Page 135 of Fate of the Sun King

Slowly, he lowers me, positioning himself at my entrance. My eyes flutter at the sensation of the wide head pressing into me. We both watch where he enters as I slide down inch by inch, moaning at how he fills me up, touching every nerve in the most exquisite way.

“That’s my girl,” he growls. “You take my cock so fucking good.”

Once he’s fully seated, he pauses as we both catch our breath, my chest tight from every emotion crowding in the back of my throat.

“Nadir,” I gasp as he pulls out and then slides back in with agonizing slowness. I’d expected him to take me fast and hard right now, but this is exactly what I need. After everything that’s happened in the past week, I need a moment to hide here under this waterfall, clinging to the person I fought against but who has somehow become the softest spot for me to fall.

I will always have my brother and sister, who will always mean everything to me, but how I feel about Nadir feels divine. If Zerra does indeed hold dominion over the fate of mated pairings, then this does feel like something ordained. I was wrong when I told Rhiannon the mate bond didn’t feel like much of a choice.

This feels like a choice I’ve made. That no matter what happens between now and forever, this was inevitable. Like morning sunlight spilling through a window. Like the tide giving way to the ocean’s pull. Like blood beading on a fingertip at the prick of a thorn.

He is my choice. And he would have been my choice over and over until the end of the world.

“Lor,” he says, his voice thick with ragged breath as he pulls out again and slides back in. With one hand protecting my back, he uses the other to gently touch my clit as he churns his hips, slowly fucking me long and deep.

My legs tremble, and my fingers ache from gripping the stone above my head as he spears into me like I’m an angel served up as an offering. A moment later, he braces his hands on my hips and then thrusts into me hard, being careful not to let my back collide with the wall.

“More,” I gasp as he does it again, and my head tips back. “Harder.”

And then he snaps. We become a blur of motion as he pumps his hips, thrusting into me with force. With one hand braced on the wall behind us, and the other pressed to the small of my back, he pounds into me as he peppers open-mouthed kisses down my throat and my shoulder.

Our moans fill the space, backdropped by the rushing of the waterfall. Our magic surfaces, spinning around us, filling the cavern with Nadir’s light and the pale, inconstant flickers of my lightning. I feel them twist, melding together, finally allowed to play.

Here we are free. Here no one can see or hear us. Here I can forget for a moment about everything that’s working against us and everything we’re trying to accomplish.

I hold so many warring pieces of my soul and my heart cupped in my hands. There are so many paths for us to travel. Threads splitting apart to form a future that’s yet to clarify into something I recognize. I just know that Nadir is a part of it.

We have only one goal now, and I don’t know how close it will take me to the object of my desires. The reclamation of my home and revenge on the Aurora King. Because no matter what happens. No matter how broken I am. No matter how hard I fail, Rion is still the focus of every bloody fantasy I conjured every night I lived in Nostraza.

For what he did to my parents. To my siblings. For what he’s done to Nadir—and I get the sense I’ve only just scratched at the surface of the torment the king has inflicted on his only son.

As Nadir continues his deep thrusts, he captures my mouth with his. We kiss like these are our last moments and every time, every single time he does this, it feels like I’m falling all over again.

I feel his cock twitch as it thickens, and then he comes with a shuddering groan that ricochets over his entire body.

He continues pumping in and out of me, slowing down before one of his hands finds my clit. He circles it with a rough finger, and then I blow apart, too, my back arching into him, my hands gripping the stone as I cry out. My legs clamp around him as my orgasm rolls in heavy waves, filtering through my fingers and toes until it feels like I’ve been wrung out and turned upside down.

When I finally stop shuddering, he gathers me into his arms. I loop mine around his neck as he leans me against the wall, and we just stand there, feeling the spray of the water and the cool air that coasts over our fevered skin, holding each other. Silently promising one another that in the layers of uncertain darkness, we are each other’s light.

CHAPTER FORTY-ONE

GABRIEL

SOMEWHERE IN APHELION

“That was a really fucking stupid thing to do,” I say to Erevan before I groan, my head dropping back on the settee where I’m currently being serviced by a blonde with the most perfect tits I’ve ever seen. She’s sucking on me like I’m a fucking lollipop, offering the only form of stress relief that seems to make any difference lately.

Erevan sits a few feet down from me, a dark-haired beauty kneeling between his legs, supplying him with similar entertainment. As Atlas and Tyr’s cousin, Erevan has known me almost as long as they have. We all grew up together as boys, finding ourselves in the sort of trouble typical of royal children without much parental oversight. Of course, I wasn’t an heir or part of their family, but my proximity to the princes offered me certain advantages.

As we grew older, our paths diverged. Tyr was training to be a king, with Atlas as his possible second. I was destined for the warder corps, and Erevan was sent to study in Alluvion to learn history and politics with the hopes of leading Aphelion’s council someday. I think his mother hoped he’d find some nice young woman to bond with, but something happened during his time on the western coast. He dropped out of school and returned to Aphelion, where he renounced any claim he had to the royal line and moved to The Umbra. We lost touch for many years, until he resurfaced with a list of demands on behalf of the low fae.

By then, Atlas was king, and he dismissed Erevan with cold words, declaring that if Erevan ever darkened his door with requests of a similar nature again, he’d see to it that he was tossed out of Aphelion, but not before suffering for his insubordination first.

But Erevan wasn’t to be deterred. Instead, he returned to The Umbra, where he began to rally support amongst the low fae. At first, he was met with resistance—the low fae had been cowed thoroughly into submission and were reluctant to fight back, afraid of what further punishments Atlas might force upon them.

But Erevan has a way of making people believe in him, and not in the same duplicitous way as Atlas. Even as kids, we all felt the pull to be around him. There was something that made you want to earn his pride, but he never abused that power. Anything he desired was a path he truly thought would be in your best interest. I believe that if the Mirror hadn’t chosen Tyr when Kyros descended, Erevan would have made the best choice of king for Aphelion. I’ve wondered countless times if Erevan would have fallen for Atlas’s tricks and if we’d all be stranded in the positions we are now.

“We needed to send a message,” Erevan says, picking up on my earlier admonishment about blowing up the Twelfth District days earlier. Hundreds died in the blast, which destroyed a chunk of the city. I’ve had guards working around the clock, patrolling the border of The Umbra, worried the city will devolve into a full-out war. With the extra visitors here for the bonding, our forces are stretched as thin as paper and rips are forming everywhere. “Atlas can’t keep ignoring us.”