Chapter Fifty-Seven
ELYSSARA
The night comes quickly—almost as jarring as the way my mother rose from the dead.
The candles have burned low, their flames bending in the draft that slips through the lattice window. I must have drifted in and out, but I’m not sure I ever truly slept. My mind keeps replaying her face—every line and hollow, every echo of the woman I thought I’d buried two decades ago.
It should feel like a miracle.
It doesn’t.
It feels like a theft.
Because every year she breathed while I clawed through the filth of Virellin feels like something stolen from me. From the child she told to run. From the girl who learned the world didn’t come back for what it left behind.
My chest aches with too many questions and not enough air.
What else have they hidden? What else have I forgotten?
Ronyn sits near the window, boots propped against the wall, pretending to doze. I can tell by the way his hand rests near the hilt of his dagger that he’s been awake the whole time. Guarding. Watching.
When I shift beneath the blanket, he glances over.
“Didn’t think you were much for sleeping,” he mutters.
“I’m not,” I whisper. “Not anymore.”
Outside, the mountain wind howls against the castle spires, a sound that feels almost alive—like the world itself knows what’s coming.
Somewhere below, I can feel Kael through the tether. His energy, controlled and cold, moving with intent. Planning.
Always planning.
I close my eyes, but the memories keep clawing their way back: my mother’s voice, the blood in the street, the look in Kael’s eyes when he realized she’d lived.
Because for a heartbeat it felt like my world knitted back together. But then he said those three words: You left her. And it shattered again.
The illusion of her—the mother who told me bedtime stories, distracted me from the ache in my empty belly, held me close, called me Little Star—disintegrated instantly. You left her.
The words are like insidious fingers poking into a bleeding wound—there is no escaping the agony. There is no escaping the brutal reality that she did not come for me.
I didn’t want it to be true. But it fits too perfectly into the shape of every scar I carry.
Ronyn doesn’t say anything, and for once, I’m desperate for him to distract me. To tell a joke that makes me roll my eyes, to make a crude comment about the things he’ll do with his dragon tail. Anything. Anything but the truth: she did not come for me.
The chamber door groans open, and Kael’s handsome face cuts through the frame, the moonlight landing across the hard line of his jaw. He’s all sin, scars, and strategy—a warrior. No. A weapon. He loves like a blade—sharp, final, and deliberate—and protects like it’s sacred duty.
“Prepare for Zerynthia,” he murmurs to Ronyn, who only nods, striding for the door and linking his arm through Seren’s.
It’s just us.
For the first time since my mother returned, it’s just us.
His ocean-blue eyes burrow into me, like they can see all the way through to the marrow of my bones. I feel exposed. Naked under his stare.
“Elyssara.” He says my name like a benediction. A sacrament.
And it undoes me. Like I am all there is. Like I am chosen, wholly and completely.
It’s all I want: to be chosen, loved as I am, embraced entirely, scars and all.
My eyes turn glassy, as if his presence is the permission I need to unravel.
“Every time I think I’m leaving the darkness behind, it pulls me back,” I whisper, voice breaking. “Like no matter what I do, the past will always steal me from the future.”
He sits on the edge of the bed, his strong hand cupping my jaw, and his thumb tracing the scar at my throat like a vow.
“Then let it try,” he murmurs. “Because I’ll keep dragging you forward until it can’t find you anymore.”
Maybe that’s what love is—not saving me from the dark, but refusing to let me walk it alone.
A ragged breath leaves my lips in a whimper. His devotion—so unwavering, so steady—becomes the place my heart learns to mend, forged in the flames of my own ruin.
Because I know I can protect myself.
But gods, I love that I don’t have to with him.
With him, I am safe. I know that now with the air in my lungs, the blood in my veins, the soul-deep knowing in my chest.
I wrap my hand around the back of his neck, twining my fingers through his hair, and the tether vibrates—happy, content, alive when we touch. “Kiss me,” I demand, but he’s already moving.
His lips meet mine in a commanding claim, his stubble pressing into my skin.
His tongue strokes languidly over mine. He tastes like war and worship. And I’m done pretending I want peace. No. I want ruin.
I wasn’t made for peace. I was made for the Stars and the man who defies them.
The kiss deepens until there’s no breath between us—only the pull of the tether and the pulse beneath our skin. His hands frame my face like he’s memorizing it, and every touch feels like an oath.
When he draws back, our foreheads rest together, our breaths uneven. The air hums with something ancient, the space between us charged enough to burn.
“Elyssara,” he says again, lower now, almost a growl. “Will you let me have you?” he asks, blazing a trail of kisses across the space between my neck and shoulder.
Because he doesn’t realize that with him, there is only yes.
“Yes,” I breathe. “Will you give me new memories?”
He drinks me in, leaning into me like I’m the answer to his prayers.
He gently pulls back, his gaze drifting to mine, penetrating and clear.
“I will give you whatever you tell me to, El,” he admits, his voice rolling off his tongue in a heady rumble.
And I know he will. I know he’s a servant to my needs. But right now? I want him to have his way with me.
“Give me what you think I want, Kael,” I challenge, my voice coming out in a throaty moan.
But his eyes snap up at me, fierce and direct.
“I’ll give you what you want, my love, but I am the only one you submit to—and only when I’m between your thighs, do you hear me?
” he instructs, his rough timbre is reverent, holy, and his calloused hand grips my thigh with a claim that could topple kingdoms. “My queen bows to no one. The fire in your veins will never know submission again. Only rule.”
His mouth claims mine again in hungry possession, and I let him. I let him possess me so completely that I forget I’m separate.
There is only us.
His lips drag slowly from mine to find the crook of my neck. His hand slides underneath my thin linen nightdress to grip my hip, my ass, and his teeth nip at the sensitive skin of my neck.
“What do you want, my love?” he groans into my skin.
A breathy moan tumbles from my mouth. “I want you to show me that this is real. That I’m not alone.”
He huffs a shallow breath. “We have been real from the very beginning,” he answers, dragging his rough hands up my waist until they find the heavy swell of my breast.
“Prove it,” I challenge, fisting his hair and yanking his head up until his eyes find mine.
His mouth curves, tender and dangerous all at once. “A night to remember, Duskae.”
His hand wraps around my wrist, pulling my hand from his hair with both force and gentility. He presses a kiss to my palm, before pushing from the bed, stepping back just enough to look at me fully. His voice is low and rough. Real. “Undress for me.”
The air between us hums—alive, electric.
“Only if you do, too,” I challenge, a smirk lifting up the corner of my mouth.
He huffs a laugh, returning the smirk. “As you wish, my Queen.”
He steps back into the glow of candlelight, the soft linen of his shirt whispering against his skin. The scent of him hits me first—soap and smoke and something purely Kael, like fresh jungle air and waterfalls, but still edged in steel.
His fingers go to the ties at his collar, loosening one, then another. The laces slip free, and the fabric falls open, revealing a glimpse of the hard lines beneath—chest, collarbone, the onyx ink of the mark that binds us. The Sky.
He doesn’t rush. He never does. He moves with that same lethal patience he uses on the battlefield, unhurried and intentional. Every movement feels like it’s for me. Like an invitation into him.
He pulls the shirt over his head, the linen catching briefly on the curve of his shoulders before it falls away completely.
The candlelight turns his skin to gold. The muscles across his stomach tighten with each slow breath, and my mouth goes dry at the sight of the sharp lines that disappear beneath his trousers.
There are scars—some faded to pale ghosts, others still raw. New, perhaps. I trace them with my eyes like I’m memorizing a language only I can understand.
He drops the shirt to the floor. The loose linen trousers hang low on his hips, soft and worn, the drawstring barely holding against the curve of muscle. Barefoot, bare-chested, he looks both mortal and myth—something forged for beds and battlefields.
He steps closer to me, his fingers working the ties of his trousers efficiently, before letting them fall to the floor.
His cock is already hard, his body sharpened and forged into a weapon of his own making, but it’s his eyes—locked on mine, unflinching. Daring me to look away.
“Your turn, Duskae,” he murmurs, voice low and rough enough to scrape against my ribs. “Let me see you.”
I fight the urge to shrink. But I refuse. No more.
I rise from the bed, facing him, eyes locked on his.
The linen of my nightdress is whisper-thin, catching on the swell of my thigh as I lift the hem. It smells faintly of lavender and smoke—like peace borrowed from someone else’s life. But I don’t want peace.
I want war and worship.
I lift the thin dress over my head, revealing my bare frame, watching as my only protection falls away. Until there’s nothing left to hide behind.
Hair unbound and falling forward over my shoulders, breasts craving his touch, pussy pulsing in need of his tongue—I stand exposed.
His lips part in silent reverence as his eyes rake over me, hungry and desperate.