⚠️ Content Warning: Mature / NSFW ⚠️This chapter contains explicit sexual content, adult themes, and emotionally intense power dynamics. It is intended for mature readers 18+.
Please read responsibly. If you're sensitive to scenes involving dominance, manipulation, or complex intimacy, feel free to skip or proceed with caution.
You've been warned. 👀🔥
—CG Blaire 🖤
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It happened in the court gardens, just off the southern walk. Caelan had finished his sword drills with the city garrison that morning and had taken the longer path through the hedges, wiping a cloth across the cut above his brow. The injury wasn't deep, but it stung, and he'd pulled off his mask for a moment to press the cloth tighter.
He thought the path was clear. Most courtiers weren't up this early.
But Evelyne was.
She turned the corner abruptly, intending to intercept a steward, or perhaps stir another rumor, and stopped short. Her eyes locked on him. On his face.
Caelan froze.
The air between them held.
Her hand twitched at her side. Her expression didn't shift much, but her eyes widened, just slightly. Recognition. And something else, calculation.
He didn't speak.
Neither did she.
Not yet.
She hadn't come for this. Or maybe she had. Maybe instinct had led her steps that way.
She stood behind a stone pillar, half in shadow, as Caelan tilted his head and dabbed at the blood with a folded cloth. The sun caught the edges of his face, pale and sharp.
She didn't move.
Neither did he. Not right away.
He didn't look up, but Evelyne saw the tension shift in his shoulders. He knew he was being watched. And he knew exactly who was watching.
Back in his chambers, Caelan committed it to memory. Not in writing. Not in whispers. But with the silent precision of a man who had learned how little moments could grow teeth.
Evelyne Malenthra had seen his face.
And Evelyne never looked without wanting something.
She stayed in the garden long after he was gone. Her expression didn't waver. But her thoughts did.
She hadn't expected that. Not the cut. Not the stillness. Not the unguarded version of him.
He was handsome, yes, but not in the painted way most dukes were. There was something stark about him. Honest. Bone-deep. The kind of man who didn't bluff because he didn't need to.
A new thought began to form. Slow. Measured. Dangerous.
If Alaric stumbled, or when he did, she would need another path.
And Caelan Vorenthal had just become visible.
Not as a replacement.
As an opportunity.
She could already feel the shape of it forming in her mind. The angles. The timing. The slow, careful steps.
It wasn't a plan yet.
But it would be.
Evelyne never let potential go to waste.
-----
The snow stung her cheeks as she stood watching Caelan move through the courtyard below - precise, powerful, oblivious to her gaze. But her attention didn't linger on him long. Not tonight.
Not with the echo of Alaric's voice still in her ears.
She left the balcony and moved through the dim halls with purpose, boots whispering over marble. She didn't knock. She never knocked.
Alaric's door opened beneath her hand, and there he was - seated at his desk, still half in armor, candlelight casting gold across the strong lines of his jaw. His eyes flicked up from the scroll he'd been reading, cool and unreadable.
"To what do I owe the pleasure?" he asked, voice even.
"You weren't at court," she said, closing the door behind her. "You left before I did."
"You noticed."
She crossed the room slowly, fingers grazing the spine of a book on his shelf, a deliberate saunter. "Of course I noticed. I always notice when the man in my bed disappears."
Alaric's eyes tracked her, but he didn't rise. "I'm not a possession, Evelyne."
"No," she said, circling behind him. "But you are mine."
She leaned down, her breath at his neck, lips ghosting over the shell of his ear. He didn't flinch - but his hands curled into fists on the table.
"Say something," she whispered.
"I'm trying to remember why I let this happen," he murmured. "Why I keep letting you in."
"Because you want me," she said. "And because I don't give you a choice."
His chair scraped back. She gasped as he turned and caught her by the wrist - not rough, but with purpose.
"Don't mistake restraint for weakness," he said, standing now, tall and grounded. "You chase me like I'm prey, Evelyne. But you don't know what you'll do once I catch you."
She smiled, wicked and soft. "Try me."
Their mouths crashed together, a clash of fire and frost, and she clawed at the buckles on his armor while he walked her backward toward the bed. She pushed his chest - not to escape, but to see if he'd follow. He did.
He tore the ties of her bodice with aching precision, as if undressing her was something sacred, even in haste. She gripped his jaw, pulling him down with a bite to his lip that made him groan - not just with pain, but something deeper. Need, maybe. Or something he wouldn't admit.
"Alaric," she said, breath catching as he slid her onto the mattress, hand steady on her hip. "Don't make me beg."
He looked down at her, half-dressed and furious and wanton beneath him. "You already are."
Then he was inside her—slow, firm, every inch a brutal reminder of how much control they fought for. Evelyne arched, not just with pleasure, but with demand, her nails dragging down his back hard enough to leave trails. She wanted him to feel it the next day. She wanted to mark him with more than just memory.
He grabbed her wrists and pinned them above her head, thrusting deeper, faster, until she cursed beneath him. Their bodies clashed, wild and unrelenting. She bit his shoulder; he answered with a groan and another punishing grind of his hips.
She wrapped her legs around his waist and pulled him tighter, deeper. "Harder," she whispered. And he gave it. Rough. Ruthless. The bed creaked under their rhythm, the sound obscene, desperate.
There was no tenderness—only hunger and fury and the need to consume.
Alaric dragged his mouth across her chest, teeth scraping at her skin. She cried out, her back bowing, the tension in her body coiling like a spring. He flipped her over and pressed her face into the pillow, driving into her from behind, one hand gripping her hair, the other braced against her hip.
She moaned his name like a weapon, like a spell. He moved faster. She shoved back to meet him, panting, her body trembling from the edge she no longer cared to avoid.
When she came, it was like snapping, violent and loud. Her body clenched around him, shaking with release. He barely held on, spilling into her with a groan that sounded like surrender.
And still, they didn't stop. He collapsed over her, both of them gasping, but she twisted, climbing over him again. Her mouth found his, devouring him. She wasn't finished.
And he didn't try to stop her.
"I want you," she whispered into his skin. "Even when I shouldn't."
"You shouldn't," he breathed, lips on her collarbone. "But you do."
He came undone beneath her, his hands clutching her thighs, his breath broken beneath the force of her. Evelyne ground against him until he moaned, helpless, her name spilling from his mouth like a confession. She rode him until his control shattered, until the only thing anchoring them both was the rhythm they couldn't stop.
When he finished, she didn't move right away. She stayed straddling him, chest heaving, her fingers brushing his jaw like she dared him to speak. And for once, he said nothing.
Only when her pulse slowed did she slide off him and collapse beside him, both of them covered in sweat and silence.
Later, in the quiet, she lay against his chest, breath still shallow, her skin cooling against the heat of his. She didn't want to speak, didn't want to ask—but the words slipped out anyway.
"You'll let me stay tonight?" she murmured, not lifting her head.
Alaric didn't answer, not with words. He shifted, pulling the blanket up over them both. His arm settled around her waist.
And he didn't send her away.
----
Elsewhere, Seraphina stood at her chamber window, unaware of what had unfolded between Evelyne and Alaric, unaware of the game shifting beneath her feet.
She wasn't thinking of Evelyne or Alaric. Not tonight.
Her focus was fixed on the names inked in her ledger, circles drawn in careful lines, each name a weight or a key. Some were allies. Some were assets. All were necessary.
The fire beside her crackled low, casting golden light across her notes. She tapped the end of her quill against the page, mind working through possibilities. The next council session was approaching faster than she liked, and Thalion would return soon. She needed to be ready, needed the timing to align just right.
But even amid the calculations and the pressure, there was something else stirring beneath the surface.
Caelan.
She hadn't seen him since their last meeting in the gardens, but his presence hadn't left her. The echo of his voice. The steady way he watched her when she spoke. The comfort of his silence, how it didn't demand anything from her but made her feel seen all the same.
She was looking forward to seeing him again, more than she expected to. Not because of strategy. Not because of alliance.
Because it felt good to not be alone.
She allowed herself a small smile, rare and fleeting.
Outside, snow fell in thin sheets, catching in the light of the lanterns below. Somewhere across the palace, secrets stirred. Loyalties shifted.
But here, in her quiet, Seraphina wove her own web, carefully, precisely.
And she was almost ready to pull the thread.