Chapter 19: One Last Stop
The silence of the castle corridors was a dense, woolen thing after the warmth of Nan’s room. Kerr walked it like a ghost, his body thrumming with a spent energy that had nowhere to go. The confrontation with his parents, the brutal honesty from Mother Mallol, the grounding comfort of Nan—it all swirled inside him, a churning sea with no shore. His skin felt too tight. His thoughts were too loud. Sleep was a country he had no passport to.
His feet, without conscious command, carried him upward, to the guest wing where the air smelled of beeswax and aged silk. He stopped before a heavy oak door, behind which a single sliver of candlelight bled into the hall. He listened. No sound of quill on parchment, no rustle of correspondence. Just the low, patient hiss of a dying fire.
He opened the door.
The room was a pool of shadows and deep crimson. Tapestries of hunting scenes swallowed the stone walls. A fire coughed embers onto the hearth. At the large canopied bed, Landra Aeducan lay on her side, a silhouette under the covers, her back to the door. Her breathing was slow and even.
He closed the door with a soft click. The sound made her stir, but she did not turn. He undressed quietly, letting his clothes fall to the thick rug, the night air cool on his skin. He lifted the heavy covers and slid in behind her. The heat of her body was immediate, a solid, comforting reality. He spooned against her, his front to her back, naked.
She murmured something sleep-thickened, shifting. He slipped a hand beneath the hem of her linen nightgown, his palm finding the smooth, warm plane of her belly. His fingers traced the gentle curve, finding the distinctive outward protrusion of her navel. He circled it slowly.
A shiver ran through her. Her body instinctively pressed back into him, fitting the contours of his against hers. A soft, breathy giggle escaped her, followed by a low moan as his hand wandered lower, then back up to rest possessively on her stomach.
“Kerr,” she sighed, more statement than question.
He bent his head, his lips brushing the shell of her ear. “I can’t sleep.”
She made a sound of understanding, of welcome. Reaching behind her, she took his hardness in her hand, guiding him. She hitched her leg up, opening herself, and positioned him at her entrance. “Then get what you needs,” she whispered back, her voice raspy with sleep and anticipation.
He pushed in slowly, a profound, stretching fullness that made her gasp and arch. He moved with a deliberate, deep rhythm, each slow stroke a study in sensation. The friction was exquisite, almost too much to bear. He buried his face in the sheets at her shoulder, a groan tearing from his throat, low and uncontrollable.
“Maker’ breath,” she cursed, her voice tight. “I’m… I’m coming.” The first climax took her, a sharp, clenching wave that squeezed him tightly. Before it fully ebbed, a second rolled through her, stronger, longer. “Again,” she whispered, awed, as her body bowed against his, surrendering completely.
His pace never faltered, a constant, rocking cadence that drove her beyond thought, beyond sense. Her back arched, pressing her solidly against his chest, her fingers clutching at the sheets. The world narrowed to the joining of their bodies, to the slick heat and the pounding of two hearts.
His own end gathered, a pressure building at the base of his spine, heat coiling in his gut. It burst, flooding into her with a series of thick, pulsing releases that felt like a warm, healing liquid. He thrust through it, each movement now a sharp, almost painful wince of pleasure until he was spent, slumped against her, breathing ragged.
For a long time, they lay there, still joined. His hand remained splayed over her belly, feeling the gentle rise and fall of her breath. She was tight against him, relaxed, utterly content to let him stay.
She was tight against him, relaxed, utterly content to let him stay. The fire finally guttered out, leaving the room in pure, velvety darkness. Kerr’s breathing evened into sleep, his hand a warm anchor on her stomach.
Somewhere in the deepest part of the night, Landra woke. The pleasant ache between her legs had faded to a dull throb. The reality of their situation, of the castle’s waking hours, seeped into the warmth of the bed. She shifted, feeling the solid, sleeping weight of him behind her.
“Kerr,” she whispered into the dark.
A soft, questioning grunt was his only reply.
“You can’t keep doing this,” she said, her voice firmer now, laced with a practicality that had governed her life for decades. “Risking being caught sleeping in my room like you’re still fifteen. The stakes are different now.”
He made a low, agreeable sound, a vibration against her back. His arm around her waist tightened slightly, his hand sliding from her stomach down over the curve of her hip. He nudged her thigh with his own, prompting her to shift. Still half-asleep, he guided himself into her from behind, slipping into the wet, welcoming heat with a single, smooth motion.
“Mmf. I’m being serious,” she tried to say, but the words dissolved into a gasp. His pace was slow, agonizingly deliberate, a deep, rolling grind that seemed aimed at the very core of her sanity. It wasn’t frantic; it was algorithmic, dismantling her.
She came in seconds. A sharp, silent cry ripped through her, her body seizing around him. The climax didn’t crest and fall—it plateaued, intensified, a continuous, shocking current of pleasure that stole her breath and her reason. He held her through it, his rhythm unbroken, a metronome measuring her unraveling.
Her legs began to tremble, little spasms she couldn’t control. Just as the shaking threatened to become uncontrollable, his own pace fractured. He drove into her, hard and deep, and spilled a gigantic, pumping load inside her that felt impossibly hot and voluminous. He shuddered once, twice, then went completely still, his body going heavy with immediate sleep.
His breathing deepened. His hand drifted back up to her navel, his thumb instinctively finding the small, protruding knot of flesh. He traced slow, absent circles around it.
Landra lay there, utterly conquered, feeling the warm trickle between her thighs. The sane, political part of her mind reasserted itself, clawing through the haze. She waited until his circling thumb slowed, then stopped.
“Kerr,” she said again, her voice earnest and clear. “Listen to me. It’s not good. If a servant sees you leave at dawn, the gossip won’t just be about a boy’s indiscretion. It will be about an alliance compromised. It will be used.”
He nodded his head against the pillow, a sleepy acknowledgment. “Mmhmm.”
He shifted then, rolling onto his back and pulling her with him. Before she could formulate her next point, he had her settled atop him, straddling his hips. The faint grey light of pre-dawn etched the hard planes of his chest and the sleepy determination on his face.
“I heard you,” he murmured, his hands gripping her hips.
He lifted her easily and guided her down onto him, filling her in one long, seated stroke that made her eyes roll back. He began to move her, setting a devastating, upward rhythm, his own hips meeting her descents. This was different. Purposeful. He watched her face, his gaze intent as she splintered.
The first orgasm was a surprise, a bright, shocking burst. The second was deeper, a rolling wave that coiled from her core. He didn’t stop, his hands on her hips like anchors, driving her into a third, then a fourth peak, each stripping away another layer of her protest until she was just a vessel for sensation.
On the fifth, a hoarse, broken sound escaped her throat. He felt her internal muscles fluttering in a frantic, endless series of clenches. With a final, powerful surge up into her, he overfilled her again, a hot, claiming rush that sparked a sixth, smaller tremor through her exhausted body.
She collapsed forward onto his chest, utterly spent, her limbs liquid. He held her there, both of them slick with sweat, the room slowly lightening from black to grey. The threat of dawn was now a real, creeping line at the window.
Kerr stared up at the dark canopy of the bed, feeling Landra’s weight, the evidence of their night cooling on his skin. The Chantry’s silence, Nan’s warmth, Landra’s warnings—they were all echoes now, drowned out by a simpler, physical truth. But outside this room, the world was turning, and his father’s decisions, like the coming sun, would not be held back by the night.