Chapter 9: A Brutal Claim
Kaelen didn’t speak. He moved.
One strong arm hooked around her waist, yanking her inside. The door shut with a soft, definitive thud, the lock clicking back into place. The world shrank to the firelit room, the smell of him—woodsmoke, sweat, and something fiercely alive.
“Shadows told you,” he repeated, his voice low and gravelly. His gaze wasn’t on her eyes anymore. It swept down her body, a palpable heat tracing the thin linen plastered to her skin by the corridor’s chill. The fabric was nearly transparent in the fire’s glow, outlining the curve of her hips, the tight peaks of her nipples drawn taut from cold and fear. Her dark hair was a messy cascade over one shoulder.
She was still talking, the words spilling out in a frantic river. “He’s down there, Kaelen, I felt him, he’s in the stones, he’s hungry—”
“I believe you.”
The quiet certainty in his voice cut through her panic. He believed her. No proof, no logic. Just her word, her terror. The relief was so profound it made her legs weak.
But his eyes weren’t reflecting relief. They burned with a different intensity. He was listening, but he was also seeing. His focus dipped to where her dress had ridden up her thigh as she’d rushed in, then back to her chest, the rapid rise and fall of her breath. A muscle jumped in his jaw.
“We have to get Ronan, we have to plan, we can’t stay here—” she insisted, pacing a short, agitated path on the thick fur rug. With each turn, the linen twisted, revealing more of her legs.
“Ronan’s door is locked. He’s scheming in the dark. We’ll get him when it’s light.” Kaelen’s response was distractedly pragmatic. He leaned back against the door, his arms crossing over his bare chest. The firelight licked over the planes of his stomach, the defined V that disappeared into his low-sleep pants. There was a pronounced, thick line of arousal straining against the fabric.
He was hard. Visibly, unabashedly hard.
Amira’s breath hitched. The danger outside the room was mortal, ancient, and cold. The danger in here was immediate, hot, and staring right at her. The two fears tangled, one feeding the other, until her skin felt too tight, too sensitive.
“You’re not… you’re not listening,” she said, but the conviction had bled from her voice.
“I am.” He pushed off the door. “I heard every word. Blood ritual. Larder. We’re fucking dinner.” He took a step toward her. “You came to me. Shaking. In this.” His hand lifted, not touching her, but gesturing to the flimsy dress. “You trusted me with your secret. Now trust me with this.”
“With what?” The question was a whisper.
“This.” His hand finally made contact, a calloused palm settling on her waist. The heat of it seared through the linen. “You’re scared to death. So am I. I don’t want to die with this between us. I don’t want to die wanting you so fucking badly it feels like my guts are twisted.”
His honesty was a weapon. It disarmed her completely. The last of her resistance crumbled, not into submission, but into a shared, desperate need. The hidden part of her, the shadow-touched part, resonated with his raw, fire-fed hunger.
She didn’t protest when his other hand came up to cradle her face. His thumb brushed her lower lip. His green eyes searched hers, asking a final, silent question.
She answered by surging up and kissing him.
It wasn’t like the first time in the inn corridor. That had been soft, questioning. This was a conflagration. Her lips parted under his instantly, and his tongue plunged into her mouth, hot and demanding. A low groan vibrated from his chest into hers. Her hands flew to his shoulders, digging into the hard muscle, feeling the shock of his bare skin.
He walked her backward until her shoulder blades hit the cold, obsidian wall beside the fireplace. The shock of cold stone against her back made her gasp into his mouth. He ate the sound. His hands slid down from her face, over her neck, to the fragile neckline of her dress.
“This,” he growled against her lips, “is in the way.”
He didn’t fiddle with ties. He gripped the fabric at her collarbone and tore it downward. The sound of ripping linen was shockingly loud in the room. The dress gave way, splitting down the front to her navel, falling open to expose her. The cool air and his scorching gaze hit her skin at once. Her breasts were full, her nipples dark and tight. He looked his fill, his breath coming in ragged pulls.
“Fuck, Amira.” The words were pure worship and pure filth. He bent his head, his mouth closing over one nipple, tongue lashing the stiff peak before sucking it deep into the heat of his mouth. She cried out, her back arching off the wall, her fingers tangling in his fiery hair. The sensation was electric, a direct line drawn between her nipple and the pooling heat between her legs.
His other hand shoved the ruined dress off her shoulders, letting it puddle at her feet. She stood naked against the obsidian, bathed in firelight and shadow. He dropped to his knees.
“I need to taste you.” His voice was rough, his hands sliding up her trembling thighs, pushing them apart. “Now.”
His breath ghosted over her curls, and then there was no more waiting. His mouth was on her, open and voracious. His tongue stabbed into her without preamble, licking deep into her slit, gathering the wetness that had already soaked her. She was dripping for him, her fear and longing having conspired to make her slick and ready.
“Kaelen!” His name was a broken plea.
He answered with a grunt, his hands hooking under her thighs, lifting her, pinning her against the wall. He devoured her. His tongue circled her clit, rough and relentless, then flattened against it, applying a pressure that made her see stars. He fucked her with his tongue, then sucked her clit between his lips, worrying it gently with his teeth.
She was sobbing, her heels digging into the small of his back, her hips bucking against his face. The world dissolved into sensation—the cold, unforgiving wall, the scorching heat of his mouth, the coarse texture of his stubble against her inner thighs. Her shadow power, always so tightly leashed, began to seep out in her abandon. The shadows in the corner of the room deepened, pulsing in time with the thrust of his tongue.
He added a finger, then two, pushing them deep inside her while his tongue continued its assault on her clit. He curled his fingers, finding a spot that made her scream, her internal muscles clenching around the intrusion. He pumped them in and out, the sound obscenely wet, his mouth never leaving her.
“You taste so good,” he slurred against her flesh, his words muffled. “So fucking sweet and wet for me. Come on. Come on my face. I want to feel you come.”
The command, the raw need in his voice, shattered her. The climax ripped through her without warning, a blinding, white-hot wave of pleasure that erased every thought of ghosts and blood rituals. She convulsed against his mouth, her cries echoing off the stone, her channel pulsing violently around his fingers. He rode it out, drinking from her, gentling his tongue until the last tremor subsided.
He released her legs, letting her slide down the wall until her feet, weak and unsteady, found the floor. He rose before her, a giant etched in firelight, his mouth and chin glistening with her. The look in his eyes was feral with triumph and unchecked need.
He grabbed the waistband of his sleep pants and shoved them down, freeing his erection. It sprang out, thick and veined, the head flushed a dark red. He was enormous, and the sight of him, so fully, bluntly male, sent a fresh thrill of fear and desire through her spent body.
He didn’t ask. He grasped his cock at the base, nudged the broad head through her slick folds, notching it at her entrance. His eyes locked on hers.
“This is mine,” he stated, the words a guttural claim. “You are mine. Tonight. In this fucking tomb.”
He pushed forward.
The stretch was immense, breathtaking. She was tight, and he was so big. A sharp gasp tore from her throat. He paused, buried just an inch inside, his whole body trembling with the effort to hold still. Sweat beaded on his forehead.
“Okay?” he rasped.
She could only nod, her nails biting into his shoulders. She was more than okay. She was full in a way she’d never imagined, the slight burn of the stretch a perfect counterpoint to the lingering throbs of her climax.
He read her consent in her eyes and drove the rest of the way home with one long, slow, devastating thrust.
He filled her completely, hilt-deep, his pelvis grinding against hers. The sensation was so profound it stole the air from her lungs. She felt impaled, claimed, connected to the very core of him. He let out a shattered breath, a broken “Fuck,” against her neck.
Then he began to move.
He set a brutal, deep rhythm, pulling out almost to the tip and surging back in. Each thrust rocked her body against the hard wall. The obscene, wet sound of their joining filled the room, syncopated with their ragged breaths and the crackle of the fire. He fucked her with a single-minded intensity, as if he could drive out the ghost-whispers and the lurking death by the sheer physical power of this act.
“You feel… unbelievable,” he gritted out, his face buried in her neck. “So goddamn tight around my cock. Taking me so deep.”
His words, filthy and raw, stoked the fire in her belly again. She met his thrusts, angling her hips, craving more. The pleasure built again, deeper this time, a coiled spring in her abdomen. Her magic responded in kind; the shadows behind him stretched and reached, tendrils of darkness brushing against his back as if to pull him deeper into her.
He felt it. He stiffened for a second, then laughed, a rough, exhilarated sound. “Do that again,” he demanded, slamming into her. “Use it. Let me feel all of you.”
Emboldened, she let the shadows curl around his wrists, not to bind, but to caress. She let a whisper of her power slip into the kiss she planted on his shoulder—not to influence, but to amplify, to share the sheer sensory overload. He groaned, the sound ripped from the depths of his soul, and his pace became frantic, pounding, desperate.
“I’m not… I can’t last…” he warned, his voice tight.
“Don’t you dare stop,” she gasped.
Her second climax seized her, a rolling, continuous eruption that clenched around his driving cock like a fist. The intensity of it made her vision darken at the edges. With a roar that was part shout, part sob, Kaelen followed her over. He slammed into her one final, grinding time, his body shuddering as he emptied himself deep inside her
He collapsed against her, his full weight pinning her to the wall, both of them slick with sweat and utterly spent. His breath was a hot, ragged tide against her throat. Her own lungs burned. The only sounds were the fire’s pop and their struggling gasps for air.
Her legs, locked around his hips, began to tremble uncontrollably. He felt it and slowly, carefully, lowered her until her feet touched the fur rug. He slipped out of her, and the sensation made them both wince. A thick trickle of his release trailed down her inner thigh.
The reality of the room seeped back in. The cold air on her wet skin. The torn dress around her ankles. The fading scent of sex overlaid on the older smell of stone. The whispering palace, waiting.
“Oh, fuck,” Kaelen breathed, the words barely audible. He ran a hand through his sweat-damp hair, his gaze darting from her nakedness to the locked door, then back to her face. The fierce possession in his eyes fractured into something like alarm. “Amira.”
She wrapped her arms around herself, suddenly, acutely vulnerable. Not from him, but from everything else. What had they just done? In the heart of a trap, moments after a dire warning, they’d fucked against a wall like animals. It felt necessary and catastrophically stupid all at once.
He saw her shiver. Moving stiffly, he walked to the rumpled bed and grabbed the linen shirt he’d discarded earlier. He returned and held it out, not meeting her eyes. “Here.”
She took it. The fabric was soft, warm from his body, and smelled overwhelmingly of him. She pulled it on, the hem falling to her mid-thighs. It was a tangible barrier, a piece of his armor she now wore. He yanked his sleep pants back up, tying the cord with abrupt, jerky motions.
They stood there in the guttering firelight, two conspirators in a crime of passion, the “oh shit” moment hanging thick between them. The frantic heat was gone, replaced by a chilled clarity. They were still prey. And now they were tangled.
“We can’t…” she started, her voice hoarse.
“We won’t,” he finished, finally looking at her. His expression was grim, practical. The prince was back, cloaking the raw man. “Not a word. To anyone. This doesn’t exist. It can’t. Not until we’re out of these damned mountains.”
She nodded, her throat tight. The unspoken especially not to Ronan screamed in the silence.
“Get back to your room,” he said, his voice low. “Wait for the servant call in the morning. Act normal. We’ll find Ronan then and… figure out the rest.”
She moved to the door, his shirt whispering against her skin. He unlocked it, cracked it open, and peered into the desolate hallway. The empty silence felt more accusing than any witness.
“Go,” he whispered.
She slipped out. The obsidian wall of his chamber felt like a membrane she’d crossed from one world into another. The walk back to her room was ten miles long. Every shadow seemed to leer. She locked her door and slid down it to the floor, pulling her knees up inside the haven of his shirt. She could still feel him inside her, a phantom fullness. She could still smell him on the fabric. She buried her face in it and did not let herself cry.
The morning arrived with a sterile grey light and a soft knock bearing a breakfast tray. Amira washed mechanically with the cold water in the basin, dressing in her own simple clothes, folding Kaelen’s shirt and hiding it at the very bottom of her pack. A secret beneath her herbs.
She met them in the frost-rimmed garden, a place of cruel beauty. Ronan was already there, studying the architecture of a frozen fountain as if it held battle diagrams. Kaelen leaned against a black pine, looking tired but composed. He gave her a brief, neutral nod. A stranger’s nod.
“We need to talk,” Amira said, her voice surprisingly steady. “Alone. Not here.”
Ronan’s ice-blue eyes slid from the fountain to her face. They missed nothing—the slight pallor of her skin, the careful way she avoided looking at Kaelen, the new tension that crackled between the two of them like static before a storm. He knew something had shifted. His expression remained impassive.
“The gallery,” he said simply. “It’s open, and echoes less.”
They walked, a tense trio, to a long, narrow room lined with paintings of grim-faced ancestors. Ronan stopped in the center, ensuring a view of both entrances. “Speak.”
Amira took a breath. She told him of the whispers, the chill at her ankle, the face in the chandelier, the impressions of damp earth and blood. She told him of Felix’s ghost-voice, the warning about roots and sacrifices and royal blood. She omitted only the source of her understanding, saying instead, “This place… communicates. To those who listen. I’ve always been sensitive to such things.”
She then said, “I told Kaelen last night. I was… afraid. I went to his room.”
Ronan’s gaze flicked to Kaelen, who stared fixedly at a portrait of a man with Aldrich’s cold eyes. “You woke him for this,” Ronan stated.
“Yes,” Kaelen said, the word short. “She did.”
A beat of silence. Ronan processed it all with terrifying speed. The supernatural threat was catalogued, accepted as a working theory. But the human detail—her going to Kaelen’s room in the dead of night—he circled it like a puzzle. His eyes rested on Amira, a quiet, penetrating scrutiny that made her feel transparent. He knew. Not the specifics, but the fact. Something had happened between Kaelen and Amira. Something that now lived in the space between their carefully averted glances.
“I see,” Ronan said finally, the words cool and smooth. “So our host is a geriatric priest feeding a geologic god. And we are the chosen feast.” He clasped his hands behind his back, turning to survey the gallery. “A blood ritual requires preparation, a specific location. He’ll need to get us there, subdued. Tonight, most likely, during the formal supper he’s no doubt planning.”
“We need a plan,” Amira urged, relieved he believed her, unnerved by his calm.
“We have one,” Ronan said. “We walk into his trap.”
Kaelen pushed off the wall. “What?”
“We let him think he’s won. We separate at the meal, as he’ll expect. We allow ourselves to be taken to his ritual space.” Ronan turned back, his eyes glacial. “Because that is where we will find the root of this, the source of his power. And that is the only place where we can rip it out and burn it.”
It was a brutal, risky strategy. It played directly into Aldrich’s hands.
“He’ll have guards. Magic,” Kaelen argued, but his heart wasn’t in it. He was already calculating the fire he’d unleash.
“He will,” Ronan agreed. “But his attention will be on the ceremony, on the sacrifice. That is our moment. Not before.” He looked at Amira. “Can you… listen? When the time comes? Guide us to the true heart of it?”
She nodded, the shadow power coiling tight within her, a secret weapon he only half-perceived.
“Then we prepare,” Ronan concluded. His gaze encompassed them both, resting a fraction longer on the unspoken thing that hung in the air. “We rest. We appear compliant. And tonight, we end this.” He paused, his voice dropping to a near whisper. “And for fate’s sake, both of you, stop looking like you’ve seen a ghost. We need him confident. We need him smug.”
He walked away, leaving them standing amid the painted ancestors. Kaelen let out a long, slow breath. Amira risked a glance at him. His jaw was clenched, his eyes on Ronan’s retreating back. There was no warmth there now, only a grim resolve, and perhaps a sliver of guilt. Ronan knew. And Ronan had said nothing. That, perhaps, was the most terrifying thing of all.