Chapter 33 Darian
Darian
“Please…”
The word escapes before I can stop it. Before I’m even fully awake.
But I’m awake now.
Consciousness crashes through me like cold water — and with it, the horrifying awareness of exactly what’s happening.
Kaia is pressed against me. My arm is around her waist. My hand is sliding up her stomach like it has any right to be there. And I’m hard against her, grinding into her like a man who’s forgotten every reason this is wrong.
The arena. My corrupted magic. Thorne’s voice in my head, telling me exactly how to break her—
I freeze.
Every muscle locks. My hand stops moving. My hips go still despite the ache, the need, the desperate want clawing at my chest.
Don’t hurt her. Don’t scare her. Don’t be what he made you.
“Darian.” Her voice is rough with sleep. With want. “Don’t stop.”
My heart slams against my ribs.
“Kaia, I—” The words come out fractured. “I can’t. I shouldn’t. The bond between us is— it’s not real, it’s not—”
“It feels real.”
She shifts against me, her ass grinding back against my cock, and the movement drags a sound from my throat I can’t control.
“That’s the corruption,” I manage. “That’s Thorne’s magic making you think—”
“No.” She twists in my arms. Faces me. Her violet eyes are dark in the firelight, pupils blown wide. “That was Thorne’s magic. This is me.”
I stare at her.
She’s so close. Close enough that her breath mingles with mine. Close enough that I can feel the heat radiating off her skin.
“I’ve been thinking about this for days,” she whispers.
“About being touched. About wanting. And I kept telling myself it was just— Finn and Malrik got under my skin, and I couldn’t stop replaying it, and—” She stops.
Swallows. “But it’s not just them. It’s you too.
It’s been you for longer than I wanted to admit. ”
Something cracks in my chest.
“You don’t want me.” The words hurt coming out. “You want what the bond makes you feel. You want—”
“I want you.” Her hand finds my face. Cups my jaw. Forces me to look at her when every instinct is screaming to look away. “The real you. Not the bond. I don’t care about the corruption. I want you.”
“Kaia—”
“Tell me to stop.” Her voice is steady. Certain. “Tell me you don’t want this, and I’ll stop. I’ll pull away. We’ll pretend this never happened.”
I should tell her to stop.
I should be strong enough to do that.
But she’s looking at me like I’m something worth wanting. Like the broken, corrupted, ruined thing I’ve become might still deserve to be touched.
And I am so tired of fighting.
“I can’t.” The confession tears out of me. Raw. Wrecked. “I can’t tell you to stop. I’ve wanted you for so long it feels like dying, and I—”
She kisses me.
The taste of her floods my senses — soft and desperate and real, nothing like the forced intimacy of the arena. This is her choice. Her want. Her mouth moving against mine like she’s been waiting for exactly this moment.
I’m lost.
My hands find her hips. Pull her closer. She swings a leg over me, straddling my waist, and the heat of her pressed against my cock makes every thought in my head dissolve.
Around us, I feel the shadows shift.
They’re not hostile. They’re watching.
I can feel it.
Mouse makes a sound that might be approval.
They’re not stopping this.
They’re not stopping this.
“Are you sure?” I manage against her lips. “Kaia— I need you to be sure—”
“I’m sure.” She rocks against me, grinding down on my cock through the thin fabric separating us, and stars explode behind my eyes. “I’ve been sure. I just didn’t know how to tell you.”
“We have to be quiet,” I breathe. “The others—”
“I know.” She’s already tugging at my shirt. “I know, I’ll be quiet, just—”
Her hands find bare skin and she gasps. Not quiet.
“Shh—” I clamp a hand over her mouth, but I’m laughing despite myself. Despite everything. “You’re terrible at this.”
She bites my palm. I yank it back.
“Your fault,” she whispers. “You’re the one who—”
I kiss her to shut her up.
Her shirt comes off. Then the rest. Layers shed in clumsy, urgent movements until there’s nothing between us but skin and heat and the bond humming in my chest.
The wrongness is still there — that sour twist I’ve carried since Thorne first gave me corrupted magic. But it’s quieter now. Muted. Like something inside it is waiting to see what happens next.
I kiss my way down her body. Slow. Deliberate. Memorizing every sound she makes, every hitch of breath, every place that makes her gasp.
“Darian—” She’s squirming. “You don’t have to—”
“I want to.” I press my mouth to her stomach. Lower. “I want to taste you. I’ve thought about it for months. Let me.”
The sound she makes is not quiet.
Someone across the cave shifts in their sleep.
We both freeze.
A long moment. Breathing. Waiting.
Nothing.
“You need to be quieter than that,” I murmur against her thigh.
“Then stop being so—” She gestures vaguely at me. At my mouth. “That.”
“No.”
I spread her open with my fingers.
She’s soaked. The scent of her arousal hits me and my cock throbs painfully.
“Gods, Kaia.” The words come out reverent. Broken. “You’re so fucking wet.”
“I told you.” Her voice is strained. “Days. I’ve been like this for days.”
I drag my tongue through her folds.
Her hips buck against my face. A moan escapes — too loud, way too loud.
I pull back just enough to nip at her inner thigh. “Shh.”
She whimpers.
I don’t stop.
I work her with my tongue — long, slow strokes that have her writhing. Quick flicks against her clit that make her thighs shake around my head. I push two fingers inside her, curling them, finding that spot—
She bites her lip to muffle her scream.
Somewhere across the fire, Torric shifts. Mutters something in his sleep.
I fuck her with my fingers while I suck her clit, and she comes apart in under a minute. Clenching around me, soaking my hand, trembling so hard I feel it through every point of contact.
The bond flares.
Not the cold, corrupted pulse I’m used to. Something warmer. Brighter. Like light breaking through cracked glass.
I crawl back up her body before she’s finished trembling.
“I need—” She reaches for me, fingers fumbling at my pants. Her hands wrap around my cock and I have to bite my own tongue to keep from groaning. “I need you inside me. Now.”
“Kaia—”
“Now.” She strokes me — once, twice — and my hips jerk into her grip. “Please, Darian. I need to feel you.”
I kick off my pants. Position myself at her entrance. The head of my cock slides through her wetness and we both shudder.
One last breath.
One last chance to stop this.
She looks up at me — flushed, wrecked, beautiful — and says, “Choose me.”
I push inside her.
Fuck.
She’s so tight. So wet. So impossibly perfect around me that I have to stop moving or this will be over before it starts.
“Oh gods—” Her nails dig into my shoulders. “You’re— you’re so—”
“I know.” I’m trembling. Buried to the hilt inside her and barely holding on. “I know, just— give me a second—”
“Don’t want a second.” She rolls her hips, taking me even deeper, and a groan rips out of me that’s far too loud.
Across the fire, Finn makes a sound in his sleep. Torric shifts again.
I go still.
Kaia doesn’t.
She clenches around me deliberately, inner walls squeezing my cock in a way that makes my vision blur.
“Kaia—” It comes out strangled. “We’re going to wake—”
“Then fuck me fast and make me come before they do.”
Gods help me.
I pull back. Thrust in. Hard.
Her mouth falls open in a silent scream. Her back arches off the ground. Her legs wrap around my waist and pull me deeper.
I set a punishing pace — fast, deep strokes that have the obscene sound of wet skin slapping against wet skin filling the cave. There’s no way the others are sleeping through this. No way anyone could miss the sounds she’s making, the sounds I’m making.
“Yes—” She’s gasping with every thrust. “Right there— don’t stop— Darian—”
I shift the angle. Drive into her harder. Feel her tighten around me every time I bottom out.
“You feel so good.” The words spill out without permission. “So tight, so wet— I’ve wanted this for so long— wanted you—”
“Harder—”
I give her harder.
The cave floor is cold against my knees but I don’t care. Nothing matters except the clench of her around my cock, the sounds she’s making, the way the bond is blazing between us.
And then I feel it.
Eyes on us.
I look up without stopping.
Kieran.
He’s awake. Propped on one elbow near the cave entrance. Gold eyes gleaming in the firelight as he watches me thrust into her.
Our gazes lock.
I should stop. Should feel shame, embarrassment, something other than this dark, possessive heat that floods my chest.
Instead, I hold his stare and drive into her harder.
Mine, the look says. Right now, in this moment, she’s mine.
Something flickers across Kieran’s face. Not anger. Not jealousy.
Hunger.
Heat coils low in my stomach — and not just from Kaia clenching around me. Something about his eyes on us, on me, the weight of his attention while I’m buried inside her—
I don’t let myself examine it.
I just thrust harder.
He doesn’t look away.
Neither do I.
I fuck her while he watches. Let him see exactly how she responds to me — the way her back arches, the way she clenches around my cock, the way his name isn’t the one falling from her lips.
“Darian—” She’s close. I can feel it through the bond, building like a wave. “I’m going to—”
“Come for me.” I tear my gaze from Kieran’s. Look down at her. “Give me what I want, Little Shadow. I want to feel it.”
She shatters.
Her whole body convulses beneath me, inner walls clenching so tight around my cock I see stars. My name rips from her throat — loud enough to wake everyone, and I don’t fucking care.
Aspen jerks upright across the fire. Finn’s eyes fly open. Malrik is already awake, watching with an expression I can’t read.
I don’t stop.
The orgasm crashes through me like a wave — and with it, something else. Something deeper.
Whatever Thorne did to me — whatever twisted magic he forced into my veins — I feel it shatter. A pressure I’ve carried so long I forgot it was there suddenly releases, like a fist unclenching around my heart. Something snaps, dissolves, burns away.
I bury myself as deep as I can go and spill into her with a groan that echoes off the stone walls.
What’s left feels… different.
Clean.
Real.
Mine.
Light pulses under my skin. Actual light — warm and golden, the way my magic used to feel before everything went wrong. It flows through the bond, into Kaia, around us both.
Her shadows react.
Walter flares bright, absorbing something from the air. I feel Patricia’s frantic energy, Bob’s posture shifting from guarded to accepting. Mouse makes a sound of satisfaction.
When I finally look back toward the cave entrance, Kieran’s eyes are closed.
Feigning sleep.
We both know he isn’t.
The cave is silent except for our ragged breathing. Everyone is awake. Everyone saw. Everyone heard.
I should feel shame.
I don’t.
“Darian.” Kaia’s voice is wrecked. Her hands find my face. “What was—”
“The bond.” I’m still trembling. Still inside her. Still trying to remember how to breathe. “The corruption. It’s— I felt it break. I felt—”
I can’t explain it.
But she feels it too. I know she does. Through the connection that’s finally, finally clean.
“It doesn’t hurt anymore,” she whispers. Wonder in her voice.
“No.” I press my forehead to hers. “It doesn’t.”
The cave floor is cold. The air is freezing where sweat has cooled on my skin. My knees ache from the stone. And I’m still buried inside her, softening now, our combined release slick between us.
None of it matters.
“Stay,” she says quietly. Echoing what she said to Finn. The same word. The same weight.
Across the fire, Finn clears his throat. “So. That happened.”
“Shut up, Finn,” multiple voices say in unison.
Despite everything — the awkwardness, the exposure, the fact that I just fucked Kaia in front of all of them — I laugh.
She laughs too.
I don’t deserve this. I don’t deserve her.
But I stay anyway.