Chapter 20
891 Words
Kaelen
The first time she touched him like this, he’d tried to stay still.
Tried to pretend he wasn’t trembling under her fingers, that her mouth on his skin wasn’t enough to make the blood roar in his ears. That the taste of her name on his tongue didn’t ruin him with every syllable.
Now, he didn’t bother pretending.
Eria’s hands slid up his thighs with the kind of confidence that came from knowing a body well. From healing it. From claiming it. Her lips brushed his lower belly, the place just above where his hunger ached, and he let out a sound that might’ve once been a prayer.
“Lie back,” she whispered.
He obeyed again.
His spine hit the mattress, and she rose above him like something holy, moonlight slanting in across her skin. The linen she’d worn earlier had left soft red indentations along her ribs—he wanted to press kisses into each one. Her hair spilled like ink across her shoulders, and her eyes…
Mercy, her eyes.
“You’re looking at me like I’m the miracle,” he said, voice rough.
“You are,” she replied, crawling up to straddle his hips. “But you’re mine, too.”
She kissed him like she wanted to be inside his chest. Like she could climb into his ribs and make a home between each heartbeat. Her fingers danced over the gold sigils along his throat, brushing them as if checking for heat.
They flared. Not with battle-lust—but with want. Need. The sigils responded to her voice now. Her breath. Her yes.
And when she rocked her hips forward, bare against him, teasing without taking—Kaelen lost the last of his silence.
“Eria,” he groaned, hips lifting instinctively. “Don’t—”
“Shhh.” Her mouth brushed his jaw. “I told you. I’m going to touch every part of you.”
She took him in her hand—slow, reverent. Like she was reacquainting herself with a sacred relic. He nearly came undone in her palm.
And when she finally slid down onto him—inch by devastating inch—he had to grab the edge of the bed just to keep from losing control.
“F-f**k,” he hissed.
“No,” she murmured against his ear. “Not f**k. This is ours.”
She set the rhythm—rolling her hips like tide against shore, slow and devastating. She didn’t chase climax. She chased connection—letting him feel her everywhere, around him, over him, inside him.
Kaelen reached up, cupped her face, and kissed her like he meant to never breathe again. One hand fisted in her hair. The other gripped her hip, anchoring them both.
His control was fraying. She knew it.
And she loved him through it.
Eria
She felt it the moment he stopped thinking.
The moment his breath hitched and his hips rose to meet hers with a raw, needy snap. He whispered her name like it was the only spell he remembered—like it was the word that held the war-god together.
She bent over him, pressing kisses to his neck, his jaw, the base of his throat. “Let go.”
He shook his head, eyes wide, almost wild. “If I do—”
“I’ll hold you through it.”
And gods help her, he did.
Kaelen surged up, flipped them in one smooth motion, and buried himself to the hilt with a broken moan. His mouth was at her throat, then her breast, then lower—hands gripping her thighs like they were the only thing keeping him sane.
He didn’t just thrust—he worshipped. Moved like he wanted to pour himself into her soul. Like every snap of his hips was a vow: I choose you. I need you. I am yours.
Eria clawed at his back, legs locked around his waist, the pleasure building into something unbearable.
“Kaelen—”
“Say it,” he begged, voice ragged. “Say you’re mine.”
“I’m yours,” she breathed, tears stinging. “I’ve always been.”
The knot snapped.
Her climax hit like a holy wave—her whole body arching, mouth open in a cry that was part release, part prayer. And when Kaelen followed—groaning against her neck, body trembling with the force of it—she held him as he came apart.
He didn’t hide his shudder. Or the way his hands shook. Or the soft, barely-there “thank you” against her skin.
Later
They lay tangled in the sheets, limbs intertwined, breath slowly returning to human cadence. His hand rested between her shoulder blades; her fingers traced lazy circles across his chest.
“You weren’t gentle,” she whispered.
“I tried,” he said, voice hoarse.
“You didn’t need to.” A pause. “I needed you like that.”
His eyes opened. Glowed faintly in the dark.
“I thought I’d break you.”
“You broke something,” she murmured. “But it wasn’t me.”
Kaelen curled around her then, arms locked tight, forehead pressed to hers.
And in the stillness between one breath and the next, Eria realized:
The Tempering wasn’t just coming.
It had already begun.
- Writer
