49. Chapter Forty-Seven
Chapter Forty-Seven
Ifelt solid stone form beneath my boots, and I was no longer in my chamber.
I was in the divines’ suite.
My stomach dropped. My spine locked stiff. “Seriously, Tairngire? This shit needs to stop, you cannot just pull on the bond whenever you please, you don’t own me.”
Tairngire stood in the center of the room, arms loose, bare-chested, runes glowing green across his skin.
His head tipped, eyes flashing like emerald wildfire. “Do you burn for him, too?” His voice roughened as he stepped toward me. “The Ard-Connacht. The way he looks at you—hungry, wolfish. Do you enjoy it? Knowing he wants his hands where only mine have been?”
That's what this was about? “Tairngire, that is the last thing you should be worried about—”
“You think I don’t see it?” his stride lengthened as he cut me off. “The way his eyes follow you? The way you let him linger around you?”
His hand caught my wrist as he pushed me backward until the backs of my legs buckled against the bed as he pushed me down onto it with his knee. His shadow loomed over me now, breath scorching mine.
“Say it,” he rasped. “Give me cause for violence. I need it. Tell me you liked the way your name sounded leaving his lips."
Rage tangled with want. I tilted my chin, lips grazing his. Suddenly, the weight I felt earlier was insignificant. “You tell me first,” I whispered, venom lacing the word. “Do you like the attention the Phantom Queen gives you? The way her nails dragged down your chest?”
He stilled.
I pressed harder, owning my power. “She likes you. I saw it in her eyes. And you spoke to her like she already knows the taste of your mouth.”
He growled, his mouth grazing my ear. “You’re playing with a god’s temper, Aurenya.”
I was playing with his temper? Unbelievable. I clucked my tongue. "That didn't sound like denial to me."
His chuckle was all darkness, no humor. “I do not crave goddesses.” His thumb skimmed my jaw, deceptively gentle. “But you? You burn differently. And it drives me mad.”
Heat surged through me. I shoved at him, weak, useless beneath his weight.
“You remember?” His teeth scraped my ear. “How I tasted you once already. How you melted in my hand. How sweet you were when you came apart for me.”
“Gods…stop.”
I didn't mean that. Please don't stop.
“I could taste you again,” he murmured, voice so low I felt it in my core. “Taste you where it aches now. Where your thighs clench, where you burn for what you still won’t admit.”
Shame stabbed so sharp it broke my breath. He knew. He knew I had wanted him to stay that night. To do it again. To do worse.
“We agreed this would only happen once. This is still forbidden,” I rasped. A last-ditch effort to save myself from the hurricane I was already being swept up in.
“Forbidden,” he chuckled, gravel and fire vibrating against my skin as his mouth traced down my jaw. “Is simply another name for inevitable. And you know it. That isn’t what this is about. You knew it would never just be once.”
His hand dragged achingly slow down my arm to my hip, palm pressing firm, thumb sketching lazy circles meant to unravel.
“You think I’ll stop?” His voice was velvet, dangerous in its certainty. “Little Seer, I’ve only just begun.”
His fingers dragged lower, over the curve of my thigh, possessive, tormenting, never giving what my body screamed for, only holding me hostage with what I already knew I’d let him take.
Then his voice was low and lethal. “I want to see you, all of you, bared before me.”
I stifled a gasp. I wasn’t meant to be seen, not like this, in the shadows of the doom that awaited us. And yet, his gaze told me he meant every word he said. That he’d take the one thing bound in taboo with no regrets.
“I won’t allow it,” I whispered, voice softer than I intended. “Nobody is meant to see me. Not like that, and especially not now.”
His thumb traced the edge of my leathers. His smile turned ravenous. “You say ‘not meant to’ as though either of us have ever followed rules.”
“We really should.” My breath faltered as his hand slid higher, halting just shy of the buckle. “You’re a god, and—”
“You’re mine.” The words were growled into my throat. His body tensed, like even he hadn’t meant to speak them. His control had cracked, but he didn’t back down.
“Do you want me to stop, Aurenya?”
It was truly funny that he thought anyone else saying my name could send that shiver of need straight to my core the way he did.
I couldn’t speak, and my silence told him everything.
“You don’t.” His voice dipped lower, certain. “You’ve never wanted me to stop.”
Rage flared, my last shield. “Arrogant god. You think you own me? That I would—”
He silenced me with a slow tug of the strap from my shoulder guard, his gaze locked with mine as though he’d wait forever for an answer.
“Say it,” he murmured. “Say stop…and I will. But if you don’t…
” His fingers brushed the clasp at my collarbone, feather light.
My mind flashed to the first time he’d said those words, before he undid me with that damnable kiss.
“I’ll unmake you, piece by piece,” he finished his thought, weight behind every word.
The room tilted. I should’ve screamed, should’ve shoved him away. Instead, I let him work.
His hands moved with infuriating patience—one clasp undone, then another.
“You see?” he breathed, lips at my ear. “Even forbidden things inevitably bow to Fate.”
I forgot how to breathe.
His weight pressed the mattress down, his shadow caging me. My breath hitched between fury and surrender as his fingers found the last clasp. He didn’t rush. His patience was maddening, stripping me like it was a rite rather than a sin.
Rough knuckles brushed my skin, leaving a trail of heat.
“You fight me with fire on your tongue,” he murmured, “But your body prays for this.”
Leather slipped from my shoulders, then my legs, inch by inch, baring pale skin beneath his gaze. I shivered, trapped beneath green wildfire and something darker.
“You shouldn’t have—” I began.
His teeth grazed the curve of my throat and the protest dissolved. He chuckled, low. “And yet…” His palm skated over my stomach. “You let me.”
Only thread-thin garments separated his stare from me now. His hand smoothed slow over my hip, as if he couldn’t quite believe I’d allowed it this far.
“Look at me,” he commanded softly.
His eyes burned into mine until the world narrowed to the press of him and the thunder in my chest. One hand braced at my head.
The other slid down my side, fingers finding the hem of my undergarments.
He tugged with purpose, threading the space between restraint and surrender finer with every pull.
“One last time to stop me,” his voice was velvet and cruel. “But we both know you won’t.”
“You’re presumptuous,” I said, breathless, my nails digging into the sheets.
His grin only widened. “No. I’m being patient. But it won’t last.”
He eased the fabric down, slow, watching my every shiver as he bared more skin to the cool air. When the cotton brushed my thighs he paused, just to look, just to drive me insane.
I squirmed, heat crawling up my neck. “Are you going to stare at me like I’m you next hunt?” I bit out.
“Yes,” he said, shameless. “Until you beg me not to.”
Fuck.
He tossed the cloth aside like it belonged nowhere between us and ghosted a hand up the inside of my thigh, teasing me relentlessly.
“You’re trembling,” he noted. “Afraid, are you?”
“No.” I lied.
His eyes gleamed. “Good. Keep that defiance. You’ll need it.”
Before I could snap back, his other hand slid higher, fingers hooking the clasp at my back. He moved slow until the snap sighed open, and the straps slipped from my shoulders. The last barrier between me and the unavoidable fell away.
“This…this is too much. I—” I whispered, trying my hand at restraint one last time.
“Do not fight me. Not right now. Please." His voice cracked on the last word, shattering the last bit of my resolve.
His palms lingered at my ribs, then he moved so he was above me on his knees between my thighs. The cool air licked my bare skin, but it wasn’t the chill that made me weak. It was his stare.
The way he looked at me, no smugness, only a slow, devastating appraisal, was enough to steal the air from my lungs. He traced every line of my stomach, the hardened muscle in my arms from drills, the faint bruises from sparring. He felt it all.
Instead of mockery, his mouth formed words I almost didn’t catch, old-tongued and guttural, curling over my skin like a spell. He bent, lips at my ear, translating in a whisper, “Look at you…perfection.”
My veins were on fire, raw and bright. My hands shot up to cover myself on instinct. He caught them, pinning both to the mattress above my head.
“No.” His voice was hard. “Don’t hide from me, Astór.”
I swallowed, fire in my chest. I knew that word. My treasure, in the Old Tongue. I didn’t remember how I knew it, perhaps an old scroll…but it made my heart race all the same.
“I don’t—” My voice cracked. “I don’t have the body of a goddess.”
Something flickered in his expression. Amusement. Fondness. A cruel, wicked understanding.
He leaned back just enough to catch my eyes. His smile was slow and devastating. “Do you think perfection is not imperfection in disguise, Little Seer?”
His thumb brushed the inside of my wrist. “What I crave is an untouchable inferno, a mind that dares to defy me, and a body that surrenders when it can no longer resist its own heat. Everything that you are.”
My pulse thundered against my throat.
His gaze dragged over me again, slower this time, etching me into memory.
"You,” he murmured, tilting his head, “are everything the goddesses are not.”
The way he said it, like both a blessing and a curse nearly broke me.
His mouth traced lightning down my collarbone, leaving soft kisses in its wake. My thoughts clawed toward something familiar, obligations—the council, the stones, the danger thickening beyond these walls.