Chapter 71: Ketuts Proclamation
A year in the Sanctum was a fluid thing. It could feel like a single breath drawn in a quiet moment, or an eternity spent watching the slow spin of infant stars. For Bruce, this past year had been the latter.
He stood on the western balcony, a place of obsidian and ether that overlooked the swirling colors of the elemental forge. His hands rested on the rail, but his gaze was turned inward. The vibrant, shifting hues of his eyes had settled into a muted, steady green-gold, like moss on a stone. He’d been quiet. Not withdrawn, exactly, but present in the way a mountain is present—solid, unmoving, offering little beyond its own mass.
Inside the main living chamber, a low fire crackled in the hearth of fused sunlight and moonstone. Camille was doing handstand push-ups against a wall, her muscular legs scissored for balance, the powerful curves of her ass and thighs defined under her tight shorts. Lena was curled in a deep armchair, a data-slate hovering before her, but her eyes weren’t moving. She was watching Bruce’s back through the open archway.
Anya and Freya came in from the gardens, the scent of night-blooming jasmine and sun-warmed stone trailing them. Freya’s sea-colored eyes went straight to the balcony, her cheerful expression dimming. “He’s still doing that,” she murmured.
“Statistical analysis confirms a seventy-three percent decrease in spontaneous interaction initiation compared to the twelve-month period prior to the Caelum intervention,” Anya said, her violet eyes concerned. “He attends to all responsibilities with perfect efficiency. But the emotional resonance is… dampened.”
Camille lowered herself from the wall, landing softly on her feet. She grabbed a towel and wiped her neck. “He’s thinking about her.”
“We all are,” Lena said, finally putting the slate down. “It’s the elephant in every damn room. We sent her away to ‘think,’ and all it did was make this place feel like it’s waiting for a punchline that never comes.”
Ketut entered from the lower gardens, her bare feet silent on the warm floor. She carried a bowl of dark, rich soil from the heart of the estate. She walked to the center of the room and knelt, letting the soil trickle from her fingers to form a small mound. She placed her palms on it, her eyes closing.
“The earth here is patient,” she said, her voice soft. “But it is also expectant. A space was prepared. A seed was offered. Then we asked the seed to wait in a different drawer.” She opened her eyes, her dark gaze finding each of them. “We were wrong.”
The statement landed with the quiet finality of a falling leaf.
Camille stopped drying her hair. “Wrong how, Ketut?”
“To send her away. To make her prove her pull to us, as if her heart were a specimen to be dissected.” Ketut’s fingers sifted through the soil. “The pull wasn’t just hers. It was his. It is his. He feels the absence like a toothache in his soul. We gave it a year, and the ache hasn’t faded. It’s calcified.”
Lena stood up, pacing. “We had to be sure. For the family. For stability.”
“Stability?” Ketut’s smile was gentle but unwavering. “Look at him. Is that stability? He is the architect of reality, and a part of his foundation is missing. We have never done this before. With Sophia, with Mystique, with all of us… when the truth was known, the choice was made. There was no probation for the heart. We accepted, or we did not. We gave her a test we never gave ourselves.”
Anya blinked, processing. “The precedent is inconsistent. You’re correct. My integration was immediate upon ascension and mutual recognition.”
Freya moved to sit by the fire, tucking her legs under her. “I was just so happy to be included,” she said softly. “No one made me wait. They just… opened the door.”
Camille tossed the towel aside. She walked to the balcony arch, leaning against the frame, studying Bruce’s broad, still back. The love she felt for him was a deep, worn river in her bones. She saw the slight droop in his shoulders, a subtle thing no one else would notice. She saw the way he didn’t truly see the spectacular nebula blooming in the forge below.
“Ketut’s right,” Camille said, her voice firm. “We fucked up. We treated her like a crisis to be managed, not a person who was hurting. And we hurt him in the process.” She pushed off the frame. “So we stop managing. We go fix it.”
Lena stopped pacing. “Go? Go where?”
“To get her.”
The room held its breath. The fire popped.
“Just like that?” Lena asked, but the challenge was fading, replaced by a dawning resolve.
“Just like that,” Camille affirmed. “No more committees. No more cosmic deliberations. The family feels incomplete. So we complete it. The old-fashioned way.” She looked at Ketut. “Can you find her? Not just the world. Her.”
Ketut nodded, pressing her hands fully into the soil. “The seed calls to its ground. I can feel her roots, thirsty and deep. She is in her palace. But she is not ruling. She is… waiting.”
Anya stood, a shimmer of creation-energy flickering at her fingertips. “I will prepare the Threshold. Coordinates for Caelum.”
Freya jumped up, fire dancing in her palms. “I’ll come. For moral support. And in case anyone objects.”
Lena let out a sharp, decisive breath. “Okay. Yeah. Let’s go get our wayward princess.” A fierce grin touched her lips. “And this time, we bring her home.”
They gathered on the Threshold platform—a disc of polished silver etched with impossible geometries. Camille, practical in trousers and a simple top. Lena, armed with her defiant stance. Ketut, serene and centered. Anya, focused on the spatial calculations. Freya, buzzing with nervous energy.
Bruce finally turned from the balcony, sensing the coalescence of power. He stepped into the chamber, his brow furrowed. “What’s happening?”
“We’re going to fix our mistake,” Camille said, walking to him. She put her hands on his chest, feeling the steady, strong beat of his heart. “You’ve been carrying this for a year. You don’t have to anymore.”
He searched her face, then looked at the determined set of Lena’s jaw, the quiet certainty in Ketut’s eyes. The mossy green in his irises began to swirl, touched with a faint, hopeful blue. “You’re going to Caelum.”
“We’re going to get Niamh,” Lena corrected. “And we’re not taking no for an answer. From her, or from you.”
Anya’s violet eyes glowed. The Threshold activated with a silent, profound thrum. A doorway of shimmering potential opened in the air before them. “Coordinates locked. The path is stable.”
Camille stood on her toes and kissed Bruce, hard and quick. “Hold down the fort, architect. We’ll be back soon. With company.”
One by one, they stepped through: Anya first, then Freya, Ketut, Lena. Camille gave Bruce one last, reassuring look, and followed.
The grand marble palace on Caelum was a masterpiece of light and sorrow. It gleamed under its twin suns, but the music that once thrummed through its halls was muted, melancholic. The Maestro’s new symphony, it seemed, was a dirge for a loneliness he couldn’t name.
They manifested in the throne room. It was empty. The great chair of woven moonlight sat vacant.
A young attendant, a boy with wide eyes, dropped the tray of crystal goblets he was carrying. They shattered on the floor in a burst of musical notes. “G-Goddesses!” he stammered.
“Where is your queen?” Ketut asked, her voice kind but leaving no room for evasion.
“Her private chambers… the west spire… she… she receives no one.”
“She’ll receive us,” Lena said, already striding toward the sweeping staircase.
They moved through the palace, a phalanx of divine purpose. Courtiers and servants shrank back, not from fear, but from the overwhelming sense of rightness that rolled off the women. It was like watching the seasons decide to change.
The door to the west spire was a single slab of polished gray stone, seamless and cold. It was locked from the inside with more than just physical barriers. A sigh of profound isolation leaked from under it.
Camille didn’t bother knocking. She placed her palm flat against the stone. A soft, golden light emanated from her hand, the energy of protection and conduit. She didn’t break the door; she simply reminded it that barriers were not meant for family. The stone shimmered, turned translucent, and then was simply gone.
The chamber within was large, circular, and sparsely furnished. The vast arched window looked out over the cliff edge into the endless starfield. Niamh stood there, her back to them, dressed in a simple grey shift. Her jet-black hair was loose, flowing down her back. She didn’t turn.
“I said I wished for no audiences,” she said, her voice flat, drained of the fire they’d heard a year ago.
“Good thing we’re not an audience,” Lena said, walking into the room. “We’re a retrieval team.”
Niamh’s shoulders stiffened. Slowly, she turned.
The sight hit them like a physical blow. She was still ethereally beautiful, but it was a beauty carved from ice and exhaustion. Her striking gray eyes were shadowed, hollow. She’d lost weight. The vibrant, defiant woman who had declared her love in the Sanctum was buried under a year of silent, dutiful waiting.
She looked at them, one by one, no recognition, only a weary confusion. Her gaze finally landed on Camille. “You… came back? Has the probationary period been reviewed?” The words were rote, as if she’d rehearsed this moment a thousand times in her head.
Camille’s heart broke a little. She stepped forward. “There is no probation, Niamh. There never should have been. We were wrong. We were scared, and we were stupid, and we left the two of you in a quiet hell for a year because of it.”
Niamh blinked, as if the words were in a foreign language. “Wrong?”
Ketut came forward, taking Niamh’s cold hands in her warm ones. “The pull is not a one-way thread. It is a bridge. And a bridge requires both sides to be anchored. He has been just as adrift as you. We felt his silence. We saw his heart ache. We came to bring you home.”
“Home?” Niamh whispered the word like a curse, her gray eyes filling with a sudden, desperate hope so painful it was almost violent. “To the Sanctum?”
“To us,” Lena stated, her voice softer now. “No more tests. No more waiting. You laid your truth bare. We’re laying ours. We want you. The family is incomplete without you. It’s that simple.”
Anya offered a small, rare smile. “The data is conclusive. Your presence is a required variable for equilibrium.”
Freya bounced on her heels. “And Bruce is all mopey and it’s boring. We need you to fix it.”
A single, silver tear traced a path down Niamh’s pale cheek. Then another. The ice was cracking, and beneath it was a raw, exposed need that shook her entire frame. “I have thought of nothing else. I have done my duty here. I have rebuilt this world. And every single day, the only thing that felt real was the anchor in my chest pulling me toward a place I was told I couldn’t have.” Her voice broke. “Don’t do this if you don’t mean it. I won’t survive it twice.”
Camille closed the distance and pulled Niamh into a fierce, tight hug. “We mean it. We’re taking you home. Right now.”
The journey back was a blur. Niamh, wrapped in a blanket Freya conjured from sunlight, held between Camille and Ketut, said nothing. She just stared ahead, as if afraid the vision would dissolve.
They emerged into the Sanctum’s living chamber. Bruce was where they’d left him, but now he was standing in the center of the room, utterly still. His eyes found Niamh the moment the Threshold closed behind them.
The air left his lungs in a quiet rush. The muted green-gold of his eyes exploded into a swirling vortex of blue, green, and vivid, burning gold. The year of stillness fell away from him like a discarded cloak.
Niamh stepped forward, the blanket falling from her shoulders. She looked at him, all her practiced composure gone, leaving only the raw, yearning truth. “You were quiet,” she said, her voice trembling. “The anchor was so quiet. I thought you’d forgotten the pull.”
“I could never forget,” he said, the words rough with emotion. He took a single step toward her. “I was trying to respect the space you needed. The space we gave you. It was the longest year of my existence.”
She let out a choked sob, a sound of pure release, and crossed the remaining distance. She didn’t kiss him. She crashed into him, her arms wrapping around his neck, her face burying against his chest. Her body shook with silent, shuddering tears. He held her, one hand cradling the back of her head, the other arm a band of steel around her waist, pulling her into him as if to merge their very atoms.
The other women watched, a shared warmth spreading through them. This was right. This was the missing chord.
After a long moment, Bruce leaned back, cupping Niamh’s face. He wiped her tears with his thumbs, his gaze drinking her in. “No more waiting,” he murmured, echoing Lena’s words.
“No more waiting,” she breathed.
And then he kissed her.
It was not a gentle reunion. It was a conflagration. A year of suppressed want, of acknowledged but unfulfilled connection, detonated between them. His mouth seized hers with a desperate hunger, and she met it with equal force, her fingers tangling in his hair. The kiss was deep, wet, and punishing, all tongue and teeth and shared, ragged breaths.
The sanctum’s ambient hum rose in pitch, resonating with the sudden, intense flare of energy. The floating maps spun faster.
Bruce’s hands slid down from her face, over the thin fabric of her shift. He gripped her ass, lifting her effortlessly off her feet. She wrapped her legs around his waist, grinding herself against the hard ridge of his cock already straining against his trousers. A low, filthy moan vibrated from her throat into his mouth.
“Fuck,” Lena whispered, her own body responding to the raw display.
Bruce broke the kiss, his eyes blazing. He looked at his wives, the question clear in his gaze.
Camille smiled, a slow, wicked curve of her lips. She nodded. “Welcome home, Niamh.”
It was all the permission he needed. He carried Niamh, still wrapped around him, out of the living chamber and down the corridor toward the private wing. The others followed, a silent, approving procession.
He shouldered open the door to his chamber—a vast room with a bed that was less a piece of furniture and more a landscape of silks and furs beneath a canopy of woven starlight. He didn’t lay her down gently. He fell onto the bed with her beneath him, the impact a soft thunder.
His mouth found hers again as his hands tore at the simple shift. The fabric, fragile from a year of lonely wear, gave way with a sharp rip, baring her to the waist. He broke the kiss to stare down at her. Her skin was like milkstone, her breasts full and tipped with tight, pale pink nipples that pebbled instantly in the cool air. The curves he remembered were still there, but sharper, honed by longing.
“You’re so fucking beautiful,” he growled, his voice thick. He bent his head and took one nipple into his mouth, sucking hard, his tongue lashing the peak.
Niamh cried out, her back arching off the bed. “Bruce… please… I need…”
“I know what you need,” he said, moving to her other breast, his hand kneading the soft, heavy weight of the first. He bit down gently on her nipple, and she screamed, her hands clawing at his back.
He moved down her body, his kisses leaving a trail of fire. He hooked his fingers in the waist of her plain underwear and tore them away. He spread her legs, his gaze hot and possessive on her nakedness. Her pussy was already glistening, her folds swollen and flushed a deep, needy pink.
“So wet for me,” he murmured, pushing her thighs wider. “After all this time.”
“Always for you,” she gasped. “Only ever for you.”
He didn’t tease. He lowered his head and buried his face between her legs
His tongue was a rough, demanding point of heat that laved straight up her soaked slit. Niamh’s entire body bowed off the bed, a shattered cry ripped from her throat. He didn’t just taste her; he consumed her, his mouth sealing over her cunt, his tongue driving inside her with a rhythm that was both precise and brutal.
“Oh god, yes, right there!” she screamed, her fingers fisting in the starlit canopy above. Her hips bucked against his face, seeking more pressure, more friction, more of that devastating contact. He growled against her, the vibration shooting through her clit like lightning. He sucked the swollen bud into his mouth, flicking it relentlessly with the tip of his tongue.
Her climax hit her suddenly, a detonation that whitewashed her vision. She shook, muscles clamping down on nothing, a raw, guttural sound of release tearing free. Bruce didn’t let up. He drank her pleasure, licking and sucking her through the violent pulses until she was sobbing, pushing weakly at his head from oversensitivity.
He finally lifted his mouth from her, his chin glistening. He crawled up her trembling body, his own need etched into the hard lines of his face. He kissed her, letting her taste herself on his lips and tongue. It was filthy and intimate, and it made her whimper.
“You taste like home,” he breathed against her mouth, his hands working at the fastening of his trousers.
From the doorway, Lena let out a low whistle. Camille leaned against the frame, a satisfied smile on her face. Freya’s cheeks were flushed, her sea-blue eyes wide. Anya watched with analytical intensity, while Ketut’s expression was one of deep, serene approval.
Bruce shoved his trousers and underwear down just enough to free himself. His cock sprang out, thick and heavy and impossibly large, the broad head already leaking. Niamh’s gray eyes, hazy with pleasure, dropped to it. Her breath hitched. The reality of him, of his sheer physical magnitude, cut through the haze of her orgasm.
He settled his weight between her thighs, the hot, blunt tip of his cock pressing against her soaked, sensitive opening. A year of longing had led to this precipice. The sanctum’s energy seemed to hold its breath.
He looked into her eyes, his own swirling with molten gold. He started to push forward, a slow, inevitable invasion.
When the time came for Bruce to enter her, she whispered, “Please be gentle. I’ve never done this before. And you are huge.”
The words, so small and vulnerable, hung in the air. Bruce froze, the pressure at her entrance pausing. His expression shifted from hungry dominance to something far more complex. He searched her face, seeing the truth beneath the desire. The Princess of Caelum, Savior of her World, was a virgin.
“Never?” he asked, his voice a rough scrape.
She shook her head, a silver tear tracing from the corner of her eye into her hairline. “The blight… it made touch agony. Then it was just… waiting. For you.”
A profound tenderness tempered the fierce possession in his gaze. He lowered his head, kissing the tear away. “I’ll be gentle,” he promised, the words a vow. “But I am going to fill you, Niamh. Every last inch. You’re going to take all of me.”
He adjusted his angle, his hand sliding down to guide himself. He pressed forward again, not with a driving thrust, but with an inexorable, steady pressure. The broad crown of his cock began to stretch her virgin opening, a burning, fullness unlike anything she could have imagined.
She gasped, her nails digging into his shoulders. It was a lot. It was a breathtaking, terrifying, exquisite invasion. He pushed deeper, inch by impossible inch, the thick shaft forcing her tender inner muscles to yield, to accommodate him. The stretch bordered on pain, a sharp, claiming burn that was inextricably woven with a rightness that made her cry out.
“Breathe, mi reina,” Lena’s voice floated from the doorway, surprisingly soft. “Just breathe through it.”
Niamh sucked in a ragged breath, her body trembling. Bruce was embedded halfway, a monumental presence splitting her apart. He was shaking with the effort of his control, a sheen of sweat on his brow.
“You’re so tight,” he groaned, his voice strained. “So perfect and tight around me.” He pulled back slightly, then pushed forward again, sinking another inch deeper. The movement dragged a choked sob from her throat, a mix of pleasure and overwhelming sensation.
He kept going, with that same patient, relentless pressure, until his hips finally met hers, until he was fully sheathed inside her. He was buried to the hilt, his monstrous cock occupying her completely. The feeling of utter fullness was shocking, a claiming so absolute it felt like destiny.
They stayed like that, joined, both trembling. The initial sharp pain was fading, replaced by a deep, throbbing ache and a sense of completion that made her want to weep. The anchor in her chest wasn’t just a pull anymore; it was a fusion.
Bruce lowered his forehead to hers, his breathing harsh. “All of me,” he whispered. “You have all of me.”
He began to move.