Chapter 8: The Warmth of Her Hands
The fire burned down to embers, painting the room in deep, shifting carmine. Imoria sat perfectly still, her hand resting on Markus’s chest, feeling the steady, slowing drum of his heart beneath her palm. The heat of his skin seeped through the linen of his smallclothes. His breathing, finally, had lost its ragged edge, smoothing into the deep, rhythmic tide of true sleep.
Her own muscles ached with the strain of stillness. The damp wool of her dress had begun to steam in the fire’s warmth, itching against her skin. She didn’t move. She watched the shadows play across the tapestries—scenes of battles she didn’t know, victories that belonged to a mad old king. This was a room of conquest, and she was an uninvited guest in its quietest hour.
His hand, which had fallen slack over hers, suddenly twitched. A low, incoherent murmur escaped his lips. His brow furrowed, the peaceful sleeper vanishing. “No,” he breathed, the word tight with a dream’s panic. “Not the east stair. William, don’t.”
The dream was clear. He was back there, in his own past, fighting a war inside his home.
Imoria acted without thought. She shifted her weight, bringing her other hand up to his shoulder. Not shaking, just a firm, grounding pressure. “Markus,” she said, her voice low but clear in the silent room. “It’s done. He’s safe.”
He jerked, a full-body flinch, and his eyes flew open. They were wild, unseeing for a second, filled with the ghost of whatever horror he’d been reliving. They focused on her face, hovering above him in the dim light. Recognition dawned, slow and hazy. The terror didn’t leave; it just changed shape, melting into a confusion so profound it looked like pain.
“Imoria?” His voice was scraped raw.
“You were dreaming.”
He stared at her, then at her hand still pressed against his chest, as if trying to solve a puzzle. The last vestiges of the dream clung to him. He swallowed, his throat clicking. “The east stair… he almost…”
“I know,” she said, because she did. She knew the specific flavor of nightmare that replayed your worst fears for those you loved. She had them about Kathryn, about a careless word, a misplaced step, a suitor’s glance that lingered too long in the wrong direction.
He lifted his own hand, covering hers completely, holding it in place. His skin was fever-warm. “You stayed.”
“You asked me to.”
“I ask a lot of people for a lot of things. They rarely listen.” He said it as a flat fact, not a complaint. His thumb moved, a slow, absent stroke across her knuckles. The calluses scraped softly against her skin. “You bolted the door.”
“I did.”
A faint, exhausted smirk touched his mouth. “Little treason, that.”
“Add it to my list.”
The smirk faded. He studied her face, his gaze tracing the lines of exhaustion under her eyes, the damp tendrils of hair at her temples. The silence stretched, but it wasn’t empty. It was full of the things they weren’t saying—the ambush, the insult, her family, his brother, the locked door, the fact that she had undressed him and he’d let her.
“I can’t remember the last time someone made me stop,” he said finally. The confession was quiet, tossed into the space between them like a stone into a still pond.
“Someone had to.”
“Why you?”
The question hung there. She looked away, toward the guttering fire. “Because I know what it looks like to grind yourself to dust for a family that doesn’t see you. I won’t watch you do it for one that does.”
The words were out before she could temper them, sharper and more revealing than she’d intended. She felt him go very still beneath her hand.
“Is that what you are?” he asked, his voice barely above a whisper. “Dust?”
She didn’t answer. She focused on the feeling of his heartbeat, a steady counter-rhythm to the quiet panic in her own.
The question—Is that what you are? Dust?—lingered, sharp as a shard of glass in the quiet. She could lie. She had a lifetime of practice. But the weight of his hand over hers, the warmth of his skin through the linen, the locked door that felt less like a prison and more like the world’s first honest wall, made the practiced words ash in her mouth.
She opened her mouth, but no sound came.
He moved suddenly. Not with the calculated grace of a king, but with the clumsy, half-awake urgency of the man beneath. His hand shifted from hers, sliding behind her back. He tugged, a single firm pull that unbalanced her from her careful perch on the bedside.
She gasped, bracing a hand against his shoulder as she tipped toward him. “What—?”
“You’re soaked through,” he muttered, his voice thick with sleep and something else. His other hand came up, fingers finding the laces at the back of her dress. They fumbled, clumsy against the water-swollen knots. He worked at them with a focused, quiet frustration, a mirror of her own actions from before. The damp wool loosened.
Her mind went blank and loud at the same time. She should stop him. This was a line, invisible and profound. “Markus—”
“You’ll catch a cold.” The laces gave. He carefully pushed the heavy dress from her shoulders, down her arms, helping her out of the suffocating weight of it just as she had freed him from his armor. The firelight painted her bare shoulders, the simple linen shift beneath. “Stay with me,” he begged quietly, his words a warm breath against her skin. “No one will know. Just for sleep.”
The simplicity of it undid her. Just for sleep. Not for politics, or strategy, or to fix a problem. Just the human, fragile need for warmth and the cessation of being alone. Her dress pooled at her waist. His hands stilled, waiting.
Her every instinct, forged in the silent halls of Eltheria, screamed to retreat. To reassemble her dignity and her duty. But another part, a part that had climbed watchtowers and pointed out frayed ropes and bolted doors, was so desperately tired of the cold.
She didn’t speak. She let her weight settle, and with a slight shift, allowed the dress to fall completely, kicking it softly to the floor. The fire’s heat kissed her legs. She lifted the blanket and slid beneath it, the linens cool against her skin. She kept to the far edge of the vast bed, her back to him, curling inward.
The space between them yawned, a chasm of inches that felt like miles.
She heard him shift. The mattress dipped as he turned onto his side, facing her. His body heat reached for her across the expanse. She held herself rigid, listening to his breathing, feeling the impossible reality of sharing a king’s bed.
His hand found her hip, not pulling, just resting. A solid, warm weight through the thin shift.
“In the tower,” he whispered into the dark, “you said I hadn’t caught you yet.”
She didn’t move.
“This isn’t catching,” he said, his thumb moving in a barely-there arc. “This is just… stopping the chase. For a few hours.”
The tight coil in her chest began to loosen, strand by slow strand. The panic receded, leaving a weary, vast emptiness. She uncurled, just slightly. Let her body relax into the mattress. Her back pressed lightly against his chest, his hand settling more firmly on her waist.
His breath ruffled her hair. The last of the tension bled from his frame, his form molding to the shape of hers. The storm of his nightmares, the specter of Bracken’s insult, the weight of the crown—it all seemed to drain away, leaving only this shared, silent warmth.
Sleep didn’t come for her. She lay awake, feeling the steady rise and fall of his chest against her back, counting each breath. The fire cracked softly. Somewhere in the keep, a door closed. The world continued outside the bolted door, but in here, time stretched and stilled.
She was not dust here. In the dark, with his arm around her, she was solid. She was warm.
He murmured something unintelligible, his arm tightening infinitesimally. She closed her eyes. Just for sleep, she thought. And for the first time in a lifetime of vigilance, she let someone else stand watch.
Sleep took her not with a surrender, but as a silent, creeping tide. The warmth of him against her back, the solid weight of his arm, became the only facts in the universe. Her vigilant mind, always tracing threats and tasks in the dark, finally ran out of paths to follow. It stilled. Her breathing deepened, syncing with his.
In the deep well of the night, the careful distance she’d maintained collapsed. She turned into him, her face finding the hollow of his throat. His hand slid from her waist to the small of her back, pulling her closer. They tangled together instinctively, limbs shifting, seeking comfort in the shared heat. It was not graceful or planned. It was two people shipwrecked, clinging to the same piece of driftwood in a calm, black sea.
She dreamed of nothing. For once, there was only the dark and the warmth and the slow, dual rhythm of their hearts.
A sliver of grey light, thin and cold as a knife blade, cut through the gap in the heavy curtains. It fell across Imoria’s eyes. She stirred, consciousness returning not with a jolt but with a slow, heavy unwillingness. The world came back in pieces. The smell of him—sweat, leather, something clean and sharp like winter pine. The feel of heavy muscle under her cheek, the coarse hair on his chest against her palm. Her leg was thrown over his, his forearm a solid band across her ribs, pinning her to him.
She was held. Completely.
Her eyes opened. She didn’t move. She watched the dust motes dance in the grey light, feeling the profound, unfamiliar safety of his embrace. His sleep was deep, his face smoothed of its usual severity. He looked younger. Weathered, but not weary.
He stirred then, a deep breath that rumbled in his chest beneath her ear. His hand flexed against her spine, pressing her closer as if confirming she was still there. His eyes opened. They were clear, immediately aware, finding her gaze in the near-dark.
For a long moment, they just looked at each other. No masks, no titles, just the shocking intimacy of shared sleep and tangled limbs. The memory of the previous night—the watchtower, the ambush, the locked door—hung between them, but it felt distant, like a story about other people.
He lifted his hand from her back, his fingers brushing a strand of silver hair from her cheek. The touch was deliberate, unbearably gentle.
“When I ask you in front of the court,” he said, his voice raspy with sleep, “it will be a formality. A piece of political theatre. Necessary, but it won’t be the truth.”
Her breath caught. She didn’t dare move.
“The truth is now.” His thumb traced the line of her jaw. “In this room. With the door still bolted.” He searched her face, his own utterly earnest, stripped bare. “Be my wife. Right now. Tell me yes, and you are my queen. Everything else is just noise.”
The world narrowed to the feel of his skin, the intensity of his gaze, the utter silence of the castle at dawn. This was the precipice. Not a strategic alliance offered in a sunlit hall, but a wild, private claim staked in the quiet aftermath of a storm. He was giving her the choice her family never had: to be seen, and to choose in return.
She thought of the servants with missing tongues. Of Kathryn in the sun. Of a lifetime spent as a shadow, tending to a crown she was never meant to wear. This man, with his jealousies and his nightmares and his unyielding hands, had seen the shape of her in the dark.
“Yes,” she said. The word was a whisper, but it echoed in the still room. “I want to be your wife.”
A shudder went through him, a release of tension so profound it was like watching a mountain sigh. The intensity in his eyes softened into something warmer, more wondrous. He didn’t cheer. He didn’t shout. He simply brought his forehead to rest against hers, closing his eyes for a second as if receiving a blessing.
Then he kissed her. It was not hurried. It was a slow, deepening exploration, a conversation without words. His hands rose to cradle her face, his thumbs stroking her temples. She kissed him back, her fingers curling into the hair at the nape of his neck, pulling him closer. The blanket slipped away, forgotten.
The grey light grew stronger, defining the planes of his shoulders, the curve of her spine. He touched her with a reverence that felt like discovery, his calloused hands learning the map of her—the athlete’s taut muscle of her back, the sensitive dip of her waist, the fierce pulse at the base of her throat. Every scar, every ridge of bone was treated not as a flaw, but as part of her history.
When he finally slid her linen shift up and over her head, discarding it to the floor where her dress already lay, the cool dawn air pebbled her skin. He paused, looking his fill, his expression one of raw awe. “My wife,” he breathed, as if naming something sacred.
He was not a gentle man by nature. His world was one of edges and force. But with her, in that quiet hour, he was infinitely soft. His movements were deliberate, patient, a study in controlled care. He took his time, learning what made her breath hitch, what made her nails dig lightly into his arms. There was no conquest here, only a mutual unveiling.
When he entered her, it was with a slow, inexorable pressure that made her cry out, a short, sharp sound swallowed by his kiss. He stilled, letting her adjust, his entire body trembling with the effort of his restraint. “Alright?” he murmured against her lips.
She answered by shifting her hips, drawing him deeper, a claiming of her own.
What followed was not a frenzy, but a deep, rolling tide. A slow building of rhythm, a fusion of breath and heat. He whispered things—fragments, promises, her name—into the skin of her neck. The world beyond the bolted door, the kingdom and its threats, dissolved into irrelevance. There was only this: the glide of skin, the shared rhythm, the building tension that was both pleasure and a profound, wrenching vulnerability.
She fell over the edge first, a silent, shuddering collapse into sensation, her body arching against his. He followed moments after, his own release a stifled groan buried in the crook of her shoulder, his whole frame tightening then melting into a heavy, sated warmth.
The grey light had brightened to pale gold. They lay entwined, slick with sweat, hearts hammering against each other’s ribs in a slowing, syncopated beat. He rolled to his side, taking her with him, keeping her anchored to the length of his body. He nuzzled the mess of her hair, his breath evening out.
Outside, a cock crowed. The faint sounds of the castle waking—a distant door, the clang of a bucket—began to filter through the stone. The world was returning, impatient and inevitable.
Markus pressed a kiss to her shoulder. “The court will be waiting,” he said, his voice thick with a new, possessive satisfaction. “My wife.”
The word still hung in the warm, charged air when the door handle rattled. It was a sharp, metallic jiggle that sliced through the quiet. Then a solid thump of a shoulder against the oak.
“Markus?” William’s voice, muffled but clear, came from the corridor. “You in there? The council’s been milling around like nervous geese for an hour. Roric’s chewing the tapestries.”
Imoria froze. Markus’s arm, which had been a relaxed weight across her ribs, tightened. His body went from languid to battle-ready in an instant, though he didn’t move from where he lay intertwined with her. He pressed a finger to his own lips, his eyes locked on hers. A wild, silent question passed between them: Let him go away?
Another, more insistent rattle. “Come on, I know you’re in there. I checked the armory, the tower, the stables. You’re either dead or you’re hiding. Which is it?”
The practicality of the situation settled over Imoria, colder than the dawn air. William wouldn’t leave. The kingdom needed its king. Their stolen hours were over. She gave a slight, resigned shake of her head.
Markus’s jaw tightened. He called out, his voice roughened by sleep and recent use. “I’m not dead. Give me a minute.”
A beat of silence from the hall. “You sound like you’re dying of thirst. Open the door.”
“I said a minute, William.” There was a low warning in it, the king’s voice reasserting itself.
The silence that followed was different. It was a thinking silence. Imoria could picture William on the other side of the wood, head tilted, connecting the pieces: the bolted door, the missed council, his brother’s unusual command to wait.
“Is she in there with you?” William asked. His tone had shed all its jesting. It was flat. Direct.
Markus closed his eyes for a second, as if gathering strength. He looked at Imoria, an apology and a defiance in his gaze. He raised his voice. “Yes.”
Another pause. This one felt heavy. “Right.” A single word, loaded. They heard his footsteps retreat, not down the hall, but a few paces to the left. Then the distinctive squeak of the old iron hinge on the linen cupboard he used as a private alcove for reading. He’d decided to wait, after all.
The spell was shattered. The warm cocoon of the bed now felt exposed. Imoria pulled away, sitting up. The blanket fell to her waist. She scanned the floor for her shift, her dress, any piece of armor to put back on.
Markus sat up too, catching her wrist. “Imoria.”
“He’s waiting.”
“Let him wait.” He turned her face toward him. “Look at me. Nothing has changed from two minutes ago. You said yes.”
“He’s your brother.”
“And he’s likely grinning like an idiot in that cupboard.” He said it with forced lightness, but his thumb stroked the inside of her wrist, a soothing rhythm. “This changes nothing between us. It changes everything for them. Out there. Are you ready for that?”
She thought of Kathryn’s practiced smile, her mother’s cold eyes, the servants who looked at the floor. She thought of the shouted insult—Bastard King—and the blood on the creek bed. “No,” she said honestly. “But I’m done being ready. I’d rather be true.”
A real smile, fierce and proud, broke across his face. He kissed her, quick and hard. “Then we get dressed.”
They moved quickly, silently. He handed her the linen shift. She stepped into her dress, turning so he could lace it, his fingers far more efficient now than in the night. He pulled on his trousers and a fresh tunic from a chest, not bothering with the armor. The king was gone; the man preparing for the first skirmish of a new war remained.
He walked to the door, took a deep breath, and slid the bolt back.
The sound was enormously loud.
He pulled the door open. William was leaning against the opposite wall, arms crossed. He’d been staring at the floor but his head snapped up. His gaze took in Markus, then slid past him into the room, finding Imoria standing by the bed, smoothing her hair with her fingers.
William’s expression was unreadable. He pushed off the wall.
“Council’s waiting,” he said, his voice neutral.
“I heard you the first time,” Markus replied, stepping into the corridor to block the fuller view of the room.
William’s eyes flicked over his brother’s state of undress, the lack of armor, the particular rumpled quality of his hair. His neutral mask cracked into something wry and profoundly tired. “You bolted the door.”
“I did.”
“To have a meeting.”
“It was a private one.”
William finally let his gaze settle fully on Imoria. There was no judgment in it. Just a deep, assessing solemnity. “I see.” He looked back at Markus. “The private meeting that couldn’t wait. While Bracken’s insult is still warm and a man is being sewn into his shroud.”
Markus’s shoulders stiffened. “Don’t.”
“Don’t what? Point out the timing is spectacularly bad? That our noble allies from Eltheria are down there expecting a somber war council, not…” He gestured vaguely toward the chamber.
“William,” Imoria said. Her voice was quiet, but it carried. She walked to the doorway, stopping beside Markus. She didn’t touch him, but her presence was a united front. “You got to be the best brother in law, when your brother asks me to be his queen in front of the court and marriage is planned. As of now I'm his wife.”