Twenty Four #3
I shake my head. “Atheron cornered me,” I say. “He told me I should kill you first.”
Kael huffs. “He’s not wrong.”
He goes back to wrestling his boot. I can see his hands are shaking, just a little.
“Are you afraid?” I ask.
He snorts but doesn't answer.
The light in the room shifts. I can feel the heat of him pressing into the space between us. He feels like an anchor—not a comfort, but a certainty.
I force myself to say it. “You don’t have to pretend with me. You’re allowed to be afraid.”
He freezes, then lets out a laugh. It’s brittle and breakable. “Fine. I’m scared,” he says. “Happy?”
“Not really,” I say, my own voice trembling. “But I’m glad you said it.”
He turns to face me, and I can see how tired he is. Not just in his body, but in his eyes. They are striking, still, but too old for his face.
“I lost Nyxen,” he says, voice flat. “He was the only person who ever stood between me and my father. Ever.”
He takes a slow breath. “Vaelis never said much. He owed me nothing more than his duty, but he was always there.”
He squeezes his eyes tight for a second. “I told myself I was prepared to lose them. That it wouldn't hurt. But it does.”
He looks at his hands, pale and trembling. “I can imagine a world without them.”
He looks at me, and the stare is so intense it hurts.
“I can’t imagine it without you.”
My breath catches. The memory of what I promised surfaces, hot and shaming.
If we survive, you can have me.
He sees the shift in my face, and his own softens into something more careful.
“It might be our last chance,” he says, voice smaller than before. “I don’t want to die having never—”
He doesn't finish.
I nod. Just once. Then we move at the same time.
He cups the back of my head, fingers sinking into my hair, and draws me in. His mouth is tentative, like he expects me to disappear. I kiss back, slow and exploring, the pressure of his lips sending heat down my spine. He tastes like smoke and heat and something dangerously alive.
He breaks away, searching my face. “Are you sure?”
“Yes,” I say, and it is one of the few truths I have spoken in this place.
He pulls me into his lap, hands tracing up my sides. Not greedy—just confirming that I’m real, that I’m here. I shudder at the touch.
He kisses along my jaw, behind my ear, down the line of my throat. Every press of his lips is a question, and I answer yes, every time. My hands wander his chest, learning the shape of him. I want to memorise him.
When he peels off my shirt, he hesitates, his hand hovering over the scars on my ribs.
He looks up, a question in his eyes.
I nod. Permission.
He lifts my wrists, kissing the inside of each before setting my hands on his shoulders and holding them there, anchoring me.
He unfastens my trousers, so slowly it’s almost painful.
His fingers quiver at the first touch of bare skin.
I’m more nervous than I want to admit. We’ve seen each other naked before, but the urgency of his hands, the way his breath hitches when he looks at me—it unwinds something in me I didn't know I was holding.
He touches me like something breakable, not something owned, each movement unhurried and careful, like we’re creating a language from scratch.
I bury my face in his neck, breathing in the scent of spice and shadow and the heat of his skin. He groans softly when I bite his shoulder, not hard, the mark healing instantly.
When he enters me, it is slow, aching, but I want every second. I want to remember this. The pain is not new to me, but this is—being seen, being wanted, not as a thing to use or break, but as something worth holding.
He rocks into me, and I feel the shape of his lips as he whispers my name against my ear, kissing away every flinch and shudder. His hands are everywhere—my hips, my scars, my hair—as though he can hold me together through touch alone.
I reach up, tracing the tattoos across his chest, feeling the way the patterns pulse with each heartbeat.
The pleasure builds, easy and dangerous, and when I come, it is with my face buried in his shoulder, muffling the sound, too overwhelmed to be ashamed.
He keeps moving, watching every shudder like he’s memorising it.
He buries his face against my throat, holding me so tightly the Mother Shard will have to heal bruises.
When it’s over, he doesn’t let go. We collapse together, tangled in each other, our breathing synchronising.
The cracks in the ceiling shift, casting light in new patterns across our skin.
He strokes my hair, and I drift, the exhaustion finally catching up.
As I am about to slide under, I feel it—a small glow, not in the room, but in my chest. My mana, my light, seeping out of me without permission and into him. It spills across the sheets, over his arm, into his skin. It settles there, glowing for just a moment before it fades.
He sees it but says nothing. He just smiles and presses his mouth to my hair.
“You found me in the wild with half a heart,” he murmurs, voice low and heavy. “And then you just—”
But I never hear the rest.
I sleep, and this time, I am not afraid of what my dreams will bring.