And I’m not silent.
I cry out softly with each crest, each pulse of heat. His desire feeds mine. Mine feeds his. We spiral together, an echo chamber of hunger and tethered need.
I feel his release flare—hot, wild, unguarded—and the moment it sears down the tether, it slams into me. My climax hits jagged, violent, like glass shattering under a hammer.
Pleasure rips me apart in waves. Shuddering, keening waves that leave me breathless and limp, my body twitching against damp sheets and firelit shadows. The choker hums low and cruel, as if it’s feeding too, stealing even in my release.
It isn’t long before his voice returns—soft now, almost scolding.
“You could’ve warned me.”
“I did,” I whisper aloud, barely able to move.
“Next time, you wait.”
“I couldn’t.”
A beat of silence.
“Was it enough?”
I close my eyes. Shake my head against the pillow.
“No.”
Another pause. Longer. Heavy. Then his voice returns—resolute, but frayed.
“I’ll work on our bond. Find a way to strengthen it. Feed you better. But not now.”
And then—Nothing. The thread dims. The warmth fades. The bond goes quiet.
I’m left alone again, breathing hard in a room that smells like sweat and burnt magic. The fire crackles in the corner. The sheets cling to my skin. And the ache?
Still there. Still gnawing.
Because no matter how many times I claw across the tether and take, it only reminds me what I don’t have.
Them. Touch. Love.
I curl into myself, wrapping the blanket around trembling limbs, and whisper into the quiet:
“Thank you.”
But the silence doesn’t answer.
SIXTY-SIX
The doors groan open like a mouth forced to part.
The throne room yawns before us—carved from the bones of fallen gods. No one speaks of them, but you can feel their grief in the marrow of the walls. You can hear it, if you stand too long in silence: a low, endless keening.
The obsidian floor cracks beneath our boots, veins of molten gold pulsing underfoot—ancient blood magic still alive, still restless.
And the heat—gods, the heat. It isn’t air. It’s breath. A living thing wrapping around us, thick with sulfur, threaded with the taste of iron. Magic hums beneath the stone like a heart buried deep inside the ribs of the fortress. Every step echoes like a memory of who I used to be.
I haven’t been here in centuries. Not since I spat blood on the steps and walked away. Not since I stopped calling him Father.
The Crown Below is a monument to ego—black spires, crimson veils, and walls engraved with the names of angels who fell screaming. Their agony is a hymn to him.
