Tale of the Heart Queen (Artefacts of Ouranos #4)

Chapter 57

C HAPTER 57

LOR

T hat night, I dream of Nadir in the Aurora Keep throne room. He sits with a sword, the point digging into the ground and his hand gripped around the hilt. He wears a pair of fitted black pants and nothing on top, the bright swirls of his tattoos illuminating the dark.

I tiptoe across the cold tiles, wearing the nightgown I fell asleep in. As I approach, I stop, contemplating the lines of his face. The arch of his brows and the curves of his lips. The inky pools of his eyes reflecting with flashes of violet and emerald. My gaze travels over the contours of his stomach and his chest, the aurora borealis from outside gilding him in bursts of color.

He lifts an eyebrow, and he leans back, spreading his legs .

“Hi,” I say, and he tips his head.

“My queen,” he answers with a growl that makes a needy pit in my stomach quiver.

“Are we dreaming?” I ask. “Or is this real?”

“I’m not sure.”

“We were lying next to each other in bed. Is this the mate bond?”

“I think it might be. Do you remember when this happened in the manor?”

“Of course I remember,” I say. “I remember everything.”

With his mouth crooked, he taps his thigh while his eyes spark with mischief.

“Care to join me?”

I tip my head and continue tiptoeing over. He holds out a hand, and our fingers link as he helps me straddle his hips. He props the sword against the armrest before his hands land on my waist.

“Why do you think we’re here?” I ask, looking around us. The Torch sits between the thrones, orange flames licking the darkness.

“I’m not sure,” he says. “After saying goodbye to my mother this afternoon, maybe I’m here to say goodbye to this place too.”

Melancholy laces his words as his gaze sweeps over the room.

“This will still be your home,” I say. “No matter what.”

“I know that. But it will be the last time I’m here as the future king of The Aurora.”

My mouth opens, but he presses a finger to my lips .

“Before you say anything, I am not questioning my decision. I’m reflecting on almost three hundred years of my life and the future I expected. But I regret nothing. I thought I was on one path, but I now know that every step I was following was never leading me to this throne or that crown.” He drags a finger down my cheek, pressing it to my lower lip. “It was all leading me to you.”

My hands smooth over the curves of his rounded shoulders as I give him a soft smile. My fingertips continue to explore the ribbons of his tattoos, and I take my time, reveling in the warmth of his hips pressing between my thighs. They flex as a flame curls in my stomach.

“You’ve never told me what these are for,” I say, and he shrugs.

“I got them after the war. I told you once that I’ve always tried to remember what I was fighting for, and these have always been a reminder.”

“Tell me about it?” I ask. “The war. You always retreat inside of yourself every time you mention it. What happened?”

“It’s a story I’ve been too afraid to share with you. I’m worried you’ll look at me differently.”

I shake my head. “I couldn’t. I wouldn’t. Anything you did was a result of the mess my grandmother caused.”

He blows out a breath. “There are many things I’m not proud of, but the one that sits with me the most happened near the end. I’d been captured by Aphelion, where I languished for months. They kept us bound with thin chains of arcturite, rendering us powerless, in addition to providing almost no food or water. ”

My fingers dig into his shoulders. “Was this Atlas?”

Nadir’s chin dips. “He oversaw this particular camp, yes. I don’t think it was personal, but I do think he liked the idea of making a fellow prince suffer under his hand. Now I realize he was probably feeling the slight from your grandmother and trying to compensate.”

“That sounds like him,” I say wryly.

Nadir tips his head. “That was where I met Mael and Etienne, too. We were chained together, and there’s nothing like suffering as one to form a bond. One day they brought in a new batch of prisoners, but they didn’t have enough arcturite to chain us all, so they bound only those they believed to have magic. Of course, they knew I did, but they assumed otherwise of Mael because he let them believe he was a mere foot soldier.

“Well, that was a mistake on their part.” He stops and winces as if the memory hurts and explains how Mael helped free them all using that deadly violet power I witnessed in Heart.

“I left Atlas alive,” Nadir says, shaking his head. “I had him right there, but I just couldn’t do it.”

He bites his lip and looks at me. “It’s funny, though, isn’t it? If I’d killed him that day, then he would never have schemed to get you out of Nostraza, and you and I might never have met.”

I nod. “Maybe. But none of this seems bad. You did what you had to.”

“No,” Nadir says. “It’s what came after. I returned to my father, half-starving and weak. He blamed me for getting myself captured and, as punishment, sent me out to destroy a blockade that was preventing supplies from coming to our camp. I could barely move. I never slept. I was a wreck.”

Nadir sucks in a sharp breath as his hands tighten against my hips.

“It was inside a village, and he promised that everyone had been evacuated. I took him at his word, and we set it on fire,” he says, his voice rough. “By the time we realized there were innocent people—whole families—still living inside, it was too late.”

He swallows, and his distant gaze returns to me.

“I spent a lot of years hating myself for that. I still do. The screams . . .” He shakes his head. “I still hear them.”

With my hand against the back of his neck, I lean in and kiss his cheek, pressing my nose against it. I don’t tell him it wasn’t his fault because I know it will make no difference. Only he can decide that, but I want him to understand that it also changes nothing. We’ve both had to make choices against impossible circumstances. We’ve both been manipulated and abused by the Aurora King.

“I love you,” I say. “I will never stop.”

“Thank you,” he says softly as he wraps his arms around me and holds tight. We stay like that for a while, feeling each other’s heartbeat. Eventually, I pull away to study his face, tracing the contours of his cheek. I press my thumb into his bottom lip and lean in, our mouths hovering an inch apart.

His hand slides up my nightgown, his thumb digging into the crease of my hips.

“In one more day, this throne will no longer be mine,” he says. “I think we’re here because I needed to say goodbye.” He crooks up an eyebrow with a suggestion in his smile. “ And there’s something I’ve always wanted to do.”

“And what’s that, oh Prince of The Aurora?”

“Fuck the woman I love in this chair,” he growls, and those words send a wave of liquid heat between my thighs. Thanks to the fact I’m wearing nothing under my nightgown, I immediately feel him growing under me, the fabric of his pants brushing my sensitive core.

“You’re telling me you’ve never been with anyone in here before?”

“Never,” he answers solemnly.

His hand slides up the back of my neck and into my hair, before he pulls me down for a kiss. Our bodies press together as I roll my hips, seeking the friction of his thickening cock. We moan into each other’s mouths, and then he stands, lifting me up before he spins around and settles me back on the seat.

He drops to his knees, hooking my leg over his shoulder as he bites the corner of his mouth and peers up. “Since the day you threw yourself at me at the Ball, I’ve thought about the sounds you’d make when I ate you out on my throne.”

I let out a breathless laugh as he dips down, running his nose through my wetness.

“Fuck,” he breathes. “You break me every fucking time, Lor.”

Then he drives his tongue into me, circling my clit as my head tips back with a moan. His hand slides up my body, under my nightgown, and over my stomach, leaving a trail of fire. He kneads my breast, pinching the tip hard enough to make me gasp. One of his fingers dips into me, curling as he sucks and nips, causing heat to build at the base of my spine.

“Oh gods,” I groan as I clutch the back of his head with one hand, the other gripping the armrest. He pumps his hand in and out as his tongue caresses rough circles over me. It doesn’t take long before I’m cresting, my limbs shaking and my stomach bottoming out.

“Beautiful queen,” he says, and then I blow apart with a ragged moan, waves rolling through my limbs. He pulls away and then stands up, lifting me from the seat to wrap my legs around his waist.

My arms loop around his neck as we kiss, the taste of myself on his lips. Then he flips around and drops back into the seat. I waste no time, reaching between us, my hand dipping under his waistband as I take his cock in my hand.

I squeeze as he groans and pump for a few languid strokes before I position myself over him.

“Lor,” he growls as I take him inside me, adjusting to his presence inch by inch, sliding down slowly. His hands grip my hips, and then, a moment later, he thrusts up into me, my back arching in response. We shudder together as my forehead tips against his.

“Ride me,” he says as he shifts my hips back and forth, grinding me against him. I cling to his shoulders as he thrusts up, over and over. My hands move to the back of the throne, my body curving as our foreheads meet again.

We breathe into each other as we churn together in a wash of heat and heavy breaths. In this space where we exist, fighting for each other and everyone we love. Inside this nebulous future we’re both clinging to with all of our hopes, I will see us through this no matter what it takes. Because if I can’t have him like this every day of my life, then nothing else matters. Then nothing I’ve done will mean anything.

We continue moving, becoming two pieces that fit together perfectly because that’s always what we were meant to be.

“Fuck,” I moan when he finds my clit and presses, my release crashing over me, liquid, hot, and blazing with color. My magic sparks along my arms, but this time, I don’t hold myself back. Protected inside this dream, I let my power unleash in a swirling storm of crimson lightning.

When we come together, magic spears from every direction, lightning mixing with his ribbons of light. Static raises the hairs on our heads and arms as every sensation ricochets through my bones and blood. The world around us flashes, and I come so hard my vision whites out, and my breath seizes.

We’re a tangle of groans and gasps and that unmistakable wave of longing that rolls through my limbs.

My skin has grown warm and flushed, and I take a moment to catch my breath before I lean down to kiss him. He grabs the back of my neck, and we continue to move together, our bodies as one as we kiss and kiss, feeling every moment.

“I love you,” he says into my mouth. “I love you, Lor. Tomorrow, I will lay down my life, my crown, and my heart, and I will be yours forever.”