37. Stellan
STELLAN
Her pulse remained steady under my fingers, and nothing in her body pulled away.
I caught her waist and rolled her onto her back. Heat sharpened in her eyes as she kicked off her skirt and pulled the ruined top over her head. Her bra and knickers stayed on, and she watched me decide where to touch first.
She’d drawn a boundary between us less than an hour ago. No bed. No feeding. Since then, I’d answered without hiding the worst of what frightened me, and she’d chosen to open part of that boundary for a reason neither of us could mistake.
I wouldn’t turn one choice into permission for everything else.
The cut drying down my side made some decisions for us. It pulled when I bent over her, and Bryony’s gaze dropped to the blood marking the cloth before returning to my face.
“Still steady?”
Her fingers entered my hair and drew me into a kiss. She held me there until the answer was clear, then guided my mouth to the inside of her knee.
I kissed the bare skin above it. Her leg shifted wider across the sheet, giving me room without a word.
I wanted her naked. I also wanted to take my time getting her there.
My hand followed the line of her thigh to her hip. I slipped my fingers under the edge of her knickers, then stopped before I moved them farther. Bryony lifted her hips. I eased the black lace down, working it over her legs until she kicked it onto the floor beside her skirt.
The scent of her arousal thickened between us. Hunger answered it, sharp but controlled after the bottled blood. I could separate the two now. I knew which part of me wanted to feed and which part wanted her to come apart under my hands.
Her red hair spread across the pale sheet. Her thighs parted when I moved between them. I kept most of my weight on my uninjured arm and kissed higher.
Her pulse beat close to the surface of her inner thigh, warm enough for me to taste before my mouth touched her.
I ran my tongue over the place I intended to bite.
Her breath caught. Her fingers tightened in my hair and held me there. The bond carried no fear, only heat and the clear awareness of what I was about to do.
My fangs entered her thigh.
Blood filled my mouth, rich with her desire and the power Harrowmere kept trying to claim from us. Strength moved into my body with the first swallow. The burn along my side eased. The red cuffs under my skin faded without disappearing.
Bryony’s back lifted from the mattress.
Her pleasure reached me through the bond with the taste of her blood. It didn’t blur into hunger as it had the first time. I could feel every place they touched and keep control of both.
I took another slow swallow, then pressed my palm between her hips. She was wet enough to coat my fingers before I reached her clit.
A shudder moved through her. Her thigh tightened against my mouth, keeping me close.
I rubbed her slowly while I drank. Her blood restored what the dagger had taken, but the sounds she made had nothing to do with healing me. They belonged to her, and I wanted every one.
My fingers slid lower. I pushed one inside her and felt her cunt tighten around it. The pressure travelled through the bond and made my cock throb against my trousers.
I added a second finger and curled them towards the place that made her thighs shake. My thumb stayed on her clit, moving in steady circles while I took a third measured swallow.
Bryony pulled at my hair. Not to move me away. She pressed my mouth harder to her thigh and rolled her hips against my hand.
I gave her more pressure. My fingers worked deeper, and her body opened around them before clenching again.
The bond carried the rising tension through both of us. Her pleasure sat against my hunger until every beat of her pulse felt like a command I was choosing to follow.
I drank once more. Colour remained in her skin, and her heartbeat stayed strong. Four swallows. Enough to slow the bleeding and no more than I could take without weakening her.
I lifted my mouth and closed the bite with my tongue. The marks faded while I kept my fingers moving.
“Stellan.”
I looked up. Her eyes fixed on mine, and control broke across her face.
Bryony came with my name on her mouth. Her hips lifted while her cunt clenched around my fingers. I kept the pressure steady through every hard pulse, then slowed as the tremors eased.
Her grip loosened in my hair. I kissed the faint marks on her thigh and drew my fingers out of her.
She stayed open under me, breathing hard. I could have pulled the sheet over her and called the choice complete. The bond told me she hadn’t reached the end of what she wanted.
I moved lower on the bed and put my mouth between her legs.
The first stroke of my tongue made her whole body tighten. I held her hips against the mattress and tasted the release still coating her. Her fingers returned to my hair, less controlled now.
I licked her slowly until the tension left her thighs, then circled her clit with the tip of my tongue. She moved against my mouth, asking with her body because neither of us needed instructions.
Her taste and the last warmth of her blood filled my senses. The wound pulled when I shifted, but the pain had dulled enough to stay separate from everything I was doing to her.
I drew her clit between my lips and sucked.
Bryony swore and arched from the bed. I tightened my grip on her hips, keeping her where I wanted her, and repeated the pressure.
Her body was more sensitive after the first climax. Every pass of my tongue made her shake. I watched her lose the careful control she’d held through my confession, the attack and the plan we’d made beside the Crown.
This wasn’t forgiveness. It wasn’t a promise that the truth had repaired everything between us. She’d chosen to trust me with her body while keeping the rest of her judgement intact.
I treated that choice as carefully as her pulse.
I slid two fingers back inside her and sucked her clit again. Her cunt closed hard around my hand. The sound she made broke into my name as the second climax took her.
I kept my mouth on her until the last pulse eased. When she tried to pull me higher, I kissed my way over her stomach instead of making her drag me.
Her bra still covered her breasts. I reached behind her, opened the clasp and drew it away. She lifted her arms, letting me throw it beside the rest of her clothes.
I covered one breast with my hand and put my mouth over the other. Her nipple tightened against my tongue. Bryony’s legs closed around my hips, careful of the wound without becoming gentle everywhere else.
I kissed her. Her blood remained on my tongue, and she tasted it without flinching. The bond settled into a low heat that belonged to both of us rather than Harrowmere.
The feed had restored my strength and slowed the bleeding. It hadn’t closed the cut.
Bryony reached between us. I caught her wrist before she reached my trousers.
“Not with the wound open. I’m not tearing it wider to prove I can fuck you through it.”
Her pupils widened, then her gaze found the blood marking the bandage. Frustration gave way to reluctant sense.
“I dislike how reasonable that is.”
I kept her wrist in my hand and pressed her palm over my heart. “You chose to feed me. You didn’t promise to ignore the cost.”
Her fingers spread across my chest. The bond carried the frustration neither of us needed to name, but she didn’t reach for my trousers again.
She’d accepted the limit without making me defend it. That mattered more than any promise she could have made while desire was pulling at both of us.
I released her wrist and rested my hand over the fastening of my trousers. Bryony stayed still. She watched me open them and free my cock, waiting until I took her hand and brought it back between us.
Her fingers closed around me.
The first stroke dragged a rough breath from my chest. I covered her hand and moved it once, setting the pressure without giving an instruction. She understood my body as quickly as I’d learned hers. When I let go, her next pass matched the first.
I settled onto my back and kept the injured side straight. Bryony shifted with me, one knee beside my hip and her hair falling over my stomach. She avoided the bandage without turning careful everywhere else.
Her thumb moved over the head of my cock, gathering the wetness there before her fist travelled down again. The sight tightened every muscle I was trying to keep still.
I caught her face and drew her into a kiss. She stroked me through it, slow enough to hold me near the edge without making my body fight the pace. The bond carried her satisfaction when my control began to fray.
My hand moved down her back and closed over her hip. I could still feel the tremors left by her second climax. She pressed closer, naked against my uninjured side, and increased the pressure around my cock.
Pleasure built without the hard movement that would tear the wound open. I let her feel every part of it through the bond. She watched my face as intently as I’d watched hers, learning which small changes meant I was close.
Her final strokes stayed firm and unhurried. My head pressed back into the pillow as release hit. I came over her fingers and my stomach with her name leaving my mouth.
Bryony kept her hand around me until the last pulse passed. Then she reached for the clean cloth beside the water and wiped her fingers and my skin without turning the moment into a joke.
I checked the bandage. No fresh blood had soaked through. She saw it at the same time, and the remaining tension left her shoulders.
She stayed beside me instead of reaching for her clothes. Her palm rested over my ribs above the bandage, warm against skin that had spent too long knowing iron better than touch.
Once, I might have treated her desire as proof that anger no longer mattered. That was another way of choosing the easiest version of the truth. Pleasure hadn’t erased the dead, my confession or the boundary she had drawn. It had given us one honest moment inside all three.
Bryony had changed one part of the boundary for reasons she named and kept the rest intact. I could want more without pretending she had offered it.
I kissed her temple and felt her settle against me. The quiet held no forgiveness I hadn’t earned. It held trust given in a smaller measure, which made me more careful with it.
The need to take her properly hadn’t vanished. It settled into a promise for a safer room and a body no longer held open by a cursed blade. Adrian was still outside, the Crown was still under the throne, and Bryony needed me able to stand when either came through the door.
She studied my face, then checked the bandage once more. The cloth stayed dry.
Neither of us tried to turn the limit into a challenge.
I fastened my trousers without sitting up, then put the water in her hand. She drank it all while I kept my fingers over her pulse.
When she finished, I checked the bite again. Only two pale crescents remained on her thigh. Her skin stayed warm, and the bond carried no dizziness.
I drew the sheet over her and lay on my uninjured side. She fitted herself against me, naked, warm and alert rather than weakened.
For several breaths, neither of us spoke. Her fingers traced the edge of the bandage without touching the cut. My hand rested at the back of her neck, holding her because she’d chosen closeness and not because I needed it to mean more than she’d offered.
The room smelled of blood, dust and her. Beyond the walls, Harrowmere continued to strain against Adrian’s dagger. The quiet between us couldn’t last, but it belonged to us while it did.
“When we leave, I’m seeing where you live,” I said.
“My flat is tiny.”
“I’ve lived in a prison for over a century.”
“You’ll still complain about the locks.”
“They let you reach Harrowmere. They deserve criticism.”
Her laugh warmed my throat. “When we leave.”
“When.”
The word tightened the bond. I wouldn’t soften it with promises neither of us could guarantee. Adrian would enter sooner or later, and the Crown would keep reaching for her. We would face both and leave together.
Bryony put her palm against my chest. “Neither of us decides alone when it’s time to sacrifice ourselves.”
I covered her hand. “Then we keep interfering with each other’s terrible plans.”
“For a very long time,” she said.
A crack split the air beyond the bedroom.
The wall shook hard enough to rattle the bed frame. Dust fell over the headboard, and every ward under my skin flared at once.
Lenora shouted from the throne room.
The barrier shattered while Bryony was still in my arms.