Chapter 28 Finn #3
“She’s beautiful,” Malrik says.
“I know.” My voice is wrecked. “Gods, I know.”
“Tell her.”
“You’re beautiful.” The words tumble out without thought. “You’re fucking beautiful, Kaia. I’ve thought so since the first moment I saw you. Before I knew your name. Before I knew anything. Just—you. Standing there with your shadows. Looking at me like I was crazy for jumping off a tower.”
She laughs—broken, gasping, somehow perfect. “You were crazy.”
“I was trying to impress you.”
“It worked.”
I thrust harder, and her laugh cuts off into a moan.
“Yeah?” I manage. “Impressed now?”
“Getting there—” Her nails rake down my back. “Don’t stop—”
I couldn’t stop if I wanted to. Every part of me is focused on her—the sounds she makes, the way she moves, the way she feels clenched around me like she never wants to let go.
Malrik shifts behind me. His hand slides around my hip, lower, and suddenly he’s touching us both—his fingers finding where we’re joined, circling Kaia’s clit while I’m still moving inside her.
She nearly screams.
“Fuck—Malrik—”
“Too much?” he asks.
“No—don’t you dare stop—”
His laugh is dark. Satisfied. His fingers keep moving, matching the rhythm I’ve set, and Kaia’s whole body starts to shake.
“Close,” she gasps. “I’m—again—already—”
“Good.” I thrust harder, chasing that sound. “Don’t fight it. I want to feel you come around me.”
She looks at me—really looks, violet eyes burning into mine—and something breaks open in her expression.
“Finn—”
“I’ve got you, Trouble. Fall. I’ll catch you.”
She does.
Her whole body arches off the moss, her inner walls clamping down around me so tight I see stars. My name rips from her throat, tangled with Malrik’s, and the sound of it—the feeling of it—
I have to stop moving.
Everything in me is screaming to chase my own release, to follow her over that edge, to let go the way she just did. But I don’t want this to end. Not yet. Not when I’ve waited so long for exactly this moment.
I hold still inside her, trembling with the effort, while she comes down from the peak.
Malrik’s hand leaves where we’re joined and settles on my hip instead. Steadying.
“Good,” he says quietly. “Take a breath.”
I take three.
Kaia’s eyes flutter open. Dazed. Wrecked. The most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.
“You stopped,” she whispers.
“Didn’t want it to be over yet.”
Understanding dawns in her expression. Something soft. Something wondering.
“Finn…”
“I know.” I lean down, pressing my forehead to hers. “I know, Trouble. Just—give me a second. Let me have this. Let me—”
I don’t finish the sentence.
I don’t need to.
She reaches up, threading her fingers through my hair, and pulls me down for a kiss so gentle it makes my chest ache.
And I stay exactly where I am—buried inside her, trembling with want, surrounded by the two people I love most in any realm—and let myself feel it.
All of it.
Finally.
“Finn.” Kaia’s voice is soft against my mouth. “You don’t have to hold back.”
“I know. I just—”
“I want to feel you.” She shifts beneath me, and the movement sends sparks up my spine. “I want all of it. All of you.”
All of me.
Something in my chest cracks wide open at the words.
I start moving again.
Not slow this time. Not careful. Just honest — desperate and messy and everything I’ve been holding back for months. She meets me thrust for thrust, her legs tightening around my hips, her nails leaving marks I’ll wear like badges of honor.
Malrik’s hand stays steady on my hip. Grounding me. Reminding me he’s here, that this is real, that I’m not dreaming this.
“That’s it,” he murmurs. “Let go, Finn.”
“I’m—” My voice breaks. “I can’t—”
“You can.” His mouth presses against my shoulder. “She wants it. Give it to her.”
Kaia’s hands find my face, pulling my gaze to hers. Violet eyes burning with something that looks like—
Love.
It looks like love.
“Finn.” My name on her lips like a prayer. “Stay with me.”
“Always,” I choke out. “I’m always—”
The pressure builds at the base of my spine. Everywhere we’re touching ignites. My chaos magic sparks and crackles across my skin, reaching for her, reaching for them —
And then something shifts.
Not just pleasure. Something deeper. Something that hooks behind my ribs and pulls.
The bond.
I feel it snap into place like a key turning in a lock.
Like a missing piece I didn’t know I was carrying suddenly finding where it belongs.
It floods through me — warmth and want and her, Kaia, everywhere at once.
In my blood. In my bones. In the chaos magic that’s always felt broken until this exact moment.
I cry out — her name, maybe, or just sound — and bury myself as deep as I can go.
Everything whites out.
I’m aware of her arms around me. Malrik’s hand on my back. The pulse of the bond threading through all of us, connecting what was always meant to be connected.
When I come back to myself, I’m shaking.
Not the fun kind of shaking. The kind that says something fundamental just rearranged itself inside me and I’m still catching up.
“Finn?” Kaia’s voice is worried. Her hands stroke through my hair. “Finn, are you—”
“I felt it.” The words come out raw. Wrecked. “The bond. I felt it—”
“I know.” She presses her forehead to mine. “I felt it too.”
“It’s real.” I’m not sure why I’m saying it. Maybe because I need to hear it out loud. “We’re actually—”
“Real,” she confirms. “Finally real.”
I kiss her. Slow and deep and completely different from everything that came before. This isn’t desperate. Isn’t frantic.
This is ours.
When I finally pull back, I realize I’m still trembling. Still inside her. Still trying to process the enormity of what just happened.
Malrik’s hand traces soothing patterns on my back. Patient. Present.
“You okay?” he asks quietly.
“I don’t know.” I laugh, and it comes out wet. “I think I just felt my soul rearrange itself. Is that normal? That doesn’t feel normal.”
“It’s normal.” His voice is warm. “It happened with each of us.”
“Well, someone could have warned me.”
“Would you have believed us?”
“…No. Probably not.”
Kaia laughs softly beneath me, and the vibration of it travels through the bond — through our bond — and settles somewhere deep in my chest.
I ease out of her carefully, already mourning the loss of connection. She makes a small sound, her fingers tightening on my shoulders.
“Sorry,” I murmur. “I just—”
“Don’t apologize.” She pulls me down beside her on the moss, curling into my side immediately. “Stay close.”
“Wasn’t planning on going anywhere.”
Malrik pulls himself up onto the ledge on her other side. The moss is big enough for all three of us, barely, and we end up tangled together — Kaia in the middle, me pressed against her front, Malrik solid and warm at her back.
“What about you?” Kaia asks, twisting to look at him. “We didn’t—”
“Shh.” He presses a kiss to her shoulder. “Tonight wasn’t about me.”
“But—”
“Kaia.” His voice is gentle but firm. “I got exactly what I wanted.”
She frowns. “Watching us?”
“Being here.” He meets my eyes over her shoulder, and something passes between us. Understanding. Gratitude. A promise for another time. “Being part of it. Seeing you two finally stop dancing around each other.”
“We weren’t dancing,” I protest weakly.
“You were waltzing. Very badly. For months.”
Kaia snorts. “He’s not wrong.”
“Whose side are you on?”
“The side that just gave me two orgasms.”
“That’s—” I pause. “Okay, fair.”
Malrik’s arm drapes over both of us, his hand finding mine across Kaia’s hip. Our fingers intertwine.
“This is okay?” I ask quietly. Meaning all of it. Meaning us.
“More than okay.” He squeezes my hand. “This is what I wanted. What I’ve wanted for a long time.”
“Both of us?”
“Both of you.” No hesitation. No uncertainty. Just truth.
Something loosens in my chest that I didn’t know was tight.
The motes drift lazily overhead, painting soft patterns of light across our skin. The Eds have retreated to a respectful distance — though Bob is definitely still watching from his post near our clothes, posture radiating I am choosing to pretend I saw nothing.
At the edge of the Berserker hall, a flicker of gold catches my eye. Kieran. Standing in the shadows, watching — then gone before I can blink.
Of course.
“We should probably go back eventually,” Kaia murmurs. She doesn’t sound like she means it.
“Eventually,” I agree.
“The others will wonder.”
“Let them wonder.”
Malrik huffs a laugh against her hair. “They know exactly what we’re doing.”
“They know what they think we’re doing.”
“Finn.” Kaia twists to look at me. “Torric literally said ‘don’t break anything.’ They know.”
“In their defense,” I say, “I did almost break several things. Internally. My brain, specifically. Multiple times.”
She laughs — tired and warm and completely content — and the sound travels through the bond like sunlight.
Our bond.
I still can’t quite believe it’s real.
“Hey,” I say softly.
“Hey.”
“I love you.”
The words slip out before I can stop them. Before I can wrap them in jokes or deflection or any of the armor I usually wear.
Just truth. Bare and simple.
Kaia’s breath catches. Her eyes go wide. Behind her, I feel Malrik go still.
“You don’t have to say it back,” I add quickly. “I just—I needed you to know. After everything. After this. I couldn’t not say it.”
She stares at me for a long moment.
Then she kisses me.
Soft. Sweet. Full of everything she’s not quite ready to say out loud.
When she pulls back, her eyes are bright. “Finn Veylan.”
“Yeah?”
“You’re ridiculous.”
“That’s not—”
“And I love you too.”
My heart stops.
Starts again.
Starts hammering so hard I’m pretty sure they can both feel it.
“You—”
“I love you,” she repeats. Steadier this time. Like she’s testing out how it feels. “I’ve loved you for a while, I think. I just didn’t—I wasn’t ready to—”
I kiss her before she can finish.
She laughs against my mouth, and it’s the best sound I’ve ever heard. Better than chaos. Better than magic. Better than anything.
Malrik’s hand squeezes mine, and when I look at him over her shoulder, he’s smiling. Actually smiling. The real kind, not the controlled almost-smiles he usually offers.
“Finally,” he murmurs.
“Yeah.” I grin back at him, probably looking completely unhinged. “Finally.”
We lie there in the soft light, tangled together on the mossy ledge, listening to the water lap at the stone below us.
The blank hall waits in the shadows across the cavern. Callum is still unconscious in the berserker hall. Tomorrow we’ll have to deal with Seren, with Lira, with whatever trap Alekir has laid for us.
But right now, in this moment, none of that matters.
Right now there’s just this:
Kaia’s heartbeat against my chest.
Malrik’s hand in mine.
A bond that finally feels complete.
And for the first time in my life, the chaos inside me is perfectly, impossibly still.