take me.
” The Commander stared at the journal, his expression unreadable.
Then his eyes lifted, locking on mine with terrifying intensity.
“He wants you because you are powerful. Whoever’s side you pick will be the side that wins. But Helion is desperate, angry that his monsters are failing him. I have received word of another attack of Skanthi in Alton last night, a town north from here. Many were slaughtered.”
A shaky breath escaped me as I twirled my hair with my fingers. “Will my marriage to your ruler make him angrier? Cause more death? Maybe you should give me to Helion and end it all.”
The Commander stilled, muscles turning tense. “With you by his side, he will take the realms even faster. That’s why he is hunting you this time.”
The silence between us was too thick and a sinking feeling clawed into my stomach. “How do you know so much about this?”
“I’ve read the journal, and I have my hunches. That’s why I want your power imbued into weapons. Only a god had the power to kill another god and their monsters.”
“But you kill the monsters…” I trailed off, hands dropping into my lap.
“Because I am the Commander of Death. My darkness can kill almost anything.”
My blood ran cold.
“Lyra—”
“Don’t,” I cut in sharply, though my voice trembled.
“I can’t… I shouldn’t have. We shouldn’t have.
What if your ruler accepts my offer? Will you watch me marry another male to save the Kingdoms?
” His expression crumpled for a heartbeat, just enough to reveal something raw beneath before the mask of the Commander slipped into place.
“I cannot watch you marry another male,” he said, stepping closer.
“I want you by my side.” His voice was low, even.
But there was a vulnerability in his voice that I hadn’t heard before and I stared at him for a long moment.
“I know you can feel it too,” he said quietly, cutting through the silence. The shadows around him stilled, as if listening. “Stop lying to yourself.”
I looked away, not wanting him to see my vulnerability.
“I’ll stop lying if you tell me your name,” I demanded, crossing my arms.
He chuckled, gripping my chin with his thumb and forefinger and forcing my gaze to his. “You are cute when you are demanding, but I cannot tell you that.” Heat tingled against my skin, power sinking into my veins. He wants me.
I bared my teeth at him, smacking his hand away and reaching for his belt.
“I will torture it out of you then.” Shoving his pants down, a thrill shot through my stomach to find his cock already hard, the thick veins pulsing with need.
“I might need that blood, Little Drownling,” he gritted through clenched teeth, his shadows swarming him viciously.
I smirked up at him. “Tell me your name and you can.”
“You touching me like that is worth any pain.”
I glared up at him, shoving him deep into my mouth until his head tipped back and a masculine moan tore through his chest. Heat engulfed me, the power from his lust flooding through me. I squeezed his balls with one hand, and he cursed in the Fae language.
Shadows crawled from the corners of the room, circling around his body and striking him. I scraped my teeth along his shaft and bit.
“You fucking vicious little thing,” he hissed. “Whatever you do to me I will return.” The promise sent heat through my stomach that gathered between my legs—
A sharp knock on the door made me still.
“Go away,” the Commander growled through the door.
They knocked again, and I sat back on my heels, his cock popping out of my mouth.
His eyes fluttered shut, his body dissipating into the shadows and reappearing, flickering like a spluttering candle.
He shoved himself back into his pants and wiped a thumb across my mouth before stalking across the room.
He gripped the door handle and pulled it open with such force I was surprised it did not break.
A blonde male stood in the doorway in black formal armour with an emblem of three-pointed silver stars over his heart. He bent at the waist in a formal greeting that seemed ill-fitting.
“What do you want?” the Commander ground out.
The guard handed him a scroll, and as the Commander unrolled it, the guard’s grey eyes crashed into mine with such intensity the world threatened to fall away. Like storm clouds. His lip curled and heat crawled up my neck. I was still on my knees, wearing nothing but a slip.
“Keep looking at her and I will gouge your eyes from your skull and feed them to you,”
The Commander rumbled with deathly calm as he read.
The guard looked down at his feet. “My apologies, Commander.”
He ignored him and turned to me with an unreadable expression.
“Your father has accepted the alliance and is travelling here immediately. You will unite the Kingdoms by the end of this week.” The Commander scrunched up the scroll, throwing it at the ground with a snarl.
“Collect my horse from the stable and meet us in the square,” he ordered the guard.
My mind was spinning, the floor threatening to give way beneath me.
Reality crashed into me with a sickening realisation.
I was going to see my father. I was marrying someone I had never met. My time with the Commander was over.
Every gallop of Winston’s hooves drove me forward like a blow.
The jolt of each stride punched up my spine, rattling my teeth and turning my stomach sour.
Nausea churned in my gut, low and stubborn.
But it wasn’t the riding… It was everything else.
I hadn’t spoken a single word since we left the inn.
Not because I didn’t have anything to say, but because I was terrified of what might come out if I tried.
My thoughts were a knotted mess. Sharp and tangled.
Every time I tried to grab one, three more slipped through my fingers.
His hands on me, his voice in my ear, the tugging in my chest, the marriage, the book, Helion, the monsters, the Relics.
I had slept with my Kingdom’s enemy. My captor.
And now he was taking me to the man I was meant to marry.
To give the people the best chance of surviving the rise of the Seven Hells.
My decision. But the man pressed up against me, the same man whose touch repulsed me mere weeks ago, was someone I wasn’t ready to let go.
The way he gripped my waist made me think he felt the same.
If I refused to marry the Fae ruler, Helion could destroy everything.
But I wanted the Commander. The shame. The confusion.
The want. The dread. It all tangled in my lungs until breathing felt impossible.
The sun beat down without mercy, warm on my back, but inside I felt cold.
Hollowed out. Like I’d left pieces of myself in that bed at the inn and wasn’t sure which ones I needed to survive what came next.
I swallowed hard, staring at Winston’s dark mane whipping in the wind.
If I opened my mouth, even for a moment, the truth would pour out of me in a broken, humiliating rush—
So, I stayed silent. Because silence was the only thing that would save everyone.
The guard galloped on a white horse in front of us, my eyes drawn to him.
I could not shake the feeling of familiarity.
Yet, the more I looked at him, the stranger that feeling sat.
His hair stayed blonde, his posture too rigid, his build wrong.
For a moment, his eyes had reminded me of Riven. Perhaps I was just missing him.
“There.” The Commander’s voice cut cleanly through my spiralling thoughts.
He pointed as we crested a rolling hill.
Wind swept across the tall grasses, brushing the blades in slow, rhythmic waves like the sea breathing on land.
I followed his gesture, breath leaving me in surprise.
Beyond the field, carved into the base of a sheer cliff, rose a fortress of pure obsidian.
A castle of shadow. It had sharp edges, but it glittered in the sunlight captivatingly.
I craned my neck as we approached, nerves fluttering through me.
It didn’t look built so much as grown from the mountain itself, as though the earth had birthed it.
And I was riding straight into it. Straight into the arms of the king I had promised myself to, when every part of my being longed to stay with the monster dragging me there.