Chapter 1: The Commander’s Secret Unveiled
The water was so damn hot it should have scalded him. Guts welcomed it. It was the only thing that could reach the deep, bruised ache in his muscles these days, a pain that had settled into his bones like a second skeleton. The bath chamber was a closet of scarred wood and blackened iron, tucked away from the Midland palace’s soaring arches and gilded mirrors. Here, the steam smelled of the cheap, bitter herbs he tossed in the water and the old scent of his own sweat. It was real.
A single lantern guttered, throwing crazy shadows against the wall. He sank deeper until the waterline touched his lower lip, his eyes closed. The day’s echoes played behind his eyelids—the screaming din of the battlefield against the Tudor Empire, the jarring impact of the Dragon Slayer meeting bone and plate, the forced, hollow laughter at the king’s banquet afterward. A victory feast. They’d been toasted as heroes, the Band of the Hawk. Griffith, radiant and untouchable at the high table, accepting the accolades with that serene, knowing smile.
And Casca. Casca, playing her part, a little too well. She’d slid her arm through his, leaning into his side, laughing a little too loudly at some noble’s joke. My fierce protector, she’d said, voice carrying. A performance for the court. He’d gone along with it, stiff and uncomfortable in his formal clothes. But he’d felt a gaze on them, sharp and weighted, like a blade balanced on its point. He’d looked up and met Griffith’s blue eyes across the smoky hall. There was nothing in them. Absolutely nothing. That was worse.
The door creaked.
Guts’s eyes snapped open. No one came here. It was understood. This sliver of damp, dark privacy was his.
The figure in the doorway was silhouetted by the weak torchlight from the corridor beyond. Tall, slender, wrapped in a heavy velvet robe. Silver hair, even in the gloom, caught the light like a spill of mercury.
“Commander?” Guts’s voice was gravel in the quiet. He didn’t move, the water suddenly feeling tepid, insubstantial.
Griffith stepped inside and shut the door. The latch fell with a soft, final click. The steam seemed to part for her as she moved, the lantern light finally painting her features. Her face was a pale, perfect mask, but her eyes were alive, burning with an intensity he’d only ever seen on the eve of a cavalry charge. She said nothing. Her gaze held his, unblinking, as her hands went to the knotted sash at her waist.
“What are you—”
The robe sighed open. She shrugged it from her shoulders. It pooled at her feet, a puddle of shadow.
Guts’s mind simply stopped.
The curves were subtle, but undeniable. The gentle swell of hips, the narrow waist flaring to shoulders that were strong but not a man’s. The smooth plane of her stomach, the pale, shadowed valley between her breasts. The body before him was unequivocally, devastatingly female. All the rumors, the odd androgyny, the ethereal beauty that men whispered about with a confused hunger—it crystallized in this impossible, silent revelation.
He stared, his brain scrambling for purchase. Griffith. His commander. The strategic genius, the peerless fighter, the person he’d pledged his sword to. A woman. She had always been a woman.
She watched the understanding shatter his composure, her expression still eerily calm. Then she stepped toward the tub.
“Griffith—” His voice was a hoarse rasp. He started to rise, water sloshing, modesty a distant, irrelevant concern in the face of this.
She placed a foot into the water, then the other, sinking down into the space opposite him in the cramped tub. The water rose, lapping at the rust-stained rim. Her knees brushed his under the surface. She was close enough that he could see the rapid pulse at the base of her throat, smell the scent of her—not sweat and steel, but night air and something like cold jasmine.
He was frozen, every battle-honed instinct short-circuited. “Why?”
Her lips parted, but no answer came. Instead, one hand rose from the water, droplets tracing paths down her forearm. Her fingers, cool despite the heat, touched his jaw, a feather-light pressure that somehow pinned him in place. Her eyes searched his face, the calm in them fracturing to show a tempest beneath—a wild, jealous, desperate thing she’d kept chained behind her ribs for years.
She leaned in. The world narrowed to the points of contact: her knees against his, her fingers on his skin, her breath mingling with the steam.
When her lips met his, it was not an exploration. It was a claim. A silent, furious statement. It was the unspoken words from the banquet hall, the weight of that gaze, the years of hidden truth, all poured into this one, shocking point of contact. It was nothing like he could have imagined. It was heat and softness and a terrifying, absolute certainty.
And as Guts sat there, stunned, the water swirling around them, he realized he was kissing her back.
And as Guts sat there, stunned, the water swirling around them, he realized he was kissing her back. Something in his chest cracked open, a dam of pure feeling breaking through years of disciplined silence. His hands came up of their own accord, one cupping the back of her neck, the other splaying across the slick skin of her lower back, pulling her tighter against him. The taste of her was clean, like cold water, and her mouth was desperate.
His mind went blank. The why, the how, the world outside this cramped, steamy room—it all dissolved into a white noise behind the roaring in his ears. There was only the heat of the water, the shock of her skin under his palms, and the unbearable pressure of wanting her.
His mouth left hers, trailing a wet, burning path down the line of her throat. She arched back, a gasp catching in her chest. He went lower, his lips finding the soft, perfect weight of her breast, taking the peak into his mouth. He sucked, gently at first, then with a hunger that surprised him. His other hand came up to toy with her other nipple, rolling it between his thumb and forefinger. She made a sound, a sharp, broken whimper that was nothing like her voice on the battlefield.
He switched his attention from one breast to the other, and she began to squirm. Not away, but into him, her hips shifting restlessly against his under the water. The friction was maddening. His own hardness, which he’d been trying to ignore, pressed against her thigh.
Enough.
His hands slid down from her breasts, over the dip of her waist, and clamped onto her hips. He lifted her, just enough, and then guided her back down onto him. The fit was tight, impossibly so, a slow, burning slide that made his vision blur at the edges. She cried out, her head falling back, her silver hair dripping into the water.
He began to move her, rocking her back and forth on his length, setting a slow, deep rhythm. The water slapped gently against the sides of the tub. Her breaths came in ragged sobs, her fingers digging into his shoulders hard enough to bruise. She was whispering, a litany of “please” and “more” and his name, choked out between moans. The pleasure built inside her, tightening like a coil, until she shattered against him. Her body locked, her inner muscles clenching around him in a series of pulsing waves that dragged a raw groan from his own throat.
She went limp against him, forehead damp on his shoulder, panting. He thought it was over. He was prepared to stop.
Then her lips brushed his ear. Her voice was shredded silk, soft but absolutely clear, the voice of his commander giving an order.
“Now,” she whispered, the heat of her breath a brand against his skin. “Take me to the bed. And fuck me until I forget how to walk.”
Guts, the ever-loyal soldier, simply acted.
He stood up in the tub, water cascading from them both. He lifted her with him, her legs wrapping around his waist, and stepped out onto the stone floor. He didn’t dry off. He didn’t grab a sheet. He carried her, dripping, across the narrow space to the simple cot, her skin gleaming in the lantern light.
He laid her down on the rough wool blanket. She looked up at him, her blue eyes wide and dark, her chest heaving. Her gaze traveled down his body, over the scars and the hardened muscle, and then lower.
Her breath hitched.
He saw it. A flicker in her eyes, just for a second. Not fear, exactly. But a sudden, sharp awareness. A calculation. Her eyes fixed on his manhood, still erect and jutting from his body. The size of him, the thickness. It was one thing to feel him inside her in the water. It was another to see him like this, looming over her in the dim light. A nervous tension straightened her spine for just a moment, a hesitation that hadn’t been there seconds before.