Chapter 58 #2
I kiss him again, slower this time. My hands trace over the ancient patterns of his Embermark, which shimmers beneath my touch.
The water shifts and eddies around us, warm and grounding.
The glow of the flame behind us bathes everything in red-gold light, like we’ve stepped into the heart of the Realm itself.
I straddle his lap again and settle there, meeting his gaze.
He’s hard pressed against my inner thigh, the dusky column of his cock curving up the flat plane of his belly.
I cant my hips, letting the solid length of him drag through my folds, bumping up against my clit.
I do it again, and again, losing myself in the rhythm between us.
He gasps softly when I move against him, his fingers tightening on my hips.
There’s reverence in the way he looks at me—like he can’t believe I’m real.
Like I’m a prayer answered in flame and water and ash.
I had plans. Fantasies and dreams and ideas of what I wanted to do the next time we were here like this.
Not in the hot spring, but together, naked.
Intertwined. It’s not every day a girl gets to live out her kinky demon sex fantasies with the prince of Hell, but heat is melting my brain, want is fizzing in my blood.
And I reach for him, slotting him right at the slit between my legs.
I lean in and kiss him again, letting the heat between us rise like smoke as I press my hips to his taking him deep into my body.
I rock forward and back and his breath catches.
I shift side to side and he sucks in air.
I loop in a figure eight, feeling my own spine shudder as he bumps up against the sensitive front wall of my pussy, his pubic bone grinding against my clit.
I twist against him, out of control as the heat builds, the tension coiling in my gut.
Am I supposed to come this fast? With this little warm up? Do I fucking care?
I let it build and build until the edges of me blur. I don’t know where I end and he begins. The feeling is terrifying—and safe. Like falling, but knowing you’ll be caught.
We move together, slow at first, careful.
One hand loops around my waist, dragging me in tight until he can cup my opposite hip, angle me the way he wants.
His free hand cups my breast, thumb scraping my nipple.
I gasp and he lunges for my mouth, swallowing the sound before it can escape.
. The water glides around us, steam rising like the Realm is holding its breath.
I rest my forehead against his, eyes half-lidded, and breathe him in.
Caziel doesn’t speak, but the way he touches me says everything. His hands are steady and sure, but gentle. Worshipful. He kisses the hollow of my throat, the curve of my shoulder, the mark at my chest—each press of his mouth sending a pulse of heat down my spine. Urgent, but careful.
I don’t know how long it lasts. Time unspools here, stretching out and curling in on itself. I lose track of how many times I fall apart in his arms. How many times he whispers my name like a vow, a tether, a truth.
My Embermark pulses with his. I catch the moment the flame seems to notice us.
It flickers through the spring like a pulse, not burning but alive—aware.
Something ancient and deep inside me stirs.
The heat wraps around us, not painful but personal, almost possessive.
The flame isn’t just watching, it’s bearing witness.
Pervert, I think, but I can’t bring myself to mind.
The tension coils. Pulling tighter and tighter, as if it can suck the heat and the color and the flame right out of my skin.
I gulp in air and press our mouths together, desperate as I press my tongue past the seam of his lips to tangle with him.
My lungs ache but I’d rather starve myself of oxygen than pull away.
“Caz.” It’s a plea pulled from the depths of my soul. “Please, Caziel. I need—”
“Caziel Draeth Zorathiel Azmodean, Heir of the Ember Crown, Flame-marked of Crimson, Scion of the Burning Line.”
“Caz,”
“Caziel Draeth Zorathiel Azmodean, Heir of the Ember Crown, Flame-marked of Crimson, Scion of the Burning Line.” The words seem to echo between my ears as he repeats them.
I twist against him.
“Caziel Draeth Zorathiel Azmodean,” I manage not to stumble over his name even as I feel a twinge of amusement from somewhere. “Heir of the Ember Crown, Flame-marked of Crimson, Scion of the Burning Line.” His teeth nip at the skin at my collarbone. “Please make me come.”
He doesn’t need me to tell him. His mouth drops to my neck and I feel his canines press against the skin of my throat.
He pulls be closer, tipping my hips a fraction of an inch as all the air punches from my lungs.
He slows the pace even as I feel the very threads of reality start to unravel around me.
I’m feel like a spring, coiled past the point of no return.
It will take nothing to send me over. A touch, a kiss, a—
“Now, Kay Ward of the Other Realm,” I smile at the title. I’ve heard it before somewhere, but I can’t think where. His voice is hoarse, rasping over my nerves and I reach for the last spark of sanity to tease him one last time.
“Ann,” I reach up to wrap one palm around the curve of his horn, It’s smooth and warm under my palm, and I use it to anchor myself as I buck my hips over his, chasing my release. It’s right there. Right. There. Right… “My middle name is Ann, since we’re being…formal.”
Caziel lifts his head from my shoulder, eyes wild with something like awe. I reach up to touch his face, and the moment our skin connects, I feel it— Need. Devotion. Fear. Hope.
Guilt
A wave of emotion that isn’t mine.
“Kay Ann Ward of the Other Flame, She Who Survived the Wastes and the In-between. Embermarked by Crimson Keeper of George of the Emberpaw…” his smile is wicked, hot, it licks between my legs in a way that makes me clamp down hard on his shaft, shuddering. “Come on my cock. Now.”
And I do.
We fracture together as steam blankets both our bodies.
My vision whites out, the wastes, the spring, the flame vanishing, but Caz remains.
I hold onto him like a tether, as I wait to come back into my own body.
His cock jerks and I feel the warmth empty deep into me, even as he presses a hand down on my abdomen.
I shudder again, dragged over by the pressure one more time.
Minutes, hours, eons later, I pull back, blinking. “Was that—did you feel—?”
He doesn’t answer. Just looks at me like I’m everything he’s ever wanted. Like he can’t believe I’m here, touching him, choosing him.
I take a shaky breath. “That was…”
“Right,” he murmurs. “It felt right.”
I nod, even though I don’t understand it. Not fully. But something inside me does. Some instinct buried in flame and blood and memory. I’m not afraid. I’m not alone.
We float together in the warmth, my head resting against his chest. The glow of the fissure burns low and steady beside us, its light flickering across the rocks and steam. I can still feel the echo of what we shared—like the flame has left a piece of itself in my bones. Maybe it has.
His hand brushes over my back in slow, steady strokes. “Are you alright?”
“I’m…” I exhale, surprised by my own answer. “Yeah. I really am.”
A long pause. Then, softly, “Do you have regrets?”
I lift my head to meet his eyes.
“No. Do you?”
His thumb brushes my cheek, his smile doesn’t quite reach his eyes. “Never, Kay.”
A small, tentative smile pulls at my mouth. “You’re ridiculously good at the whole sacred lava spring thing, you know.”
That earns me a laugh—a real one, low and rough and full of warmth.
“It’s an acquired talent.”
“Passed down through generations of overly dramatic flame Princes?”
He arches a brow. “You’re lucky I like you.”
“Luck has nothing to do with it” I snuggle in closer to the smooth warmth of his chest.
“Why not?” I can hear the amusement in his voice. “It wasn’t luck that brought you to me?”
Was it?
“I prefer to think it was fate.” I press my mouth to the smooth line of his pectoral. “The universe already knew you were mine.”
The moment the word slips out, I freeze, but he doesn’t. It hangs between us, soft and unintentional—and true. Something flickers behind his eyes. Not fear. Not surprise. Relief.
He presses a kiss to the hollow under my ear, humming against my skin, but all he says is, “Let me take you home, Kay. Please.”
He gathers me in his arms like I weigh nothing, like I’m precious.
I don’t protest. I’m tired—bones and breath and flame, too full and too empty at once.
His hand presses against my abdomen, again, low Daemari words hanging between us.
When I raise a brow in question he presses his mouth to my forehead.
“None of my research indicates you could bear my child, but better safe than sorry.”
I can’t believe I didn’t think of that. I’ve never been so reckless before.
Well, other than the first time, or the whole Demon rite thing.
I guess that counts as reckless. I try counting back days.
Have I missed a period? The man bought me goddamn tampons but I can’t remember—Caz must see the worry on my face.
“I should have thought of our… biology after our first night together, but you do not carry my child.”
I feel like I should have had a period though.
“Are you sure?” I’m not opposed to babies, but this is the absolute wrong time to even make a dumb mistake.
“Yes.” His hand goes back to my stomach and this time the knowledge seeps into my own consciousness with a surety that has to be magic. He carries me from the water, our Embermarks glows faintly on his chest and mine. Matching. Answering.
I rest my head against his shoulder and whisper, “You’re not going to let me fall, are you?”
His hold tightens. “Never.”
I believe him. The heat of the spring lingers on my skin as Caziel carries me through the still air of the Wastes.
I should probably care that I’m naked, but I don’t.
Caz’s glamor settles back over his skin, but I can still see the glow of his mark under the false facade.
His chest rises against mine. His heartbeat’s steady, strong.
Even through the glamor I can see the lines of his brand.
I trace them with my fingers where they glow low on his skin. I feel a deep hum inside my own.
I wonder what it means. I wonder if I want to know.
His steps are slow, deliberate. Like he’s memorizing the path.
Or maybe savoring it—this quiet return, this final passage between fire and shadow.
I’m too tired to speak, but not too tired to feel.
We pass the basin where it all began, steam still curling upward like smoke from a forgotten offering.
I want to turn my head and watch it vanish behind us, but I don’t.
I keep my eyes on him.
And when the citadel gates finally rise before us, glowing red-gold in the night, I realize I’m holding my breath.
He doesn’t take me back to the barracks.
Doesn’t hand me over to anyone else’s care.
Instead, he carries me up the winding stairs of the Ember Spire, past guards who look away politely, past shadows that hush as we pass.
Straight to his chambers. His home. Somehow, it feels like mine too.
He lowers me gently onto the massive bed, all soft furs and dark linen, the air still faintly spiced with smoke and cedar. I sit there, blinking up at him, suddenly unsure what to do with myself.
“I should—” I start, but he crouches in front of me, hands on my knees, eyes dark and steady.
“No shoulds,” he says quietly. “Just rest.”
I study his face. The sharpness of it. The quiet undercurrent of worry still lingering in his gaze.
“You okay?” I ask.
The question surprises him. “You’re the one who—”
“I know,” I say. “But you always carry so much. I just… I want to know if you’re alright.”
He doesn’t answer right away. Then he leans forward and presses his forehead to mine.
“I’ve never been more okay than I am in this moment. I doubt I ever will be again.”
His voice is low. Honest. A little raw. I nod, throat tight, and shift to sit cross-legged on the bed.
He moves beside me, reaching for one of the blankets to pull over us.
And for a while, that’s all we do. Lie side by side in silence, our breaths syncing, our hands barely touching beneath the covers.
I want to say something. To thank him. To tell him I’ve never felt more seen, more wanted, more real.
But the words won’t come. Not the right ones.
Instead, I curl into his side and whisper, “You smell like the spring.”
He chuckles softly. “So do you.”
“Mm. Maybe we’ll both turn to steam by morning.”
“If we do, we’ll rise together.”
That makes me smile, even though I’m half-asleep. I shift to press a kiss to his shoulder and nestle against him, my cheek resting just over his heart. I swear I can hear the echo of the flame even here, faint but steady, like a heartbeat beneath the world. Or maybe that’s just him.
His arm drapes over my waist, his breath warm in my hair. “Sleep, Kay.”
“I’m not tired.”
“Liar.”
I laugh. “Okay. A little.”
“You’ve earned it.”
“So have you.”
His hand slides slowly up and down my spine, not for seduction this time, but comfort. A steady tether in a world of flame. There’s one more trial left. I should focus on it, but the thoughts keep dissolving under the warm stroke of his hand.
“Will you still be here when I wake up?” I murmur.
“Sleep.”
I close my eyes, letting the warmth of his body and the quiet certainty of his voice wrap around me like a shield. The pendant at my sternum glows faintly, but it doesn’t frighten me. It feels like a promise.
I drift toward the sound of his breath and the distant memory of flame, and for the first time since stepping through the archway of the Rite—
I don’t dream of home.
I am home.