Chapter 39 Replace Emotional Honesty with Orgasms
(a Tried-and-True Method)
Kazimir
The Sky Serpent flew low enough over the dark sea that I could taste salt spray when the wind shifted. We’d left the God Spire later than planned—something about Griffin needing to “properly catalog his new apprentice applications” while Sebastian fussed over him like a mother hen.
I checked with Captain Brecca one more time. “Two days to Skyspire if the winds hold, Lord Blackrose.”
“They’ll hold.” I made sure of that with a touch of dominion magic, binding the air currents to our will. The effort sent a familiar ache through my bones, but nothing like the agony from before.
No sky krakens, no rival airships, no heroic interceptors trying to play savior. Just the endless dark of the ocean below and the promise of Skyspire in two days’ time.
Two more days trapped on a ship with this suffocating tension between my wife and me.
The whispers had been quieter since we’d left the Spire, but only marginally. They lurked at the edges of my consciousness like shadows at noon—always there, just harder to see. I needed something to stop this restless energy that had been building since our argument.
Take what’s yours. Make her submit.
I pushed the thoughts aside and made my way to our cabin.
Sleep. I needed sleep. Or a fight. Or at least a bottle of something strong enough to knock me unconscious.
Then I remembered my private stores contained potions strong enough to knock out a mountain troll.
And if those failed, there was always the option of having Thorne hit me over the head.
I wouldn’t dare ask Arabella—she’d probably crack my skull.
I pushed open the door to our cabin, prepared to find it empty. Arabella had been avoiding me with impressive dedication, and I’d expected her to be elsewhere—perhaps with Sebastian and his insufferable flowers, or watching Griffin tinker.
Instead, I found her sitting at the vanity, brushing her hair.
The sight made me suck in a breath. She wore one of her silk nightgowns, the deep blue one that made her skin glow in the lamplight. Each stroke of the brush through her golden hair was methodical, almost meditative. She didn’t look up when I entered, but I saw her shoulders tense.
“Where’s Nyx?” I asked, closing the door behind me. Safe topic. Neutral ground.
“Hunting.” She set the brush down but still didn’t turn. “It’s the first chance she’s had in days. She was getting restless.”
I understood the feeling.
I pulled off my coat. The cabin was small but well-appointed—rich fabrics, polished wood, a bed that would be comfortable if we weren’t both pretending the other didn’t exist. The vanity where Arabella sat dominated one wall, its mirror reflecting the entire space.
“Griffin told me about the Academia.” I kept my tone conversational, testing the waters. “Said you threw half the lecture hall out the windows.”
I moved closer, drawn despite myself, and stopped just behind her chair, close enough to smell the lightly scented oil she used in her hair.
A small smile tugged at her lips. “They were being disrespectful.”
The fierce protectiveness in her voice made pride well in my chest. This was my Arabella—loyal, dangerous, magnificent.
I picked up the brush and began working it through her golden strands.
She stiffened for a moment, then relaxed, letting me continue.
The whispers agreed with my assessment of her, though their appreciation was darker.
Such power. Such potential. Wasted on protecting that fool Griffin.
“I wish I’d seen it.” And I meant it. Arabella unleashing her power, shadow and light working in harmony, would have been magnificent.
“Speaking of the Spire,” she said, turning on the stool to face me properly. I let go of her hair. “I should tell you something.”
Every muscle in my body went rigid. “Yes?”
“I visited a memory mage. Mnemosyne’s Memories, in the lower markets.” She lifted her chin, as if daring me to challenge her. “I took a potion to restore what was stolen from me.”
“You did what?”
“I’m getting my memories back. I didn’t want you to think something else was wrong when—”
“A memory mage?” Alarm bells rang in my mind. The God Spire housed countless dangers, many disguised as legitimate businesses, but I’d never heard of such a shop there. “Did you even verify the proprietor’s credentials? Do you have any idea what unregulated memory magic can do to a person?”
“Of course I do.” Her eyes flashed. “I’m not an idiot, Kazimir.”
“Then you’re being deliberately reckless.” I loomed over her, shadows gathering at my feet. “Memory magic is volatile under the best circumstances. The mind isn’t meant to have pieces carved out and shoved back in. People go mad. They lose themselves entirely. They—”
“They what?” She stood abruptly, the stool scraping against the floor. “They die? Like I almost died performing the Lifeweave Ritual? Like I could die any day being married to you?”
Her words took the breath from my lungs. “That’s different,” I growled.
“How, exactly? Because from where I’m standing, our entire relationship is built on risks you decided I should take.”
“I never—”
“Never what? Never lied to me? Never manipulated me? Never kept secrets that could destroy us both?” Her voice cracked slightly, and I saw her swallow hard. “You have no right to be angry about this. None.”
The Shadow King roared in my mind, urging me to show her exactly how much right I had, to demonstrate who held the power here.
I gritted my teeth against the surge of foreign rage, focusing on the woman before me—flushed with anger, magnificent in her fury, so achingly beautiful it made my chest tight.
Part of me wanted to deny it, to deflect, to turn this into another verbal sparring match. But the fear clawing at my chest—the bone-deep terror at the thought of losing her to some back-alley magical mishap—wouldn’t let me.
I moved without thinking, crowding her against the vanity. My hands braced on either side of her, caging her in.
“You’re right.” The words came out rough, barely controlled. “Our relationship may have started on a lie. But tell me”—power radiated from me until it rattled the bottles on the table—“tell me if it still is.”
Her breath hitched. Her pupils swallowed the hazel of her eyes. The air between us crackled with magic.
“No,” she whispered.
That single word shattered what little control I had left.
I crushed my mouth to hers, pouring all my frustration and fear and need into the kiss.
She responded instantly, her fingers tangling in my hair, pulling hard enough to hurt.
I felt a sharp pain as she bit my lower lip.
Good. I wanted it to hurt. Wanted something real to cut through the voice in my head.
I lifted her onto the vanity, bottles and brushes scattering. She wrapped her legs around my waist, grinding into me, and fuck, I’d missed this. Missed her. Even when she was right there, I’d missed her like a severed limb.
This wasn’t about making up. This wasn’t about forgiveness or understanding or any of that emotional nonsense we’d been dancing around. This was about need, pure and simple. The need to claim and be claimed, to lose ourselves in something that made sense when nothing else did.
“This doesn’t fix anything,” she gasped against my mouth.
“I know.” I bit down on her lower lip, soothing it with my tongue when she hissed. “Don’t care. Just want you.” I moved lower, nipping at the tender skin of her throat. “I hate when you put yourself in danger.”
Yes. Mark her. Claim her. Make it hurt.
Once again, the whispers were getting harder to distinguish from my own thoughts.
“And I hate watching you fight battles I can’t help with,” she gasped, her head falling back to give me better access.
I stilled, my hands on her thighs. She wasn’t talking about external enemies. She’d seen the war raging in my head these past days, the way I’d been pulling away, fighting something she couldn’t name but clearly sensed.
“Arabella—”
Her hand slid between us, finding me hard through my trousers. “Whatever it is, whatever you’re not telling me”—she squeezed, making me hiss—“stop trying to protect me from it.”
I captured her wrist, but gently this time, pressing it against my chest where my heart hammered. “Some battles”—I struggled for words that wouldn’t be lies—“some battles have to be fought alone.”
“No.” Her eyes met mine, fierce and knowing. “They don’t. Not anymore.”
The fragment roared at her defiance, at her presumption, but beneath that foreign rage was my own stunned realization that as she’d been watching me struggle, she was worrying about me the way I worried about her.
“I never thought—” I started, then stopped. Never thought she’d care the same way? Never thought I was worth worrying about?
“I know,” she said simply, and pulled me down for another kiss.
I released her wrist to free my cock. “Hurry,” she demanded, and who was I to deny my wife?
The vanity creaked ominously as I pressed her back against the mirror and shoved her nightgown farther up her thighs.
I needed her. Needed to lose myself in her body, to drown out the whispers with her gasps and moans.
When I slid into her, we both groaned. She was soaking wet, as desperate for this as I was.
I set a punishing pace that had the vanity slamming against the wall with each thrust. She met each thrust with her own, her legs locked around me like she was trying to climb inside my skin.
I hooked an arm under her knee to spread her wider.
There was another ominous cracking sound from the mirror.
Before she could respond, I pulled out and spun us, pressing her against the wall.
“Watch.” One hand tangled in her hair to make her face the now cracked mirror, and we both watched our reflection as I pushed her nightgown up around her waist with the other.