Chapter 26 Dario #2
Elena laughed, pulling me closer with her grip on my hair, tangling her fingers in the dark strands. The tiny shock of pain grounded me in the moment, made me realize that this was real —that the curse was broken, we were both free, and I had the woman I loved in my arms.
My heart was hammering in my chest as my hands gripped her hips and I pulled her toward me until she straddled me, her skirts hiking up her thighs, and then I felt delicious pressure against my arousal. I moved, and I’d never heard anything so lovely as her answering moan.
“Dario…” she gasped in my ear, and I felt like I was flying.
She just met my gaze for a beat, and then she licked her lips, the space between us so narrow that I felt a whisper of movement against my own lips—and it felt like I could barely breathe, even if I could remember how.
For so long, the curse had stolen even this from me. Every time moonlight touched me, every time I dissolved into mist, I wondered if I would ever know what it was to hold someone fully. To be wholly present.
Now, with Elena above me, silver hair spilling over my chest, I finally understood what it meant to live.
I took her mouth with mine again, sweeping my tongue into her mouth to taste and stroke—
She tasted so good . Like the honey we both had been eating. Warm and sweet and wet—
It made me salivate for more.
She moaned, her hand in my hair tightening, and it was my turn to groan. I let go of her long enough to push her robes down, our fingers tangling together as she helped me.
She made short work of my tunic, and I pulled her back to me to put my mouth to her neck, licking along the underside of her jaw, along the column of her throat as she dropped her head back and whimpered.
Light and shadow twined around us as we moved together. Her magic glowed faintly, shimmering along her skin, while mine curled dark and protective, stroking her like a lover’s hands. Not threatening, not binding—simply entwining, as natural as breath.
I was kissing behind her ear while my hands moved to her breasts, amazed by how small and delicate she felt under my rough palms. I had missed this, the last time she was in my arms. Then, the moonlight had played spoilsport, but now, I wasn’t going to let this opportunity go to waste.
I would feel all of her, and she would feel all of me.
One of her hands drifted between us, her fingers tightening around me, and I broke away to gasp, fighting for control.
She laughed, and I couldn’t help myself, shadows burst out of my shoulders and my arms to catch hold of her wrists and yank them away, binding her arms behind her back.
Her answering pout was adorable.
My own hands slid down, down, ticking her sides. She arched and shifted as if she wanted to be closer.
“Dario, please,” she said, her eyes more black than silver, her pupils blown wide. And my control snapped.
Then I was pushing her skirts up in a frenzy, my shadows bursting from my legs to pull apart her undergarments, ripping them to shreds so I could run my bare fingers up her legs, tracing the bones of her hips with feather-light touches before dipping lower, to feel the slick wetness between her thighs.
We both moaned as my fingers slid in, and I cursed as she clenched around me.
I retreated, giving the little nub at her entrance a stroke as I went, and then I was lifting her thighs in my hands so she could wrap them around my waist, wiggling until she was in position.
My shadows ripped apart my own clothes, uncaring of anything but the need to bury myself inside Elena.
Once her wet heat was pressed up against me, it was like I lost all reason. She snapped her hips down and I rammed myself into the hilt, both of us moaning as I lost myself in the sensation.
Wet. Hot. Soft. Tight.
My hips moved on their own, and she answered me, darkness calling to light, two sides to one coin, two lives joined into one.
She was breathing fast now, and her head was thrown back as she moaned between pants, and she was encouraging me with every other breath—long, low moans of my name, and desperate cries for more and harder and faster and it was all I could do to keep my head.
And then suddenly everything snapped tight, and I was falling, falling—I pushed my fingers between us to stroke her, wanting her to join me—her voice broke as she called my name—our magic bursting outward in a wave that rattled the trees and startled birds into flight—and then there was no more talking, except for the sound of us panting in unison.
For the first time, I didn’t feel like a creature of shadow pretending at humanity. I felt like a man. Her man.
After a long silence, Elena spoke again, mischief in her voice. “Dario, I was going to ask you what’s next for us,” she said, and then laughed as she continued: “but I think the first thing we need to do next is go clothes shopping.”
I laughed, using my shadows to cover us both, now that I had ruined our clothes in my… ardor . I lay down again, pulling Elena close as I pondered. What’s next for us?
For so long, my life had been a series of battles, a struggle to survive, to find meaning in the darkness.
But now, with her by my side, the possibilities felt endless, each one more alluring than the last.
We lay tangled in the grass long after, my shadows spread beneath us like a second blanket, her silver hair fanned across my chest. The sun was sinking, painting the canopy in gold and crimson.
Her earlier question resurfaced, tugging at me. “Elena,” I said. “I think,” I began slowly, “that I want to create a life filled with meaning, with purpose. And I want to build something. Something of our own. Not a temple. Not a kingdom. But a place where both light and shadow belong. A haven.”
Her eyes shone. “A home.”
The word settled in me like a stone dropped into still water, ripples spreading outward. Home. Not a forest of exile. Not a temple of duty. A home, built by our hands, for whoever needed it.
I pressed a kiss to her hair, whispering against her temple, “Yes. A home. I want to see the world beyond Solaris, but… more than anything, I want to share it with you.”
Her smile widened, a warmth in her gaze that made my heart race. “Then let’s do that,” she replied softly. “Let’s build something new together, a life that belongs to us.”
We lay there until the stars began to show, speaking of mountains and seas we had never seen, of libraries we might plunder, of children’s laughter in a place we had yet to build. Dreams, fragile and bright, stitched between us with every word.
And when silence finally fell, it was the kind of silence that promised more—that whispered of dawns yet to come, of journeys yet to be taken.
For the first time in a hundred years, I looked at the future and did not see darkness.
I saw her.
And a hundred more years of quiet, unbreakable joy.
Epilogue: A shadow in the deep
The tower clung to the cliffs like a parasite, half-carved into the stone, half-raised from blackened timbers and bleached bones.
No map showed its location; no sailor dared approach the waters that churned beneath it. Only the most reckless gulls wheeled above, and even they veered away when the tide carried the scent of sulfur and blood.
Inside, the air stank of seawater and rot. Broken glass littered the floor—remnants of potions and elixirs shattered in his first days of fury after the battle. The walls were lined with shelves of ancient leather books, their ink faded to whispers of ink and dust.
Charts and scrolls covered every surface, marked in his neat, meticulous hand: diagrams of skeletal structures, organs half-human and half-beast, transmutation circles etched in black ink and dark blood.
Rindais sat hunched over a central worktable. A gash on his forearm pulsed as he pressed his fingers against his skin, but he hardly noticed the sting anymore.
Pain had become a constant companion since he’d staggered away from that final battle with Elena and Dario, retreating into the dark corners of the world to nurse his wounds and, more importantly, his pride.
His pale skin was mottled with bruises, his once-pristine robes burned and frayed. Every breath was shallow, rattling with the damage Elena’s light had inflicted. Every exhale was laced with rage.
He traced a fingertip over a page of one of his own journals, a grim smile curving his lips as he reread his notes. The shadows cannot be commanded. But perhaps they can be imitated. Bent. Refined.
The wound in his pride was deeper than the gash in his flesh. He had been beaten—not once, but twice. First by Kael and his witch, then by the so-called High Priestess and her cursed Shadow King. Twice, his genius had been mocked, undone by emotion, by love.
He spat onto the floor. “Sentiment. Always sentiment.”
But he would not be undone forever.
Across the table lay an open tome bound in sea dragon hide, its pages damp from the salt air. In it, he had collected every scrap of lore on the creature he sought: the siren. Shapeshifter. Song-weaver. Predator of both body and mind.
One passage, scrawled in a sailor’s desperate hand, described a woman with hair like seafoam and eyes like a storm.
Another, written by a scholar, warned of voices that could peel back memory, strip a man of his will until he was nothing but clay to be molded.
Rindais read them all, committed every detail to memory.
“Transformation,” he murmured. “Not bound to one body. Not bound to one truth. A perfect subject.”
With her powers, he would no longer be forced to slink in the shadows, to lick the boots of kings who were barely worthy of their thrones.
With her, he could correct the failures of his past.
His mind flickered to Kael. The boy had been his crowning achievement once: one of the few successful dragon chimaera he’d ever made, forged from scales and blood and the arrogance of youth. Stronger than any mortal knight. More dangerous than any beast.
And yet, Kael had slipped his leash, stolen away by that meddling witch, Seranni. Together they had brought his first plan to ash.
“Kael…” His lip curled. “My mistake. My first rebellion.”
He pressed his palm against the table, and shadows pooled beneath his fingers—not true shadows, not like the curse that had bound Dario, but a mimicry of the magic he had glimpsed. Unstable. Dangerous. Not yet enough.
That was why he needed the siren. Her voice could shatter wards, bend wills. With her song, even the shadows themselves might kneel.
Rindais staggered to his feet and crossed to the narrow window that overlooked the cove.
The sea spread out black and endless, its waves clawing at the rocks below.
Somewhere out there, beneath the waters or hidden among the reefs, she waited.
He could almost hear it: a faint hum, like a heartbeat, threaded through the crash of the surf.
“I will find you,” he whispered. “And when I do, there will be no Kael, no witch, no High Priestess or cursed king who can stand against me. With your power, I will rise above them all.”
His hand tightened on the sill until his nails bit into the wood. Pain flared in his arm, but he welcomed it. Pain was the price of resolve.
He turned back to his table, pulling a fresh sheet of vellum toward him. His quill scratched furiously as he drafted new formulas, new designs for bindings, for vessels, for cages strong enough to hold a creature of sea and song.
The tower groaned around him, the waves battering its foundations, but Rindais did not hear. His mind was already far ahead, charting the ruin of those who had defied him. Elena, with her silver fire. Dario, with his freed shadows. Kael, with his dragon’s strength. Seranni, with her witchcraft.
He saw them falling, one by one. Not in battle—no, that was too clean. He would unravel them, the way he had unraveled so many others. Piece by piece. Heart by heart. Until their love, their light, their triumphs were dust in his hands.
And when at last he stood above their ashes, the world would know the name Rindais. Not as exile, not as outcast, not as failed mage.
As emperor.
As a god.
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