The gown is a weapon and I am the one wearing it. Midnight blue silk cut to the hip bone, the back open to the base of my spine.
I catch my reflection in the dark window glass. The woman staring back looks like something ordered from a catalog of ways to make a point.
The attendant tugs the last clasp into place and nods once, the way you'd nod at a table setting. "The court is assembled, my lady." I nod, and don't ask whether Arthur is already down there.
The courtyard swallows me whole. Three hundred bodies in concentric half-circles under the blood moon, torchlight guttering, smoke rising from iron censers positioned at each compass point.
Lady Seren told me what this is. The Blood Moon Rite of Binding—older than the throne. A public declaration before the whole pack that the consort belongs to the crown, body and name and standing.
Seren had smiled when she said that—dry and knowing. It doesn't actually do anything, she'd added. It's theatre. But theatre is what keeps this court in line. Then she'd looked at my left arm and stopped smiling.
Desmond waits at the center of the dais in black from throat to boot. The obsidian crown catches the moonlight. His stillness has a quality I haven't seen before—something pre-performance.
"Come." His voice silences three hundred people. I walk to him, every step clicking against stone, and his hand closes around my throat the moment I arrive. Not squeezing—holding.
"Speak the old words with me." The First Tongue is guttural and beautiful, predating courts and thrones. Each syllable vibrates through his hand into my sternum, into my bones.
"Vreth an'kora, sa'leth du morren." I claim what stands before me. I repeat the response and the sounds taste like smoke and iron. I stand before the pack and I am held.
Then he lifts my left arm and presses his mouth to the inside of my forearm—right against Arthur's lines. Not because the rite requires it. Because three hundred people are watching and he wants them to see their prince's mouth on another man's mark.
His tongue traces the mark—slowly, thoroughly—and my spine locks. The bond doesn't flicker. Seren was right. Theatre. But I feel Arthur the way I always feel him—a pull behind my ribs the rite cannot touch.
The rite bleeds into the feast—one moment I am on the dais with his hand at my throat, the next the stone tables are laden and Desmond has me beside him, his hands never stopping.
My waist when I sit. My hip when I shift. The nape of my neck when he leans to murmur to a passing noble. "You're quiet tonight. Overwhelmed by the romance of it all?"
"Savoring the experience of being publicly claimed like livestock. Very moving ceremony. I especially liked the part where you licked my arm." I don’t look up at him, too busy slicing the meat on the plate.
"You looked extraordinary during the rites. Extraordinary and furious." His mouth twitches and he refills my cup without being asked. "My favorite combination."
"Maybe you should stop licking my arm in front of three hundred people." My voice comes out steadier than the rest of me. "That might simplify your evening."
Something hungrier shifts behind his eyes. His fingers tighten in my hair, tilting my head to expose my throat. He watches my pulse beat—then stands, offers his hand, and three minutes later we are in his chambers and the door hasn't finished closing before his hands are on me.
Not the controlled hands of the dais—these shake. His fingers work the clasp at my shoulder and his mouth finds my throat, teeth grazing, breath ragged, and then the silk falls and the sound he makes is not performance.
It is the sound of a man losing an argument with himself. "Don't talk," he says against my collarbone. His mouth moves lower—open and hot against the hollow of my throat, teeth catching bone. "Not yet. Just—let me."
His palms map me slow and thorough—thighs, hips, the ridge of bone at my pelvis—and then he drops to his knees. His mouth presses to my stomach, breath shuddering against my skin.
He moves lower. Spreads my thighs with hands that are both bruising and impossibly gentle. Presses his mouth between my legs with the focus of a man no longer interested in patience.
The first stroke of his tongue pulls a sound from me that I do not authorize. He works me with devastating precision—tongue circling the most sensitive point while his arm locks around my waist, holding me upright.
He adds a finger, crooking it forward along the front wall, stroking in time with his tongue. I come apart standing up, my hand fisted in his hair, and he catches me when my legs give out.
He carries me to the bed, undresses while I watch, and then his weight settles between my thighs and he pushes in slowly—so slowly I feel every inch, the pressure building. His arms tremble. His forehead drops against mine.
"Amber." My name sounds like something breaking. He seats himself fully, goes still—then moves. Long, deep strokes angled to hit something that makes my vision blur. The control fractures after that.
His rhythm builds—relentless, cataloging every sound. When I gasp he does it again. When my back arches he shifts to hit that angle harder, watching me the way he watches everything.
But the cruelty is gone. What's left is raw and hungry and terrified, and his hand goes gentle on my face while his hips drive forward. A kiss too soft for what the rest of his body is doing.
"Say my name." His voice cracks. His hips grind deep, hitting the spot that stops my breath. His eyes are open and silver and inches from mine. "Say my name."
"Desmond." It comes out closer to a prayer than I intended. Something in my chest cracks open—not love, not quite, but recognition. He is not just claiming me. He is asking to be claimed back.
I come with his name still on my tongue and the contraction pulls him over with me—his mouth open against my throat, a groan torn from somewhere old and deep. His arms tighten until my ribs compress.
He does not let go. Not when the tremors ease, not when the sweat cools. He pulls me against his chest and the silence has a texture I don't recognize—fragile, almost breakable.
He cups my face, thumb tracing my cheekbone with a gentleness that matches nothing else about him. "Has Arthur touched you?"
My pulse kicks hard against his palm. I hold his gaze. "No."
He studies me for ten long seconds, jaw working. "I almost believe you," he says quietly, and pulls me closer—less possession than something I cannot name—and I am still searching for the word when the horn sounds.
Low. Massive. Reverberating through stone walls and the bones of the castle itself. Desmond goes rigid, then releases me—already on his feet, already reaching for clothes, the prince snapping back over the man like armor.
"The border alarm." His voice has gone flat—emptied of everything. "It hasn't sounded at the Obsidian Reach in a generation." He pauses at the door without looking back. His hand tightens on the frame.
"Stay in this room." The door closes, and I am alone with sheets that smell like both of us and the horn still shaking the stones and no word for what just happened between us.
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