Chapter 50 A Truth
Chapter fifty
A Truth
-Maris-
The cabin was quiet save for the creak of the ship’s hull and the soft wash of waves beyond the porthole. The lantern on the wall flickered low, casting honey-gold light over the bed where Maris lay curled on her side, sleepless.
Alarik’s words still echoed in her skull like a spell she hadn’t asked for:
You’ve become something the rest of us can only chase… but that doesn’t mean you have to carry it alone.
I would kneel before you again. Even now, if only to ease your sorrows.
She’d barely managed to respond. Her throat had gone tight, her breath unsteady. It wasn’t just the sincerity in his voice or the fact that she believed every word.
It was the weight of knowing she’d seen him like that before.
In dreams.
Sultry, fevered, a dream that once seemed like a fantasy stitched from longing and wine.
Dreams where Kael had held her in a stream and worshipped her like something holy only for her to look up and find Alarik’s violet-blue eyes gazing down at her instead.
Dreams she’d dismissed, compartmentalized, buried under guilt and denial.
But now… now it all made sense.
He had been in her head.
She had called him there to fill a need that Kael alone could not staunch.
Not an illusion. Not a fantasy. A desperate request.
Her cheeks burned. The shame hit low and deep.
He had known. All along.
He had played along.
He’d watched her reach for both of them in that place where reality bent and barriers broke and he hadn’t stopped it. He had encouraged her fantasy.
She squeezed her eyes shut, burying her face into the pillow. Gods, what kind of fool had she been?
No. Not a fool. Just lonely. Torn. Caught between two kings. Two very different males. One who saw her for her potential, embracing her fully. And one of them, placing her in a box of desire and she’d promised herself to the latter.
Her hand curled instinctively toward the ring still on her finger. A band of elegant white gold, sharp and glinting moonstone in the low light. A promise forged in blood and court strategy.
Even if the bond was gone.
Even if there was nothing left but cold silence between their souls.
It still meant something.
Didn’t it?
She wasn’t sure anymore. Not of anything. Not of what she wanted. Not of who she was when desire whispered in her chest, and she turned her face away from the man who would kneel for her and mean it.
Maris exhaled shakily.
She wouldn’t act. She wouldn’t break whatever fragile thread of honor still held her.
So she let her longing curl beside her in the dark. Let her shame nest in her chest, hot and aching.
And as sleep slowly pulled her under, it was not Kael’s face she saw in the dark.
It was Alarik’s.
Sleep did not come gently.
But when it did she slipped into the dream without the usual confusion. It was too sharp, too warm to be mistaken for anything but him. Moonlight fell over her bare skin like oil. She lay on a bed of velvet shadows, no walls, no ceiling, only dark and sea wind and him.
Alarik.
He approached without sound, barefoot, shirtless, his silver-pale hair tousled like he’d torn through a storm to get to her. He didn’t speak. Neither of them did. Words, they knew, would end this. Would snap the tether and dissolve the illusion or the truth, whichever this place had become.
But gods, his eyes.
Those violet-blue depths burned with hunger wrapped in worship.
His fingers brushed her ankle, sliding slowly up the curve of her calf, pausing as if to ask for permission that he already knew she’d give. She arched slightly, breath catching. Every nerve felt like it had been set alight.
She whispered to herself.
It’s just a dream. That’s all. Only a dream.
He didn’t take her with haste. He took his time.
Teasing. Exploring. As though he had spent centuries learning her body through stares, through dreams, through every almost-touch in the waking world and had memorized it all.
His lips found the inside of her knee first.
Her thigh.
Her hip.
Never quite where she needed, always where she craved.
She gasped when his mouth finally descended, and her fingers tangled in his hair. Her hips rose to meet him but he pinned her, resting a hand against her belly, grounding her to the dream and to him.
Only breath and gasps and shudders formed between them.
It was tenderness without fragility.
It was possession without cruelty.
It was everything she hadn’t known she needed until now.
She knew she summoned him here. She'd done it knowing that this was not some fantasy, this was a shared space, sacred and dangerous.
She should have pushed him out.
She didn’t.
Her back arched, her breath faltered. He moved up her body slowly, like sin, trailing heat with every brush of his mouth and hands.
He entered her like he belonged there.
No sharp breath.
No hurried pace.
Just knowing how to touch her, how to hold her gaze, how to make her tremble from the inside out.
He was not her shadow king. He was not her once-sworn lover.
He was her undoing.
She came apart with him kissing her jaw, her name like a broken prayer on his lips. He held her as she shattered, her body bowstring tight beneath his, his length riding out the waves of her release. The sheer ecstasy burned itself into her bones.
Still, no words.
Only quiet truth.
Only heat.
Only him.
-Alarik-
She called to him.
Not aloud. Not with magic. But with need, a silent thread in the void between them, thrumming with desire, aching with shame.
And Alarik answered.
Willingly.
Gladly.
He felt the moment her longing tethered to his spirit, pulling him across the realm of sleep into that shared space. That secret sanctuary made of the terrible, beautiful ache of what could never be.
As soon as he arrived, he knew. This time, she knew it was him.
And still, she didn’t send him away.
He found her lying in that endless dreamscape of shadows and silk, her skin glowing like moon-washed stone, her eyes glassy with want. His breath hitched just looking at her. Just knowing she’d chosen this, even if only in sleep.
If this was the only way he could have her, so be it.
He would worship her in dreams if the waking world was too cruel to allow it.
He knelt at her feet like a penitent knight, brushing his fingers along her skin as if she’d vanish with any sudden move. She didn’t stop him. Didn’t speak. Only watched, chest rising and falling like a wave on the cusp of breaking.
She was his. Here. Just for now.
So he gave her everything.
Every touch she craved.
Every kiss she remembered.
Every promise his waking tongue was too afraid to speak.
When she cried out, trembling and tense beneath him, his heart broke and reformed all at once. Her pleasure was etched into his bones. Burned into him like a vow.
And then, he couldn’t help it.
He let go.
Not because he wanted to take, but because of what she gave — her body arching into his, her nails digging into his back, her breath catching in his ear.
It was too much. It was perfect.
His release came like a wave crashing through stone wild, shattering, more intimate than any battle he’d ever fought. But there was no victory in it.
Only surrender.
To her.
To this.
To what he would never have by light of day.
And still, he didn’t speak. He couldn’t.
Because the moment he said her name, he knew it would all collapse.
So instead, he stayed. Wrapped around her. Holding her as she softened and sighed, breath evening out, her limbs draped over him.
Let me stay, he begged the realm of dreams. If this is all I get let me keep it for just a moment longer.
He closed his eyes.
And held her.
And for once, the world was quiet.