Chapter 66 The Mark
The Mark
The tea cools faster than either of us notices.
We sit close, the maps spread between us, crumbs from the biscuits left where we had forgotten them as the hours pass without being counted.
At first the discussion is uneven, pieces of thought interrupted by glances, by proximity, by the simple fact of being beside one another again after too much distance.
Then something shifts.
We fall into rhythm. I trace the line of the pass with my finger, following the ridge where the terrain narrows. "If they move here," I say, "they stay too exposed. Even if the tunnel holds, they will be seen before they reach it."
Colsar leans closer, his shoulder brushing mine as he studies the map. "Unless they do not move along the ridge at all," he says. "If they cut lower, here—" his hand moves over mine, guiding it downward, "they lose visibility but they gain cover."
"They also slow," I reply.
"Yes," he says. "But they live."
I sit back slightly. "I went to Urvinar this morning," I say. "With Kentan and Enovar."
He looks at me.
“The people there were loyal. The only unrest was directed at House Larafyn itself."
He did not look surprised. "Larafyn and Jessamy were the last of their line," he said. "The rest were executed over the years. Their house has always struggled with loyalty." He paused. "No one will question it. Shalvar will not be a problem."
He was quiet for a moment, then added, more carefully, "Lord Fyne, however, sits on Veynar's council. When word reaches him that his niece and his brother are dead, he may feel differently about us."
"When will word reach him?"
"Not soon." He glanced briefly toward the warded walls around us. "Communication between Shalvar and the outside world is limited while the wards hold." A pause. "We have time."
I kiss him, and he answers it immediately, both comforted not by the knowledge that our lie will hold, but that we are aligned in our desire to protect it. Right and wrong no longer matter. It is only what remains that does. Us.
His hands trace up my thigh and I wince as they touch the tender spot he marked earlier. His hand pauses. “I’m sorry it hurts,” he says quietly. “But not sorry I did it.”
"Was that just passion?" I say. "The bite." We had done similar before, but never a bite this deep. This had felt different.
He looks at me. "Nothing about us is ever just passion."
"Then what was it?"
"Something siakars do," he says, "to the one they have claimed.
" He holds my eyes. "You are not siakar.
I should have explained it before I did it.
" A pause. "I was lost in the moment." Something quieter moves through his expression.
"I am trying to be open with you. Fully myself.
And the truth is, I am a siakar. There are urges.
To mark. To bite. To be aggressive. I can channel them into other things when I need to.
Training. Other outlets." His jaw shifts slightly.
"But I need to know if you want that from me.”
I think about it honestly. The bite, the blood, the overwhelming rush of all of it at once.
"I liked it," I say. "That, and every other time you have done something like it."
Then he exhales. "We did not get long," he says. "To simply be married. Before everything else came in around us."
"No," I say. "We did not."
"I want to fix that." His hand finds mine. "I want to learn everything you like. Everything you do not." He looks at me. "I do not want you to feel shy about any of it. Whatever you want to try. Whatever you want to ask for."
"There is nothing you have done that I did not like," I say.
Something moves through his expression. He starts to say something and then stops.
"What?" I say.
"I know," he says. "But Asha—" He stops again.
"Say it."
"Sometimes knowing what you like," he says carefully, "comes from being with more than one person. Learning by comparison. Understanding what works and what does not."
I understand what he is saying. I also understand what comes next.
"You never will," he says, and the lightness is entirely gone from his voice now, something darker and very certain taking its place. "You will only ever have me."
It does not feel like a threat. It feels like a fact he has already decided.
"I know that," I say. Then, "But how will I know what I want to try? I have nothing to compare it to. No frame for it."
He looks at me. "Do what you feel," he says. "And I will do the same."
"That simple?"
"That simple."
I am quiet, turning that over.
"I am not inexperienced," he says. "But I have always been rigid. Even with my own desires. Controlled. Efficient." A pause. "Tonight showed me there is an entire level of pleasure I did not know existed."
I raise an eyebrow slightly. He catches it.
"I mean that," he says. "And now that I am Fyrekin—" He stops briefly. "I have noticed the beast in me is bolder than it was. More insatiable." His eyes find mine. "I will only ever come to you. That will not change. But it is all right to tell me no. I need you to know that."
"And if I do not want to say no?"
"Then you will not have to."
“I know I like to yield to you. It does not matter what I am queen of, that will never change. Whenever we are undressed, I’m yours to do with as you please,” I murmur.
He stills. “I know, Asha. Fuck, I know.” His voice is low, hoarse. “And I promise…we will do more of it in the future. But you never have to worry about me faltering. We are compatible in that dynamic.”
I look at him, at the glyphs across his shoulders and down his arms, at the breadth of him, at everything he is now that he was not when I first met him.
"I have heard," I say, keeping my voice even, "that women who marry Fyrekins tend to find their husbands rather difficult to keep up with." I pause. "Something about the glyphs. The broad shoulders." I look at him. "General insatiability."
He goes very still.
"Is that so?" he says.
"That is what I have heard."
The corner of his mouth moves. Just slightly.
"And where," he says, his voice dropping, "did you hear that?"
I smile, then pull away. “We must finish.”
Colsar nods reluctantly. We work through it piece by piece after that, adjusting and refining, finding a path that had not been there before simply because neither of us had been looking at it together.
When it is done he exhales, a quiet release that feels larger than the moment itself.
"I will send word," he says.
He rises and speaks to Arabar with calm precision, issuing instructions that carry the weight of decision rather than hesitation. The extraction will begin. The tunnel will hold. The men will come home.
By the time he returns the room has quieted around us.
I am already in bed, the exhaustion of the day finally moving through my body now that there is nothing left to hold it back. My eyes close before I mean them to.
I feel him before I see him. The shift of the mattress. The warmth at my back. His mouth against my neck.
I open my eyes.
The sensation is quiet and unhurried, his lips moving slowly along the curve of my skin as though he is grounding himself in it.
"If this is what you were holding back," I murmur, my voice still heavy with sleep, "how did you think I did not need it too?"
He pauses, his breath warm against my shoulder.
"I will not keep you awake," he says softly. "I just needed to—" his voice drops slightly before returning, quieter and more certain. "To kiss you."
I turn in his arms, facing him.
"And to say thank you," he adds.
"For what?" I ask.
His hand lifts, brushing lightly along my cheek before falling back to the space between us.
"For loving me," he says. "For staying. For helping me fix what I could not fix alone.
" His eyes move briefly toward the table, the maps still scattered, the solution we found together resting among them.
"The world is easier to carry when it is not only mine. "
Something in my chest eases at that.
I move closer without thinking. I lean in, letting my breasts rest against him, not caring about the milk that leaks onto his chest now that I realize he doesn’t care either.
He sits up, his hands gripping my hips as he wraps my legs around him.
When he enters me, it’s with a tenderness that catches me off guard, a slow, deep press that makes my eyes sting with emotion.
"Asharin," he whispers against my mouth, voice low, almost breaking. “I am yours.”
I nod, hands sliding up his shoulders, holding on as the rhythm builds, controlled but not rushed.
The sensation tightens in my core, each motion drawing us closer until the tension snaps.
I shudder against him, a quiet cry swallowed by his kiss, as he follows a moment later, his grip tightening on my hips, a low groan muffled between our lips as he spills inside me.
We stay like that, tangled and breathless. That night, I sleep on top of him, the weight of his arms around me a solid anchor.
My breath slows.
The tension that had carried me through the day finally loosens its hold, and I drift off, pressed against him.