1. aiden

Kiera’s face glowed in the dim light—a beacon I could never resist.

“You didn’t need to follow me, Aiden. I would’ve come back for you,” she said.

I moved closer to her, taking in her furrowed brow and tense shoulders. “I wanted to make sure you were all right.”

She turned away, as if to hide what I already knew. Our escape tonight had rattled her. It had rattled me as well, but I’d become well-practiced in cutting away a loss before it dragged me down.

Yet Kiera had bent under Helene and Isabel’s grief as if it were her own.

“I’ve never been in the woods before.” She waved her arm to encompass the gnarled trees of The Hollow. Their branches creaked as they swayed in a gentle breeze. Crickets sang from the shadows. “I can see why you and Maz love it so much.”

I smiled. “The forests of Twaryn and Dagriel are different than here. But it does always feel a bit like coming home.”

I’d always felt comfortable amid the trees. I felt like I could truly breathe in the cool night air—free of the dust and smell of thousands of people in the city. It was one of the reasons I knew I would be a terrible king. I’d never be at home sitting on a cold marble throne all day, my neck aching from bearing a heavy crown.

I shifted the pack that I’d slung over my shoulder.

I’d grabbed it from the bartender just as I’d seen Kiera stumbling out the door. I’d followed at a distance, trying to let her have a moment to collect herself.

But it did make me wonder . . .

“Why did you rescue Garyth’s family?” I asked.

She shrugged, her expression going blank. The way it did when she was trying to hide something. “I was there, and Melaena couldn’t do it.”

“But you insisted on coming with.”

Her jaw clenched. “Yes, I see that was unnecessary now. But I simply wanted to ensure they reached safety.”

I frowned. Is that truly how you see yourself, little thief? “You are never unnecessary.”

Her eyes flared at my words. My hands ached with the desire to drop everything and show her just how needed she was.

“Why do you continue to risk yourself for others?” I whispered. “Why do you insist on staying in danger?”

“Perhaps for the same reason you do,” she whispered back.

Gods damn it, she knew me too well. Despite all my efforts to conceal who I was—my intentions, my vulnerabilities, my loyalties, I’d slowly handed her thread after thread until she’d woven a tapestry of me.

But it was incomplete. There were still things she didn’t know.

Fucking Four, there were still things about her that I didn’t know. But I didn’t care. People always showed their true selves in the heat of battle, and she’d shown me plenty.

She’d hated watching that woman die in the alley—hated learning that the woman’s brother was likely on his way to work as a prisoner in the Calimber mine, if he wasn’t dead already. She’d sacrificed herself for Ruru, a boy she’d barely known. She’d felt guilt and sorrow for Asher’s death, then sweet gratitude when she’d learned what I’d done for him. And now, she’d risked her life again to save two strangers.

I was as fascinated by her strength as I’d been from the moment I’d met her. And I desperately wanted a place in that fierce heart of hers.

But what did she want from me?

For a moment, I thought she might reach for me, but instead, she asked, “Should we check the other inns? See if a room opened up?”

I shook my head, fighting my apprehension. “I asked the bartender, and he said it was likely no one would be leaving this late.” I dropped my bulky pack on the ground and knelt beside it. “But he did lend me a tent and a bedroll.”

“I’ve never spent the night in a tent,” she said in an odd voice.

Gods, is she still frightened of me? Or does she not want to be so close to me? I tried to smile reassuringly at her as I unpacked. “It’s fairly easy. If you know what you’re doing. Unless . . . you don’t feel safe?”

“This is the only place I want to be right now,” she whispered. “With you.”

My heart soared, and I wanted to shout with triumph. “You stole the very thought from my mind, little thief,” I said in a ragged voice. After all, I have the most beautiful view, here on my knees before you.

Her breath escaped her lips in tremulous bursts, matching my own tightened rhythm. Gods, if only she would steal all my other thoughts in this moment. We wouldn’t sleep for days.

Thunder rumbled over our heads—a stern warning.

“I should raise the tent before it rains,” I said softly, even as a part of me wanted to toss it all aside—tent, clothes, inhibitions—and throw her legs over my shoulders. Dripping wet, that was I wanted us both to be.

Desire flickered over her face.

Say it. Say you want me too.

“I—I have to . . . er . . .” She flung her hand in the direction of The Twisted Tail, already backing away. Then she fled.

My shoulders dropped with a sigh.

At least she wasn’t frightened of me. Just of letting this fire that had been building between us consume her—as it had already consumed me. I couldn’t deny the burn in my chest when she was near. Nor the hole that was singed there when she wasn’t.

She was a shower of sparks, and I was fully aflame.

That desire did not abate as I built the tent. My hands remembered what to do while my mind wandered. I spread the thick bedroll inside the tent, then explored the area. The warm trees and dark bushes held nothing but a few birds and a host of dancing fireflies. I smiled as I watched them fly in lazy circles.

The sky grumbled with thunder once more, and I hurried back to wait for Kiera.

I heard her before I saw her—twigs snapping under feet unused to navigating a forest floor.

I hid a smile and stood as she approached. She quickly glanced at the tent, no doubt noting its small size and single bedroll.

My chest tightened as I brushed my knuckles over her soft cheek. “Get some sleep, Kiera. I’ll keep watch outside.”

“We can share it,” she said quickly. “The tent, I mean. You need sleep too, Aiden.”

My name on her tongue stoked a wildfire through my veins. She didn’t want me to keep away from her. Gods damn it, she had to know what that meant to me.

“Sleep is the last thing I need right now,” I growled.

“Then I’ll keep watch with you,” she said breathlessly.

No, my beautiful thief, I don’t want to lose sleep keeping watch. I want to lose sleep watching you fall apart under my lips, tongue, and teeth.

“Come with me a moment.” I wove my fingers with hers. “I want to show you something.”

I led her through the shadowy woods. Pointing, I whispered, “Look. Just there.”

“Fireflies!” she gasped, her gaze darting after the blinking insects. “I read about them in a book once.”

“I found them after I set up the tent.” I ran my thumb over the back of her hand, loving each little scar and soft patch I encountered. What did the rest of her feel like?

I swallowed hard and continued. “When I was young, I caught them in my hands. I tried to put them in a jar, but Nikella told me to set them free. She said their light would die in captivity.”

Despite cautioning myself to take it slow, to stay calm, I couldn’t stop my fingers from sliding over hers. Grasping at her hand the way I wanted to grasp her waist, her jaw . . .

I felt her tremble at my touch. I closed my eyes for a moment, listening to my heart ushering me onward.

I gazed down at her profile, still stubbornly turned away. “You make me feel that way,” I admitted. “I’m never sure if I should reach out and catch you. But that doesn’t stop me from wanting to.”

She stiffened, hardly seeming to breathe. Thunder crashed again and again overhead—a rising chorus, a quickening heartbeat.

I slipped my fingers under her chin and turned her face toward me. For the first time in a long time, I laid down the shield I carried inside me. I let every spark of heat I felt for her burn through my expression and my words.

“I crave your light, Kiera,” I whispered. “Yet, I would hunt for you even when you’re one with the shadows.”

Where would I go?

Nowhere I wouldn’t find you.

Because find her I would. Find her, protect her, fight by her side, stand atop temples, sneak underground, face our worst fears. Together.

I’d never found a light like hers that so thoroughly enthralled me. I needed to know how it felt to give myself over to it.

“You don’t know me, Aiden. Not truly.”

I carefully placed my palm over her thrumming heart and guided her hand to cover mine. “I know this. I trust this. Everything else is just choices we made in a world where our hearts didn’t know each other.”

“Aiden . . .” she breathed, shifting closer to me. Her breasts pressed around my wrist, against my chest. She closed her eyes as if she couldn’t bear to look into mine.

“I feel as though I’m back on the roof of the Temple,” she whispered. “Arms outstretched, floating on the wind, coming back to you.”

Lightning flashed, and her eyes flew open.

I pressed my forehead against hers, breathing in her scent of lilies and honey. “Then let me catch you, Kiera.”

She grasped my neck. “You already did.”

We dove for each other at the same time, our mouths meeting in a kiss of lightning and thunder. Every nerve ending came alive. She kissed me as fiercely as I kissed her. The clouds finally released their rain as if they too had been waiting for this moment.

But I didn’t care.

I would have this woman, rain or shine, bed or not.

I held her mouth captive while my hand drifted over her breast, then her hip. My fingers dug in and dragged her against my hardened body. Feeling her against me, even fully clothed, was enough to drive a groan from my chest.

Coiling her braid around my fist, I pulled her head back and kissed her harder. She made a little noise. I met it with a flick of my tongue. I stroked her taut throat, loving the exposed skin. I needed more of it.

Gods, I was going to shatter if I didn’t get more.

I released her, and we panted against each other’s lips. Rain dripped from her eyelashes as she looked up at me.

“No interruptions this time,” she said.

I chuckled, my body pulsing with heat, with desire. “The gods themselves couldn’t keep me from you.”

I took her hand, and we ran through the rain back to the tent. My boots didn’t miss a step in the darkness.

We crawled into the tent. I secured the flaps, knotting the ties as tight as possible. Kiera sat back awkwardly, trying to keep her muddy boots off the blanket.

I knelt in front of her once more. “Allow me.”

She untied her cloak and threw it aside as I tugged off her boots and stockings. “You did this for me once before,” she whispered.

I smiled. “I remember. So beautiful, I thought. So proud. So dangerous.”

I’d thought of her fierce gaze as she struggled to hide her pain—and the feel of her long leg in my hand—far too many times.

Tossing her boots into a corner of the tent, I murmured, “It’s your turn.”

I grasped her elbows and slowly pulled her into a kneeling position with me.

“Wh-what?” Her wide eyes made me smile again.

I deftly unbuckled her knife brace, disarming her. Then myself. I piled our weapons in another corner. “Tell me what you were thinking in the bathhouse. When I undressed and sat down behind you.”

Another moment that had lived in my mind as if it never intended to leave.

She bit her lip and plucked at my shirt, slowly dragging it up over my head. Goosebumps flared over my damp, heated skin.

“I thought about how god-like you looked. How much I wanted to touch you. How easy it would be to lift myself up to you with my hands on your thighs.”

Every word from her lips fed the fire in my belly. But then she pressed her hands into my abdomen and swept them over my bare chest.

Another groan escaped my throat as I desperately tried to leash the intense need coiling through my muscles. “I could see it in your eyes,” I rasped. “The desire. You have no idea how tempted I was to give in.” I’d made her turn around so she wouldn’t see how much she affected me. Every part of her was like the sun calling to the moon as they chased each other through endless days and nights.

“Show me,” she whispered.

Gods, yes.

I grabbed her shirt and started to lift it. But I froze for a moment. Was this truly what she wanted? It’d been so long since I’d?—

Kiera raised her arms above her head like she was dancing again, a soft, inviting look on her face. I didn’t look away as I carefully slid her wet shirt over her pebbled skin.

But, gods, I couldn’t resist. Her breasts—bound in a cloth—slid into my hands, and I squeezed. My thumbs found her deliciously hardened nipples. She gasped, her head dropping back.

I snarled out an unintelligible curse and tore the shirt away from her body. “I wanted to wrap your naked body around mine.” I unclasped her breast band and ripped that away too. Her hands lifted to cover her breasts, but they would be mine in a moment. Words poured out of me like I was in a fever dream. “I wanted to lick the water from your skin and fill my mouth with your taste.”

Which is exactly what I intended to do now. I claimed her lips once more, clasping her body to mine. My burning skin immediately warmed hers. I kissed her harder, fisting her braid. But I wanted to taste more than her sweet mouth.

I kissed my way down her throat and chest, my tongue flicking over her skin, loving the taste of it sprinkled with rain.

Gods, I probably seemed like a starving animal. But I would devour her until she told me to stop. Thank the fucking Four, the only sounds from her mouth were short gasps of surprise and thready moans of pleasure.

Her hands still shielded her breasts, so I gently nudged them with my nose and mouth. Let me taste you, beautiful.

Her hands fell away easily. I wasted no time in capturing one of her hardened nipples and sweeping my tongue over it.

She arched back with a keening cry that stiffened my cock to the point of pain.

I growled at her. That’s it, my little thief, rival the storm with your cries.

Her body shuddered as I scraped my tongue and teeth over one breast, then the other. She moaned when I pressed my cock between her legs. I wanted her to know what she was doing to me too. But now I was curious to see how much she wanted me. I wanted to taste that desire.

I pulled back, drawing us both upright.

Her soft breaths feathered over my damp lips. “Why did you stop?”

“I need to taste all of you, Kiera.” I stole a kiss from her parted lips. “If you’ll let me.”

“Yes. Please,” she whispered.

Pure ecstasy thundered through my veins, curving my lips. “Gods damn it, those are beautiful words coming from you.”

She crushed her mouth against mine with an adorable snarl. Her tongue slipped between my teeth, taking what she wanted.

A laugh rumbled in my chest as I met her ferocity with my own. Yes, take whatever you want from me.

She bit my bottom lip, triggering the wild animal in me again. We devoured each other in a tangle of limbs as I laid her down on the bedroll. My hands tore off any clothing she had left.

Finally, finally, she was completely bare beneath me.

I had to tear myself away from that soul-shattering mouth, my breath ragged. Bursts of lightning illuminated her from wide eyes to curled toes.

“Fucking Four,” I murmured. “You will always be the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.”

I caught a glimpse of her smile in a flash of silver light.

Next time, I would have her in the biggest bed I could find surrounded by dozens of candles so I could see every detail and she wouldn’t miss a moment of my admiration.

“Now,” I said, lifting one of her legs over my shoulder. “May I please . . .” I kissed the tender skin of her ankle. “. . . please . . .” The side of her knee. “. . .soak my tongue in your taste?”

Her thighs clenched under my fingertips. “Aiden!”

“Yes, my little thief?”

Her chest heaved up and down, displaying those perfect breasts. “Do anything you gods-damned want to! Just do it now.”

I hummed approvingly. “I like those words even better.” Then I sank my mouth onto the part of her that tasted like sweet, sweet Kiera. The very core of her essence.

I barely heard the moan she released, plunging my tongue inside her.

Her body shuddered, and I gripped her hips tighter, lifting her closer to me.

“Aiden,” she gasped in a tone I’d never heard. Desperate with desire. It fed my own insatiable hunger.

I sucked hard, and she cried out, writhing against me. Not yet, beautiful. I steadied her as best I could, then licked the one spot she would feel the most.

Her cries now fell like rain with her pleas. “Yes. More.”

I obeyed her with everything I had, lost in a world where her pleasure set fire to my own.

With a final hoarse cry that sounded like my name, her body went limp. I gently settled her back on the ground and propped myself over her trembling body. Her eyes were closed, so I kissed her softly.

“Sweeter than honey, just like I thought,” I murmured, licking my lips.

She gave a shaky laugh and kissed me again. Gods, I felt like we’d been like forever—sharing easy kisses, pressing our naked skin together, giving each other pleasure. Or perhaps I simply wanted it to last forever.

“I need you, Aiden,” she said, kissing me again and again. Her deft fingers undid my pants and grasped my hard cock. “Let me make you fall apart. I want?—”

“Gods damn it, Kiera,” I growled, my eyes already rolling back at the feel of her hand around me. I kicked off my pants and undershorts. “The only place I’m falling apart is inside you.” Because I can’t wait for anything else.

She wrapped her legs around my waist, our sweaty skin sliding together. One thought pierced the storm in my mind, but before I could shape it into words, she answered me.

“I take the tonic,” she whispered. “Melaena had some.”

Relief eased through me, a drop of cool water that was quickly lost in the waves of heat undulating through my body. I kissed her to the beat of those waves, as if we had all the time in the world.

A shiver rippled over me as she reached down and helped me guide myself inside her. We groaned together as I fully sheathed myself in her molten core.

Fucking Four, I’d never felt such sheer bliss as I stared down at her, our bodies connected in a way that felt like day meeting night in a perfect sunset.

I began to move, and her hips rose to meet me. Our kisses quickly turned ravenous, and I lost myself again.

I sucked on her neck and bit her earlobe. I grasped her breasts and stroked her pointed nipples.

She gasped and flipped me on my back before I realized what was happening. Surprise gave way to approval at the sight of her seated on me like a throne.

Grabbing my wrists, she pinned them above my head. Dark ribbons of desire curled under my ribs, twisting in my manhood.

“Don’t touch me until I tell you to,” she whispered in my ear, skimming her tongue over my earlobe. “It’s my turn.”

I shivered, curling my fingers into fists to keep from seizing her thighs and thrusting into her.

Her smug grin faded as she swayed her hips over me. Her breasts hovered tantalizingly out of reach. She braced herself on my taut stomach. Every muscle in my body felt ready to snap.

“Gods, yes, Kiera,” I hissed through gritted teeth. “Dance on me, beautiful.”

Dance for me like you’ve never danced for anyone else.

She ground down on me, her nails digging into my skin. Fucking Four, this was torture. And I wanted more.

“What did you think?” she asked. “When you saw me dancing that night?”

I groaned, finally giving into the urge to jerk my hips upward. She gasped. But I still didn’t touch her. My fingers would likely break from how hard I clenched them, but I would obey my little thief.

“I thought”—I thrust upward again—“of all the treasure I was there to steal that night . . .” And again. “I wanted to steal you instead.”

I drove upward once more, and her body tightened around me.

She threw her head back. “Aiden!”

Gods, I nearly came undone at that.

She fell back over me, panting heavily.

“Release me, Kiera,” I begged. “Command me to touch you.”

She nodded. “I’m yours, Aiden.”

Desire ripped through me. Just when I thought I couldn’t want her more?—

I rolled with her in my arms and leaned into her face. “Say it again,” I demanded, my hips flexing faster and faster. Every muscle in my body wanted to wring those delicious sounds from her lips once more, but I needed to hear her say it again. “Please. Please say it again.”

Her fingers dove into my hair, and she pulled me closer. “I’m yours, Aiden,” she whispered against my lips before claiming them with a scorching kiss.

Wild heat set me ablaze from the inside out. “Mine,” I snarled. “Mine.”

Her cries rose with the beat of our tangled bodies until she shuddered around me. I finally released as well, her name a strangled note in a beautiful song. Kiera.

We held each other for several long moments, our chests gasping against each other. My heart felt as though it might give out, yet it had never felt so full, so at peace.

I pressed my lips to her forehead. “And I . . . am all yours,” I told her. “For as long as you wish to keep me, little thief.”

Until the gods steal my soul from yours.

Thank you so much for reading Keys to the Crown and its bonus scene!