Chapter 16
ARIA DAWSON
Aebon doesn’t move. I stare at him—the lines of his face softer here, shadowed. The storm of a protector clipped from his pose, replaced by something humble, haunted.
I swallow. Press my hand harder.
“No one asked for your help,” I whisper, voice shaking. “I’m supposed to be the one who saves people, not be saved.”
His arm tightens. He meets my gaze. “Somebody had to.”
I glance down, mind reeling with everything we’ve done—how he bent the law, waged war on the enemy, sacrificed protocol for me.
“You broke rules,” I say. “You—”
“I’d break the stars themselves to keep you breathing,” he interrupts, voice hoarse.
Time tilts again. The cadence of his heart in my palm. The aftertaste of metal in the air. The weight of everything unspoken between us.
I try to speak but can’t. Instead, I lift my arm and press my fingers into his palm. Hard.
He doesn’t remove it.
Our breaths lock—my pain and his insistence and the ghost of rage and the hum of what could be love.
He exhales low. “Stay.”
I close my eyes. Disbelief warbles in the back of my head as guilt and something raw—acceptance?—coil in me.
The suit fabric shifts against skin—his touch unwavering, quietly fierce.
“Okay.”
In that room—white, silent, fragile as a promise—two warriors wounded and tangled face the reckoning.
He isn’t just my protector.
He’s the only one who ever held my wreckage and didn’t turn away.
The room with its antiseptic white walls feels too small for the weight of what’s left undone. Rain taps a trembling rhythm against the reinforced window—distorted by the storm—and I swallow, pressing tangled sheets to my ribs as I listen.
Aebon stands by the bedside, adjusting the Centauri-grade med scanner with something gentle in his movements I’ve never seen before. There’s no warlord in this posture—only a man who’s carried too much, and is panting under the weight of it.
I shift, summoning breath, and he turns, catching my gaze. His red eyes are dimmed—not by the hospital light, but by something real. Vulnerability. Fear. Regret.
He clears his throat, soft as a closing door.
“I didn’t tell you why I offered the informant’s cube,” he begins, and I feel the hairs on my arm lift. “Because it was leverage. Because if we were going to topple Nar’Vosk, I needed something they couldn’t deny. But I also did it because… because I wanted a bargain with you.”
His words hang in the air, viscous and potent. I hold still, letting them settle.
“A bargain?” I whisper. “What kind of bargain involves almost dying?”
He turns away, rubbing the back of his neck—silver-trimmed collar bending under the motion. For a moment, I almost pity him. Instead, I press closer.
“Tell me,” I say.
He stops pacing. Breathing falters.
“I lead the Centauri Sect,” he says, voice distant, as if he’s half in another world. “That isn’t just a title or a position. It’s a fucking burden. Every life that dies in my wars—someone, somewhere, blames me. Not the Nar’Vosk. Not the other factions. I do.”
He steps forward, eyes raw.
“Every time I walk away from a bar fight, a heist, a skirmish… someone under me asked why I didn’t help them when they came for blood.
Because vengeance is the only answer for the hurt people.
I know that. But if all I ever give them is vengeance—then it’s the same old cycle.
I tried something else. Something better. ”
My chest tightens. I see him now—not the predator in silk, but the man trying to rewrite the narrative of who he is. Trying to protect more than his people. Trying to give them—give me—something approaching peace.
“I wanted to give them stability,” he continues, voice wet with memory. “Not fear. I wanted to turn the Sect into more than muscle for hire—to make it a force that actually helps this city. Schools. Clinics. Jobs. Normal shit, Aria.”
His eyes meet mine. “I did it all because I thought… maybe you’d see I’m not just a butcher in a suit.”
A silence rolls between us—thick and full. The rain’s tap-softens now.
I swallow. Push propped pillow tighter.
“You sound like you really believed in that,” I say. My voice quavers—brittle from emotion, from admitting what the words cost me.
He nods, off balance. “I did.”
The shame in his posture breaks something in me open.
“I… believed it too,” I whisper, breath catching. “I believed the informant was more than a gift from the underground. That it meant you were trying. That you were changing.”
He steps closer, hesitates. “I am.”
“You had to bend the rules,” I say, voice low. “You lied. You manipulated.”
His lips form a slow line. “Yes.”
My pulse rattles.
“Because you thought it was worth it,” I say slowly. “Because you thought what we could… could be worth that.”
He doesn’t respond. Instead, he moves so close I can feel the heat spilling from his ribs, the steady drum of his heart against my palm.
So I place my hand there. Against his chest, over his heart.
And I hear him inhale.
We hold the moment.
I close my eyes.
Finally, I speak, voice trembling but deliberate: “I… I can’t keep pretending I don’t care if you live or die.”
He inhales again—soft, unsteady.
I open my eyes. He looks broken as thunder, but tender.
“Gods,” he murmurs. “That terrifies me.”
I swallow, weariness heavy in my limbs.
“Then I suppose…” I pause. “Then I suppose it terrifies me too.”
We sit together in the pulse of the beeping monitors and distant thunder, and for the first time, everything we are—monster and moralist, vengeance and protection—collides in one fragile truth.
We’re not whole.
But maybe we’re enough.
The suite hums with midnight hush—dark velvet curtains pulled back just enough to let the storm in.
Rain traces rivulets down reinforced glass, thunder rolling like a low heartbeat.
The air is thick with sandalwood and steam from the perfumed bath they drew hours ago.
My body is soft and clean beneath silken sheets.
My ribs ache less, but my pulse pounds like a drum I no longer fear.
I drift somewhere between rest and readiness—until I feel him.
Aebon.
His presence doesn’t disturb the air. It owns it.
I feel the heat of him before I hear the shift of his boots across the rug.
Then I see him—massive, otherworldly, terrifyingly beautiful.
He stands tall at the foot of the bed, the fire casting soft gold over black, leathery skin.
White bone spurs protrude from his elbows and shoulders like armor grown from pain.
His long white hair is wet at the tips. His red eyes shimmer like forge-coals in the dark.
He kneels.
Seven feet of silent power bends to my side, one callused hand brushing a strand of hair from my face.
I tremble.
“Aebon,” I whisper.
He exhales my name like prayer.
I sit up, sheets falling. My breasts bare. My nipples tight in the cool air. His eyes fall to them—not with hunger, but reverence. As if each curve, each freckle, each breath is a revelation.
He touches my cheek. “Do you still choose this?”
“I do,” I whisper. “Even now. Especially now.”
His lips meet mine, and it’s no longer the promise of a kiss.
It’s the vow.
He doesn’t move fast. He moves with purpose. His massive hands skim down my arms, then up, tracing my ribs—pausing at every bruise, every place that still echoes pain. “Tell me if you need to stop,” he murmurs.
“I won’t,” I breathe. “Not with you.”
He lifts me like I weigh nothing, settling me into his lap. My thighs straddle his hips. His cock presses hot and heavy against my belly—gods, it’s thick, already hard, dark and smooth with ridged veins along the base. My breath catches.
“You’re staring,” he says, amused.
“You’re massive,” I whisper. “How—how will it even—”
He kisses the base of my throat. “Gently. Until you beg me not to be.”
My pussy clenches at the promise.
He palms my breast, thumb brushing my nipple. I gasp. Heat races down my spine. His tongue follows the curve of my shoulder, slow, reverent. He suckles my nipple into his mouth, groaning low as I arch into him.
“Aebon…”
“I love how you say my name,” he whispers against my skin. “Say it again.”
I moan. “Aebon…”
His fingers trail between my thighs, and I gasp as he finds how soaked I am. He groans in response, slipping one thick finger between my folds.
“You’re already so wet,” he says, voice gravel-soft. “Is this all for me?”
“Yes,” I breathe.
He circles my clit, slow and firm, until I’m trembling in his lap. His finger slides inside—then another. I gasp as he stretches me, slow, precise. My pussy clenches around him, and he groans again, eyes burning.
“You take me so well,” he murmurs. “So fucking perfect.”
I grind into his hand, chasing the pressure. The stretch. The warmth. My body bows, hips rolling helplessly as his thumb presses my clit.
Then I come—hard.
My pussy tightens around his fingers, my breath stolen. He holds me through it, fingers deep, his other hand cradling my head.
When I collapse against him, he lays me back on the bed with reverence.
Then he sheds the last of his clothes.
And gods.
His cock is a marvel—long, thick, smooth black skin with just a faint pulse beneath the surface. His ridges glisten in the firelight. He kneels between my legs, dragging the head along my folds, teasing.
I gasp. “Please…”
He presses in.
The stretch is breathtaking—full, slow. My pussy burns with it, but it’s good. He watches my face the whole time, red eyes locked on mine.
“You feel like fire,” I whisper, panting.
“You feel like home,” he says, voice breaking.
He moves.
Slow at first. Deep. His cock drags against every nerve, every sweet spot. I wrap my legs around his waist, moaning louder each time he fills me.
His mouth finds mine. “Tell me what it feels like.”
“Like I’m alive,” I whisper. “Like I’m breaking apart and finally okay with it.”
He thrusts harder now—steady, claiming. Our skin slaps in the still room, punctuated by our breathing, my cries, his groans.
My clit pulses. My pussy spasms.
I come again—screaming this time, legs tightening, nails raking his back. He growls, cock pulsing, thrusts rougher.
Then he shudders, plunging deep, stilling.
He comes inside me with a sound like thunder—deep, low, primal.
His cock twitches, filling me with warmth, and he collapses beside me, holding me close.
We lie in silence, breath syncing. Heartbeats thundering like the storm outside.
And when I close my eyes, his hand is in mine.
Safe.
Chosen.
Loved.