“Come,” I said softly. “It’s late. You’ll want to be rested for the dawn.”
The lamps were low when we returned.
Outside, the palace had begun to still. The corridors quieted, the winds hushed. In our rooms, only thesoft crackle of flame in the bronze sconces lit the dusk-dimmed walls, warm and gold.
Callis undressed slowly tonight, his eyes on me the entire time.
No teasing. No shy glances. Just quiet knowing.
I stepped forward and undid the clasp of his belt, let the soft fabric fall. I kissed his shoulder, then the side of his neck, and he leaned into it—not urgently, but with the weight of days. With trust. With want.
We made love as if we had done it a thousand times—just slow, steady movements, like prayer.
I guided him onto his back, kissed the length of his throat, and watched his lashes flutter as he opened to me without hesitation. My hands mapped the terrain of his body—over the hollow of his hips, the smooth rise of his thigh, the soft curl of hair below his navel. Every place I touched, he warmed.
When I slid inside him, his legs wrapped around my waist like instinct, like need. He gasped, hands flying to my shoulders, then held me there as our foreheads pressed together.
I rocked into him slowly, deliberately, each thrust a quiet declaration. He met me in kind, his body eager, pliant, desperate to hold all of me. I kissed him deeply, hands in his hair, holding him as close as the bond would allow. The sounds he made were soft—breathless moans, sighs of pleasure that seemed to come from someplace holy. He arched into me and sighed my name, not as a question or plea, but as something certain.
His fingers dragged down my spine as I movedharder, deeper. He clung to me as the tension built, his mouth parting around broken words, his thighs trembling around my hips.
I cradled his face when he came apart—his body shuddering under mine, his release painting his chest in hot, white streaks. I kissed the corner of his open mouth, still moving until he pulled me with him into the same, staggering crest.
Held him through it, murmuring into his skin, letting him take me with him.
Letting the bond take us both.
And afterward, I didn’t let him go.
We stayed pressed together, skin damp with heat, the scent of sweat and salt and incense still faint in the air. His head rested against my chest, his fingers moving absently over my ribs as if trying to memorize me through touch alone.
The bond pulsed low and steady, like waves against the inside of my ribs. I could almost hear it.
I could almost believe it would stay.
My hand slid down and found his.
“You’re the only bright thing that’s ever happened to me,” I whispered.
He blinked up at me, brows lifting with a startled softness. “You’ve lived a life of abundance,” he said, quietly. “Look around you.”
His fingers gestured to the silk-draped walls, the carved canopy bed, the moonlight kissing the terrace garden through parted curtains.
“This palace,” he murmured, “these books, your place in the Order—how can you say that?”
I looked at him.
Really looked.
He didn’t say it out of cruelty. He said it because he believed it. Because to him, abundance was beauty. Was ease. Was luxury and light.
But I had walked through these halls for years, untouched by any of it.
“None of it ever touched me,” I said. “Not the way you have.”
He went quiet.
Then he curled in a little closer, resting his head over my heart, as if listening to the bond where it pulsed beneath my skin.
