Chapter 74 Make Love First, Save the World Later
(Priorities, People)
Kazimir
I scooped Arabella into my arms, ignoring her half-hearted protest about being perfectly capable of walking.
“Humor me,” I said, heading for the door. “I just got you back. I’m not letting go for at least the next decade.”
She rolled her eyes but settled against my chest, one hand playing with the torn fabric of my shirt. “You realize we’re both covered in blood, sweat, and battlefield grime?”
“All the better.” I kicked the door open. “I plan to get us significantly dirtier before we clean up.”
The path outside the Old Keep was empty except for Thorne, who stood guard with the patient stillness of a man who’d been at his post for hours. His shoulders sagged with relief when he saw Arabella conscious and whole in my arms.
“My lord.” He straightened, professional mask sliding back into place. “My lady.”
“How long have you been standing there?” Arabella asked.
“Since Lord Blackrose departed for Sunspire.” No reproach in his voice, just fact.
Nyx dropped from the wall above in a rush of wings. Her eyes fixed on Arabella, checking her over. Seemingly satisfied, Nyx pressed her snout against Arabella’s arm, nostrils flaring. Her wings mantled wide, creating a protective canopy around us both while she gave a rumbling purr.
“I’m fine,” Arabella assured her, freeing one hand to stroke the pink blaze on Nyx’s snout. “Just tired.”
I shifted Arabella’s weight, noting how Thorne’s gaze tracked the movement—checking for injuries, cataloging our condition with the efficiency of a man who’d spent years keeping me alive despite my best efforts to the contrary.
“Send word to the generals,” I said. “They’re to hold position outside the city walls. No looting, no unnecessary violence. Just maintain the perimeter and continue treating the wounded.”
“And tomorrow?”
“Tomorrow we march in and take Solandris officially.” The words should have filled me with triumph.
I’d been working toward this moment for over a decade.
But all I felt was exhaustion and the pressing need to get Arabella somewhere private where I could verify every inch of her was intact.
With my tongue. “After that’s done, get some sleep, Thorne. You’ve more than earned it.”
He inclined his head. “Shall I send food to your chambers?”
“No.” Arabella’s fingers traced patterns on my chest that made the runes beneath my skin hum. “We’ll manage.”
Thorne’s expression didn’t change, but I caught the slight twitch at the corner of his mouth. “Very good, my lady.”
I carried Arabella over the lightning bridges and through the winding corridors of Skyspire, taking the long route to avoid the main halls where our heroic “guests” might be lingering. The fortress felt different now—less like a bastion of dark power and more like… home. Our home.
Nyx had followed, her massive form pressing so close that she was practically attached to my hip. When we reached the final lightning bridge, she nearly sent Arabella and me tumbling into the void below.
“Tower,” Arabella commanded once I’d recovered my feet. “Perch there.”
The dragon’s silver eyes narrowed to slits. A defiant puff of purple flame escaped her nostrils, but she launched herself skyward, her wings beating hard enough to whip Arabella’s hair across my face.
We made to the main courtyard with no further mishaps.
“What are you thinking?” Arabella murmured against my neck. Her hot breath made my magic stir.
“Just realizing I conquered the wrong kingdom.” I turned down the final corridor to our chambers. “All those years obsessing over Solandris when I should have been conquering you.”
“You did conquer me.” She nipped at my throat. “Repeatedly. Enthusiastically. In many different positions.”
“And yet you conquered me right back.” I shouldered open our door. “Seems we’re at an impasse.”
“Mutual conquest, then.” She slid from my arms the moment we crossed the threshold, already pulling at the leather of her armor. “Though right now I’d settle for conquering a bath.”
“No.” I caught her wrist, spinning her back against me. “Bath later.”
“Kaz, we’re filthy—”
“Good.” I backed her toward the bed, my hands already working at her remaining clothes. “I want you exactly like this. Covered in the evidence of what we survived. What we won.”
Her pupils dilated, and I felt the spike of heat through our bond. “That’s… unexpectedly romantic.”
I tore through the last of her armor, baring her to my hungry gaze. Dark purple bruises were forming over her ribs. I traced each one reverently. “Romance is clearly a tool for men who are catastrophically in love with their wives.”
She laughed, the sound bright and alive and everything I’d been terrified I’d never hear again. “Catastrophically?”
“Utterly. Completely. Catastrophically.” I shed my own ruined clothes, not caring where they landed. My runes pulsed in anticipation. “I tried to resist it. Failed spectacularly.”
“Your first failure in years, I’d imagine.”
I pressed her back onto the bed, covering her body with mine. “I’ve been failing at resisting you since the day we met.”
Her legs wrapped around my waist, pulling me closer. “The day you kidnapped me, you mean.”
“Best decision I ever made.” I caught her wrists, pinning them above her head. “Even if you did ruin all my careful plans.”
“Your plans were terrible.” She arched beneath me, testing my grip.
“But they worked out okay in the end.” I leaned down to bite the junction of her neck and shoulder, marking her. “Instead, I fell in love with you. Gave you my power, my fortress, my entire fucking heart. Completely destroyed my reputation as a proper villain.”
“You freed an ancient evil to save me.” Her breath hitched as I moved lower, my lips and tongue trailing over her breastbone, my tongue tasting the salt on her skin. “I think your villain credentials are intact.”
I released her wrists to grip her thighs, spreading her wider. “I love you.”
She tangled her fingers in my hair, tugging hard enough to make the runes along my spine flare with delicious pain. “I love your methods. I love your darkness. I love—oh fuck, Kaz—”
I cut off her words with my mouth on her, determined to worship every part of her properly. She was wet and wanting, her body responding to my touch like we were made for this—made for each other. I’d had her countless times since our wedding, but this felt different.
No secrets. No ancient evils. No unspoken feelings. Just us.
I licked her slit from one end to the other, tasting her before plunging my tongue inside her. My shadows wrapped around her thighs, holding her open for me.
She gasped, hips rolling against my mouth, her grip on my hair tightening.
I replaced my tongue with my fingers and began working her, curling them to hit that spot that made her see stars.
She shattered with my name on her lips, her release flooding through our bond and nearly undoing me. But I wasn’t done. Not even close.
I kissed my way back up her body, savoring the salt of her sweat, the rapid beat of her pulse. When I reached her mouth, she kissed me while wrapping one hand around my erection.
“Inside me,” she demanded against my lips. “Now.”
“I’ve created a monster.” I positioned myself at her entrance, rubbing up and down with the head of my cock. “A beautiful, deadly monster.”
She wrapped her legs around me again, using the leverage to pull me closer. “A monster that can match your darkness. That has killed for you and would do it again.”
I slid inside her, her walls stretching around me, forcing me to pause as I adjusted.
“We fit together so perfectly.” I caught her throat in a light grip—not squeezing, just holding.
Claiming. “The way you’ve carved out a place in my chest and filled it so completely, I can’t imagine existing without you. ”
“Good.” Her nails raked down my back, leaving marks I’d wear proudly. “Because you’re stuck with me. Forever.”
“Forever isn’t long enough.” I pulled out and slowly slid back in, angling so that I stimulated her clit and made her squirm.
I was so hard that the sensations were overwhelming, my dominion magic leaking out to wrap us both in shadows.
I increased my pace, driven by the need to get closer, deeper, to merge with her completely. “I want eternity. Every lifetime.”
“You have them.” She clenched around me, already close again.
I made love to her with all the pent-up emotion of the last horrible hours. The fear when the Shadow King took her. The rage at my mother’s betrayal. The desperate relief when Arabella opened her eyes and said my name.
“Mine,” I growled, feeling my control finally snap. My shadows darkened the room until there was nothing but us, nothing but this bed and our bodies moving together. “My wife. My Dark Lady. My everything.”
“Yours,” she agreed, then bit my shoulder hard enough to draw blood. “And you’re mine. My villain.”
The words sent me over the edge. I came with a roar that probably echoed through half the fortress, spilling inside her as she found her own release again. The bond between us flared white-hot, our magic intertwining until I couldn’t tell where I ended and she began.
We collapsed together, a tangle of sweat-slicked limbs and racing hearts. I rolled to the side, pulling her with me so she sprawled across my chest. Neither of us spoke for long moments, content to simply breathe and exist in this perfect bubble of postcoital bliss.
“So,” Arabella finally said, tracing the glowing scars on my chest, “we conquered Solandris, freed an ancient evil, and declared our undying love for each other. What do we do for an encore?”
“Bath,” I decided. “Then food. Then I’m going to fuck you again. After that, we’ll figure out how to track down the Shadow King and put him back in his box.”
“Solid plan.” She yawned. “Though maybe we could sleep at some point? I did just fight off possession by an eldritch horror.”
“Fine. Bath, food, sleep, then more fucking.”
“You’re such a romantic.”
“I know. It’s disgusting.” I pressed a kiss to her forehead. “Next thing you know, I’ll be writing poetry about your eyes glowing golden in battle.”
She snuggled closer, boneless and content. “I love you, Kazimir Blackrose. Even if you did ruin my life.”
“I love you too, Arabella Blackrose.” I tightened my arms around her. “Thank you for ruining mine right back.”
She laughed, and I felt that pleasant ache in my chest expand until it threatened to crack my ribs. This woman had destroyed everything I thought I knew about myself, torn down every wall I’d built, and made me into someone I didn’t recognize.
Someone who loved. Someone who was loved in return.
I should have been terrified. Instead, I was planning all the ways I could make her laugh like that again. All the ways I could worship her body and challenge her mind and feed her darkness until we were both glutted on it.
The Shadow King was free. Solandris was in chaos. The world was probably ending.
But Arabella was in my arms, alive and whole and mine, and that was the only victory that mattered.
The rest we’d figure out tomorrow. After all, what kind of villain would I be if I didn’t start at least one apocalypse?