Chapter Ten

Thea woke with a strangled scream, agony blazing at her wrist, a ring of fire around her ragged scar. She had been sawing through her flesh and bone all over again, her friends at the mercy of the reapers all around her, talons piercing their hearts. Next, she'd been standing before the Furies themselves, chanting their names: Iseldra, Morwynn, Valdara…

Panting and slick with sweat, Thea looked around frantically, slowly recognising her surroundings as the headmaster's quarters Dratos had shown her to yesterday. She was in Naarva, at the university there…

‘I couldn't wake you,' Wilder's voice sounded from nearby, laced with apology. He stood at the window in nothing but a pair of loose-fitting pants slung low around his hips, looking out onto the quadrangle. He was gilded by the early morning light, so at odds with the darkness they had faced the day before. A golden warrior, a golden king.

She met his gaze, ignoring the shiver that tracked down her spine. ‘I wouldn't snap out of it?'

‘No. And your lightning… It wouldn't let me get close, not this time.'

Only at the mention of her magic did she register the charred scent in the air, and the scorch marks on the sheets clenched in her fist.

Thea fought her heart rate down. ‘Did I wake you? Hurt you?'

Wilder shook his head. ‘I never slept.'

Still trembling, Thea slipped from the bed, wearing only a thin nightshirt. The evening before had been a blur. She hardly remembered washing herself and putting it on; she only remembered Wilder – caring for him into the late hours of the night, bathing him, making sure he ate, combing her fingers through his hair until his tremors subsided.

When she reached him now, she wrapped her arms around his waist from behind, mindful of his stitches. She rested her cheek on his bare back, inhaling the leather-and-rosewood scent of him, grounding herself.

‘Maybe we should just stay in bed today,' she said quietly. ‘We've earnt it…'

He laughed roughly, his hands trailing her arms before interlocking his fingers with hers across his middle, holding her in place. ‘I wish. But I think there's a war to plan… An enemy or two to defeat.'

‘That list grows longer by the day,' she muttered, listening to the steady drum of his heart.

‘Such is the life of a Warsword, Princess,' he replied.

Thea hummed against his warm skin and pressed her lips to the ink that followed his spine. Glory in death, immortality in legend. She didn't realise she'd said it aloud until Wilder tensed beneath her touch.

‘The Archmage of Chains…' He shuddered, releasing her hands to grip the windowsill hard enough that his knuckles paled. ‘He could read the script. He said they would make me a legend among monsters.'

Thea didn't move, knowing how hard it must be for him to share that fear, that pain, even with her.

‘They meant to turn me into an abomination, to unleash me upon the midrealms.' Wilder turned to face her, uncertainty in those silver eyes.

‘And yet here you stand,' Thea said, lifting her chin in defiance. ‘And them? They're nothing but fucking dust in the wind.'

‘I… No matter how much I wash, I can still feel the tower on my skin,' he told her. ‘Crawling beneath it.'

His admission broke her heart and sent rage surging through her like a current of flames, but she listened.

‘I don't feel like myself, not yet. I can't…' With a noise of frustration, Wilder encircled her waist with his large hands and hauled her body to his, kissing her. ‘I need to touch you.' His voice was hoarse.

Thea understood what he was asking. He needed to feel her, needed to know that she was real. And he needed to be in control.

She unlaced the front of her nightshirt and let it fall from her shoulders, the fabric cascading down her body and pooling at her feet.

‘I'm yours.'

Hunger clouded his gaze, and without another word, he hoisted her up, muscles bunching at his forearms as he seated her bare backside on the windowsill. For a moment, he didn't touch her, but his eyes mapped every inch of her naked skin, following the flush down her neck and across the tops of her breasts, to her nipples hardening in anticipation.

Thea spread her legs for him, letting him see what his stare alone could do to her. Her whole body thrummed with want for him, craving his fingers, his mouth, his cock.

Wilder groaned at the sight of her, spread and bare just for him, before he closed the gap between them, pressing her back against the window and kissing her fiercely. She opened her mouth to him, letting his tongue sweep in and tease hers, his calloused hands tracing the curve of her neck, the dip of her shoulder, before cupping her breasts.

Thea bowed off the sill, but he held her in place as white-hot need blazed through her, centring between her legs. She moaned as he circled one nipple, then the other, teasing her.

Wilder's erection strained against the loose fabric of his pants, but she didn't reach for him, no matter how badly she wanted to. He had asked to touch her. He needed the control, at least this time, and so she opened her legs for him wider still, in invitation, revealing the slickness he'd created there.

‘You wanted to touch me,' she breathed. ‘So touch me, Warsword.'

A low, rumbling growl escaped him and one of his hands moved lower, trailing her sternum, her navel, lower… Until his fingers slid down the centre of her.

Thea moaned, arching into his taunting touch as he spread her wetness in slow, luxurious circles around her clit.

‘Is this all for me?' he said, his voice vibrating in the shell of her ear.

‘Yes,' she gasped as he increased his pace. ‘It's all for you. Only you.'

‘Good.' And then he slid a finger inside her.

Thea cried out, her nails digging into the hard muscle of his shoulders. ‘Wilder —'

He answered by adding another finger, slowly moving inside her, drawing out delicate coils of pleasure. She turned molten, desperately rocking her hips against his hand as he worked her, seeking more, already aching for release.

‘I'm not done with you yet.' Wilder fell to his knees before her, his mouth descending, painting her with tongue and teeth, blending rapture and pain in a way that had her panting, in the way only he knew how.

He kissed her inner thighs, his beard scraping lightly before he sank his teeth into her skin, hard enough to leave marks. She watched the tapered muscles of his tattooed back shift as he moved between her legs, draping them over his broad shoulders.

Thea trembled and whimpered in need as he slipped his fingers from her, only to replace them with his tongue a moment later.

The back of her head hit the window and she cried out again as he licked her with the flat of his tongue, right up her centre, a long, lavish stroke that would be enough to send the sanest woman mad. She squeezed her breasts and pinched her nipples to the point of pain, trying to alleviate some of the pent-up tension.

Wilder moaned against her and she looked down to find him watching her, his gaze hooded with lust.

‘You're a masterpiece,' he murmured against her, brazenly surveying her hands on her heaving breasts before his attention snapped back to her core, wet and wanting.

‘Wilder…' she panted.

His silver eyes gleamed with feral desire. ‘Is there something you want, Princess?'

‘Please.'

‘Say it,' he commanded. ‘I want you to say it.'

‘Make me come, Wilder. Please make me come.'

He put his mouth on her again. This time, he lavished her clit with attention, circling it with his tongue, sucking until she saw stars. All notion of restraint vanished and she rode his face with complete abandon, relishing every sweep of that talented tongue. She lost herself in him completely. Tighter and tighter she wound, ready to combust —

He pushed two fingers inside her and that was it.

‘Gods, Wilder —' She unravelled in a tidal wave, her climax hitting her with such force that she went taut and limp all at once, shuddering around him with a sob. He didn't stop until he'd wrung every last ounce of satisfaction from her, until she couldn't hold herself up on the sill any longer.

Wilder scooped her up and took her to the bed, still surveying her with those molten silver eyes.

‘I'm real,' she murmured, waiting for the uncertainty to hit.

But his handsome face broke into a grin, his gaze lingering on her naked body, still slick with her climax. ‘Oh, that I know.'

‘Is that so?'

‘No dream or spell can replicate that taste, those sounds…'

Thea flushed.

Wilder leant down and kissed her. ‘Thank you.'

‘I feel like I should be thanking you…'

Wilder smiled and tucked her hair behind her ear. ‘You can thank me later,' he said, before disappearing into the bathing chamber.

Thea stared after him, still breathless, in awe of the Warsword, her Warsword. He was in her blood, as much a part of her as the lightning and thunder coursing through her.

And in that moment, her fate hit her like a blow to the chest. Were she not already on the bed, her knees would have buckled beneath her.

Time.

They had so little of it now.

And when her time was done, he would still be here. Alone. She imagined how she would feel if their places were reversed, what she would do. Oblivion. That was all she could picture. A void of nothingness without him. Any ounce of fire within snuffed out.

Thea made a decision then, scrambling off the bed to the desk by the hearth. She had to leave something behind, something to ease those first few weeks without her.

And so she snatched up a piece of parchment, an inkpot and quill, and began to write.