Claimed By Silver

Chapter Twelve: Teach Me

Freya’s POV

The two weeks feel shorter every day, a countdown I can't stop hearing even in the quiet moments, and something about that urgency has stripped away a layer of hesitation I didn't realize I was still holding onto.

Sterling comes tonight the way he always does now, through the window like it's simply the door we've agreed to use, and I'm standing in the middle of my living room before he's even fully inside, heart going hard enough that I can feel it in my throat.

"I want to try," I say, before he can say anything else, before I can talk myself out of it the way I've talked myself out of it every night since the kiss that ended too soon. "Not because of the Council. Not because of some deadline. Because I've spent two weeks wanting this and I'm done pretending I don't."

He goes very still, the way he does when he's holding something back by force. "Freya—"

"I know the risk. You've explained it to me a dozen times. I'm not asking you to mark me tonight. I'm asking you not to stop this time." My hands are shaking slightly as I reach for the hem of my shirt, and I make myself keep going anyway, because stopping now feels like the greater mistake. "I want to know what this is. All of it. Not just the parts you've decided are safe enough to give me."

I pull the shirt over my head, and his silver eyes go dark and fixed, tracking over me with an intensity that should frighten me and doesn't. I finish undressing slowly, deliberately, watching the war happening behind his controlled expression, watching him lose ground to something he's been fighting since the day the bond found him.

He crosses the room to stand in front of me, close enough that I can feel the heat coming off him, and his hands come up to frame my face with a gentleness that doesn't match anything else about him.

"You're sure," he says, not quite a question, giving me one more chance to change my mind.

"I'm sure." Then, quieter, some of my nerve finally cracking around the edges of what I actually need to tell him. "I need you to know something first. I've never — I haven't done this before. Any of it. I don't know what I'm doing."

Something shifts in his face, surprise giving way to a tenderness I haven't seen from him until now, careful and almost reverent. "Then let me teach you."

He kisses me slow this time, nothing like the desperate hunger of the first one, taking his time in a way that makes my whole body ache with anticipation instead of urgency. His hands map over me carefully, patient, learning the shape of me like he intends to remember every inch of it, and when he finally lays me back against the sheets, his mouth follows the same unhurried path his hands just took, murmuring against my skin that he's got me, that he'll go slow, that all I have to do is tell him if anything feels wrong.

"I'm going to touch you first," he says, voice rough and low against my ear. "Let your body get used to mine before we go any further. Can you do that for me?"

I nod, unable to trust my voice, and his hand moves lower, patient and unhurried, finding out exactly what makes my breath catch and my hips rise to meet him, his touch lingers at the base of my thigh as his lips trace the edges of my skin.

Kissing the inside of my thigh tenderly as he moves towards my core, I feel the wetness spill from inside me as his finger circles my swollen bud. I let out a quiet moan, the involuntary sound that I have never heard leave my lips before. His arm moves up my stomach, stopping at my breast where, kneading it as he moves his kisses to my now wet entrance as he laps at my juices. A deep growl leaves his chest at the taste of me, “Arch you’re back for me baby,” he says finally and I do as I am told.

He slides a finger in causing me to freeze at the sudden intrusion; I fist his hair as he moves his finger, sliding it in and out of my wet folds. Heat rising in my core as he adds another finger into my folds, pausing for me to get used to the feeling of me stretching around them. His hand moves from my breast, sliding down my side with careful attention. His gaze lifts to me as I moan out from the pleasure, “That’s it, call my name baby. Tell me what you need.” He says.

As his fingers work their magic, the world outside fades away, leaving only the two of us suspended in this moment. Each thrust is an exploration, a conversation without words, where my body responds to his guidance. The warmth of his breath against my skin sends shivers down my spine, igniting a fire deep within me.

I arch my back as he commands, a rush of pleasure coursing through me as the sensations build. "Sterling," I breathe, the name escaping my lips like a prayer. The sound of it seems to fuel him, his eyes darkening with an intensity that makes my heart race.

“Good girl,” he murmurs, a low growl that vibrates against my sensitive skin. The way he watches me, like I’m the only thing that matters in this universe, heightens every inch of my awareness. “Tell me how it feels.”

“It feels… so good,” I whisper, my voice trembling with both excitement and the overwhelming pleasure washing over me. His fingers curl deeper, hitting spots I didn’t know existed, and I gasp, my body instinctively responding to his every movement.

He leans down, his mouth finding my breast again, teasing and coaxing as he continues to work his fingers in and out, stretching me just right. I feel so exposed, yet there’s a safety in his presence, in the way he takes his time, ensuring I’m with him every step of the way.

“More,” I find myself pleading, the word slipping out before I can rein it in. I’m not just asking for more of his touch; I’m asking for more of him—more of this connection that feels both electrifying and grounding.

His gaze meets mine, filled with warmth and a hint of mischief. “You’re going to have to show me just how much you want it.”

With that, he withdraws his fingers, and I whimper at the sudden emptiness. “No, please,” I beg, my body arching toward him instinctively, craving the contact.

“Patience, Freya,” he replies, his voice smooth yet commanding. “You’ve got to earn it.”

He kisses his way down my body again, his mouth trailing lower until he’s between my thighs once more. The anticipation is exquisite, making my heart pound louder as I watch him. I can feel the heat radiating from him, a magnetic pull I can’t resist.

When he finally dives in, his tongue flicks against me, and I gasp, my fingers tangling in his hair, urging him closer. The sensation is overwhelming, a wave of pleasure crashing over me as he devours me, each stroke of his tongue sending me higher.

“Just like that,” I moan, my hips rising to meet him, and he responds with a growl that vibrates through me, igniting a new kind of fire deep within. I can feel the tension building, a tight coil ready to snap, and I lose myself in the rhythm of his mouth.

“Sterling, I’m—”

“Let go for me, baby,” he murmurs against me, the sound of his voice sending me spiralling. His fingers return, deftly working me as his mouth continues to work its magic, and I shatter, pleasure exploding through me in a breath-taking rush.

I cry out his name, the sound echoing in the room as waves of bliss wash over me, leaving me breathless and wanting more.

As I come down from the high, he crawls up beside me, his silver eyes sparkling with something akin to triumph. “Told you I’d teach you,” he whispers, brushing a strand of hair from my face, his touch tender and grounding.

“More than just that,” I reply, feeling a rush of warmth at the connection we’ve forged. I take a deep breath, still riding the aftershocks of pleasure, my heart racing as I realize this is only the beginning.

I lie there afterward with my head against his chest, listening to his heartbeat gradually slow beneath my ear, feeling more thoroughly undone than I've ever felt in my life. His fingers trace lazy, absent patterns along my spine, like he can't quite make himself stop touching me now that he's finally allowed to.

"Are you all right?" he asks, and there's something almost fragile threaded through the question, a vulnerability I've never heard from him before, not even the night he confessed to loving me.

"I'm more than all right." I tilt my head to look up at him, and the expression on his face nearly undoes me all over again — something unguarded, something that looks almost like disbelief at his own good fortune, like a man still waiting to be told this was a mistake. "Was that what it's always like? For you?"

"No." He says it simply, honestly, brushing a strand of hair back from my face with a tenderness that doesn't match anything I originally thought this man was capable of. "That was nothing like anything that's ever happened to me before tonight."

I settle back against him, feeling something settle in my own chest too — not certainty, not yet, not with the Council's countdown still ticking somewhere above us, but something quieter and steadier than fear. Something that feels, for the first time since this all began, less like being claimed and more like choosing.

We lie there for a long while without talking, and I find I don't mind the silence at all. It's a different kind of quiet than the ones I'm used to — not the careful, guarded silence I've kept for six years, but something looser, something that doesn't require me to be watching the door.

"Can I ask you something?" I say eventually, tracing a finger along his forearm, following the lines of muscle there like I'm trying to memorize the map of him.

"Anything."

"Does it feel different? The bond, I mean. Now that we've—" I don't quite know how to finish the sentence, so I let it trail off, trusting him to understand what I mean.

He's quiet for a moment, considering the question with the same seriousness he gives everything. "Yes. Not in a way I can explain cleanly. It's quieter, somehow. Less like an ache and more like something settling into place. I don't know if that's the bond itself responding, or just what it feels like to finally stop starving." His hand stills against my back. "I want to be honest with you about something, though, since I promised myself I wouldn't keep things from you anymore."

Something in his tone makes me go still. "Okay."

"What we did tonight — it wasn't the mark. It doesn't carry the same risk the bite would. But it's not nothing, either. The bond feeds on intimacy of any kind, physical or otherwise. Tonight will have changed things between us, in small ways, the same way the weeks of talking and trusting each other already have. I don't know exactly what that means yet. I only know I don't regret it, and I needed you to know that going in wasn't without any consequence at all, even if it wasn't the dangerous one."

I turn that over for a moment, watching the ceiling, feeling the quiet hum of something in my own chest that might be the bond he's describing or might just be the ordinary, dizzying aftermath of what happened tonight. "Does that scare you? That it's changing things."

"No." He says it without hesitation, turning his head to look down at me properly. "Very little about this scares me anymore, Freya. Not after everything we've already survived to get here. I'm more afraid of the Council, if I'm honest, than I am of anything that happens between the two of us in a bed."

The mention of the Council pulls some of the warmth back out of the room, reality creeping back in at the edges the way it always eventually does. I press closer against him instead of letting it settle too heavily.

"Don't," I say quietly. "Not tonight. Just — let me have this first, before we have to think about that again."

"Of course." His arm tightens around me, solid and certain. "Tonight is yours. Whatever comes after can wait until morning."

I must have fallen asleep at some point, because the next thing I'm aware of is early light coming through the curtains and the unfamiliar, wonderful weight of him still beside me, silver eyes open and watching me with an intensity that should feel invasive and instead feels like the safest thing I've experienced in six years.

"You stayed," I say, voice still thick with sleep.

"You didn't tell me to leave." Something almost like humour moves across his face. "I've spent six years following rules I set for myself specifically to protect you from this. Waking up beside you wasn't one I was in a hurry to reinstate."

I smile despite myself, stretching against the sheets, feeling pleasantly sore in ways I've never experienced before, evidence of a night I don't think I'll ever be able to file away as ordinary. He watches the movement with open appreciation, none of his usual careful restraint visible in his expression this early in the morning, before the day has had a chance to remind either of us what's still waiting.

"I should get up," I say, not moving at all. "I have the gallery."

"You have twenty minutes before you actually need to worry about that." He pulls me closer instead, tucking me against his chest like the outside world can simply wait its turn. "Stay for twenty minutes."

I stay. I let myself have this — the quiet, the warmth, the novelty of waking up beside someone instead of alone, something I stopped letting myself hope for somewhere around year three of understanding what I apparently was to every man who tried to love me. It doesn't feel like a curse this morning. For the length of these twenty minutes, at least, it feels like something closer to a beginning.

"Sterling."

"Mm."

"Last night. It didn't feel like something being done to me." I say it carefully, working through the thought as it forms, wanting to get it right. "It felt like something I chose. I don't know if you understand how important that distinction is, after everything."

He goes quiet, and when he finally speaks, his voice has lost some of its usual composure. "I understand it better than you probably think. I've spent six years making choices about your life without your input — the watching, the killing, the mark I put in your skin with a blade instead of asking what you wanted at all. Last night was the first time since this began that you got to choose something about your own life without me deciding it for you first." His hand finds mine, threading their fingers together with a care I don't think he's shown anyone in a very long time. "I'd like there to be a great deal more of that, going forward. If the Council allows either of us a going-forward at all."

The mention of the Council sits heavy between us again, the countdown reasserting itself now that morning has properly arrived, but I find I don't want to run from it the way I did last night. Some of my fear has quietly reshaped itself overnight into something closer to resolve.

"Then we fight for it," I say. "Whatever it takes. I'm not interested in a version of this that only exists because I never got the chance to choose it in the first place."

Something in his expression shifts — pride, maybe, or something adjacent to it, harder to name. "No," he agrees. "Neither am I."

I go to work that morning feeling like a different version of myself is walking around in my body, lighter in ways I don't entirely trust yet, waiting for the other shoe to drop the way it always eventually has in my life. It doesn't drop, not today. I hang paintings, answer emails, laugh at something Deja says at the coffee shop during my afternoon shift, and none of it collapses under me the way six years of instinct tells me it should.

Naomi catches the change again, of course, over drinks that evening.

"Okay, something happened," she says, setting her glass down with the authority of someone who's finished waiting patiently. "You're glowing, Freya. I don't know what that means exactly, but I know it when I see it."

"Maybe I just had a good day."

"Maybe you had a very good night." She grins, delighted, clearly reading exactly what she's supposed to read into my expression. "I'm not going to push. But I'm happy for you. Whatever this is, whoever he is — you deserve to have something good happen to you for once."

I think about the Council, about the two weeks ticking down toward a hearing that could decide whether I get to keep any of this at all, and let myself smile at her anyway, holding onto the good instead of borrowing trouble from what's still ahead.

"Thank you," I say, and mean it more than she probably realizes. "I think I finally do."

That night, when Sterling comes through the window the way he always does now, I don't wait for him to ask how I'm feeling. I just cross the room and kiss him first, choosing it plainly, deliberately, the way I intend to keep choosing every part of this from now on, for however long we manage to keep it.