“Wish I was out to watch the show,” I breathe.
He lowers his head, and my breath catches, my entire body tensing in anticipation. The scent of him fills my senses. His lips brush against mine, a feather-light touch that sends a tremor through my entire body. It’s a question, not a demand, and the choice is terrifyingly mine.
“Do you?” he asks.
My traitorous hands lift, my fingers sinking into the thick silk of his hair. I pull him down, my answer a silent flicker of surrender to the current that’s been attempting to drag me under for… too long now.
The kiss is nothing like the one at the altar. It’s not a performance for the masses, but a raw collision. Dayn’s spell ignitesbetween us, a supernova of heat and shadow. My mind goes white with the force of it. His fire pours into me, and my darkness rushes to meet it, a perfect, terrible symbiosis. I realize it’s not desire the spell creates. It’s a magnifying glass, taking any spark that already existed between us and focusing it into an inferno.
Outside, the sky explodes. Golden comets and shimmering novas of light burst in a chaotic, beautiful symphony. The runes on the wall are a blazing star, so bright I can see them through my closed eyelids.
“I think we’re done,” I gasp.
His mouth devours mine, his tongue tracing my lips, seeking entrance. I grant it without a thought, my own tongue meeting his in a frantic duel. A groan escapes him as I bite his lip, a low, guttural sound that I feel in the pit of my stomach. The craving for his blood, for his essence, surges through me with a violence that steals my breath. My teeth ache in my gums.
His hands are everywhere now, tracing paths of fire down my sides, over my ribs, his thumbs brushing the underside of my breasts through the lace. I arch into him, a desperate, needy sound tearing from my throat. This is the overwhelming part. The magic isn’t just a light show; it’s a feedback loop. The more we touch, the more we want, and the more we want, the brighter the magic burns.
He breaks the kiss, his forehead resting against mine. We’re both panting, our chests rising and falling in unison. His golden eyes are wide, pupils blown, raw hunger warring with a flicker of something that looks like fear.
“Esme,” he breathes, my name a prayer and a curse.
The runes pulse, demanding completion. A final, blinding flare of light. He seems to understand what’s needed. His hand slides from my ribs down to the waistband of my lingerie, his fingers slipping beneath the lace. The heat of his skin against the bare curve of my hip is a shock to my system. He’s treacherously close to the lowest, most vulnerable part of me. His fingers pause, but the world detonates.
A wave of pure energy washes over us, so powerful it feels like my soul is being ripped from my body. Outside, a final, magnificentsunburst of gold and black light illuminates the entire cavern city, a silent testament to our union.
And then, just as suddenly as it began, it’s over.
The light from the runes fades. The sky outside goes dark. The thrumming in my bones subsides, leaving behind a humming silence and the sound of our ragged breaths.
Dayn pulls his hand back as if he’s been burned. He rolls off me, putting a careful foot of distance between us on the massive bed. He sits up, his back to me, running a hand through his sweat-damp hair.
The cool air hits my skin, and I shiver, suddenly aware of how exposed I am. I pull a silk sheet up to my chin, the reality of the situation crashing down. The spell is done. The kingdom is satisfied. And I am lying half-naked in a bed with my sworn enemy, my husband, every nerve ending in my body screaming for more.
“Well,” I finally manage, my voice hoarse. “That was… symbolic.”
He doesn’t turn. “The promise has been fulfilled. We won’t be disturbed.”
The silence that follows is heavier than any stone in this mountain. The charade is over. The magic is gone. And all that’s left is us, and the terrifying, undeniable truth of what just happened between us.
21
ESME
Without a word, Dayn pulls on his shirt, the fabric doing little to hide the powerful lines of his back, and rolls over to one side of the vast bed, facing away from me. I lie still on my side, my body humming with a residual energy that feels both foreign and deeply familiar. The silence in the room is like a living thing, thick with the echoes of what we just did—what the magic made us do. Or what it revealed. I’m not sure which is worse.
The door rattles with a sharp knock, and a guard's voice filters through: “Celebratory feast from the royal kitchen, my lord and lady.” Neither of us invite him in. The platters remain unclaimed in the hallway, the guard's footsteps eventually fading into silence.
I listen to the rhythm of Dayn’s breathing, the way each inhale seems to drag against the silent space. I lie on my back, staring at the carved stone ceiling, counting his breaths and mine, their patterns never quite synchronizing. He doesn’t move. I don’t move. Hushed fireworks echo their last booms through the distant windows, each muffled burst a reminder of the role I’ve just played, and the audience that watched and believed.
His scent—clean sweat, ozone, something draconic and utterly unfamiliar—hangs in the air, seeping into my lungs until I halfexpect to cough smoke. My own dark magic coils inward, trying in vain to recede from the charged imprint of his touch. I flex my hands on the sheets, needing the grounding, but every movement makes the silk whisper and reminds me of the heat still smoldering beneath my skin.
I close my eyes, willing myself toward sleep, but my mind replays the ritual in crystalline fragments: the press of his body, the arch of his neck when I bit his lip, the way his eyes flashed gold and black when the spell peaked. It was supposed to be transactional, a piece of theater for the masses. But the afterimage refuses to fade, and I’m… left wondering what was real and what was not.
He doesn’t speak. The silence stretches and twists, pulling taut around my ribs. The gold ring on my finger feels like it’s slowly tightening, a tourniquet binding me to this moment, to this man I barely understand and can’t seem to ignore. I wonder if he’s thinking the same thing—about the magic, about the performance, about the fact that for a few brief, blinding seconds, it didn’t feel like a performance at all.
I wait for his breathing to slow, for his body to release the tension coiled in every muscle. I wait for a sign that he’s asleep, or at least detached enough that I can claim a piece of the night for myself.
After what feels like forever, his chest finally rises and falls in that slow, predictable pattern of someone who's at least pretending to sleep. Good enough. I slide from the bed with assassin-quiet precision and snag a silk robe from a chair that probably costs more than my entire wardrobe back home. The fabric whispers against my skin as I move toward the door.
