Page 122 of Zenith Court

The household quarters ran along the water-side wall. By the time I came down, the commons was dark behind its barred door. Hale and Kieran spoke quietly on the other side of the wall; Delphine’s footsteps had already stopped. I sat on the cot with the day’s clothes and cuffs still on. I tried to begin the drill I used to quiet my mind before sleep, but I could still hear my father’s voice. The bands had warmed against my skin hours ago, and I had stopped noticing their weight.

Astra entered with a step I would have known through a wall and lowered the latch behind her. She waited in the dark, then said, “You’re still wearing him.”

“I never found a moment to take the cuffs off.”

“I know.” She crossed the room and stopped between my knees. “I want the cuffs to stay on tonight.”

I waited.

“Keep his posture and his voice until I tell you to let them go. But everything under my hands is yours. Not his.” She rested two fingers against the right band. “If that feels wrong at any point, we stop and take them off. Do you want this?”

“Six words or fewer, under his rules?”

“Spend them.”

“Leave them on. Take the rest.”

“Good.” She undressed us quickly, leaving our clothes on the stool. “Hands flat on your knees. Stay quiet.” Then she stood between my knees and used the instructor’s voice from our barn drills.

“Name.”

“Ashford.”

She hooked her fingers beneath the right band and lifted my hand between her thighs. “Function.”

“Heir.” She was already wet against my fingers. I found her clit with two fingers and kept my touch steady. “Corrected.”

“Term of service.” Her breath had shortened, but her voice had not.

“Fourteen years.” I slid two fingers inside her and let the heel of my hand press where she moved against it. I kept my answers level while her breathing changed. She had taken the control he taught me and given it a use he would have hated.

“Whose household trained you?” The required answer was a house, never a person. Her hips had taken over the rhythm.

“Ashford’s.” She came with one hand gripping my shoulder, her body tightening around my fingers. I kept the pressure steady until the last contraction passed. When she caught her breath, she laughed once, low.

“Correct answer.”

She put one knee on either side of me, settled onto my lap, and guided my cock into her. She lowered herself slowly until she had taken all of me. Neither of us moved for one long breath.

She lifted my wrists to her waist and covered the bands with her palms. Her hands rested above the metal and my pulse beat beneath it. The cuffs grew warmer between us.

“Now hold him,” she said, and began to move.

She kept the pace slow. I set my chin, lowered my shoulders, and held my breathing to parade measure. She watched the composure while she rode me. “There’s the Conclave face,” she said. “The whole floor believed it. I can feel your heartbeat through the cuffs.” Her thumbs rested on the hasps. Whenever my breathing broke, she slowed until I recovered, then moved again.

She pressed her mouth to mine. “Now let him go. I want to feel it.”

My next breath broke. I gripped her waist beneath her hands and drove up into the rhythm she had set. She came with me, her body clenching around me as she said my name against my ear. Her palms stayed over the bands.

“Good,” she said. With the cuffs still fastened, the word struck differently. It belonged to her, and it was meant for me. The sound I made had no words in it.

“Finish,” she said. “Like this.”

I came inside her with my voice past saving. She held me through it, her palms still covering the cuffs.

Sound returned slowly: water beneath the wall, a warden passing the barred commons door, Kieran laughing once before Hale quieted him. Astra stayed on my lap until our breathing settled, then drew us down onto the narrow cot with her back against my chest and my wrists held against her ribs. Cold marble and burnt sugar lingered on her skin beneath the Court’s gray soap. She made no move toward the basin.

When her breathing slowed, she sat up and found my wrists in the dark. I loosened the left hasp. She moved my hand away from the right. “Let me.” She opened it, stacked both cuffs on the stone beside the cot, and lay down again.