His chambers were a fortress of dark wood and cold stone, the royal crest of a snarling wolf carved into the mantle above the vast, canopied bed. Rowan closed the heavy oak door behind them, the lock clicking with a finality that echoed in the silence. He did not kiss her again. He simply turned, his amber eyes burning as they tracked her from the doorway to the center of the room, where a single lamp cast long, dancing shadows.
“Turn around.”
His voice was stripped of the ragged growl from the garden, replaced by a conqueror’s calm. Isolde held his gaze for three heartbeats, the storm in her own grey eyes a silent rebellion. Then she turned, presenting her back to him, the line of her spine rigid beneath the silk of her gown. She felt the shift in the air as he moved closer, then the first touch of his fingers on the delicate row of buttons at her nape.
He worked with a deliberate, agonizing slowness. Each button released a whisper of sound, a tiny surrender. His knuckles brushed the bare skin of her upper back, a fleeting brand of heat. She stared at the stone wall ahead, at the tapestry depicting some ancient battle, and focused on the weave of the threads. The gown loosened, the bodice sagging forward. He pushed the heavy fabric from her shoulders, and it slithered down her arms to pool at her elbows, baring her back to the cool air and his hotter gaze. She shivered.
“Cold?”
“No.”
His hands settled on her bare waist, his sword-callused palms rough against her skin. He held her there, his thumbs pressing into the dip of her spine. She could feel the hard ridge of his erection against the small of her back, still confined by his trousers. A claim. A promise. He pushed the gown down over her hips, and it fell completely, a dark puddle of silk and ambition at her feet. She stood in only her thin shift, the linen transparent in the lamplight.
His hands left her. She heard the rustle of fabric, the soft thud of his jacket hitting a chair. The metallic whisper of his belt being undone. She did not turn. She listened to the story of his undressing—the slide of fine wool, the heavier drop of his trousers. Then, silence.
“Look at me.”
She turned. He stood naked before her, all hard muscle and old scars. A pale, jagged line cut across his ribs. Another marred his shoulder. His body was a map of a life lived under the weight of duty and blade, a truth more devastating than any of the lies that had broken her family. His arousal was stark, undeniable. He made no move to cover himself. He let her look, let her see the cost of him.
His own eyes traveled over her, and she felt it like a physical touch. He reached out, hooked a finger in the strap of her shift, and pulled it down her arm. The linen whispered over her skin, catching on the peak of her breast before falling away. He repeated the motion on the other side. The shift joined her gown on the floor.
She was bare before him, the faint scar on her jaw the smallest of her vulnerabilities now. The air was cool on her nipples, tightening them. A flush spread from her chest to her throat. He saw it all. His breath hitched, just once, the only crack in his control.
He closed the distance then, not to kiss her, but to lift her. His hands slid under her thighs, lifting her as if she weighed nothing. Her own arms went around his neck, her fingers digging into the short-cropped hair at his nape. He carried her to the bed, the silk coverlet cool and slippery beneath her back. He laid her down with a reverence that felt like a funeral rite, his movements slow, almost grave.
He followed her down, bracing himself above her, his weight settling between her thighs. The hard length of him pressed against her stomach. She was wet, the slick heat a betrayal her body refused to conceal. He lowered his head, his mouth hovering a breath from hers. His amber eyes held hers, and in their depths she saw the boy she’d known, buried under the prince, under the scars, under the years.
“Isolde,” he breathed, and it wasn’t a title or an accusation. It was a surrender.
He kissed her.
Not the desperate clash from the garden. This was deep, slow, claiming. His mouth sealed over hers, his tongue tracing the seam of her lips until they parted on a shuddering breath. He tasted of winter air and dark wine. His hands came up to frame her face, his thumbs pressing into the hollows beneath her cheekbones, holding her still for the thorough, devastating exploration. She surrendered to it, her fingers tightening in his hair, a low sound escaping her throat.
He broke the kiss only to trail his mouth along her jaw, his lips finding the faint scar there. He lingered, his breath hot against the old wound, as if he could kiss away the memory of how she got it. She arched beneath him, the slick heat between her thighs an undeniable answer to the pressure of his body against her stomach.
“Tell me to stop,” he murmured against her skin, his voice graveled. His hips shifted, the hard length of him dragging through the wetness he’d found, a blunt, perfect friction that made her gasp. He didn’t enter her. He just rested there, at her entrance, a promise and a threat. “Say the word, Isolde.”
She couldn’t. Her head thrashed side to side on the silk, her storm-grey eyes wide and fixed on the carved wolf on the mantle. Vengeance was ash in her mouth. There was only this: the weight of him, the scent of his skin, the unbearable almost of him.
He took her silence for the permission it was. He pushed inside, one slow, inexorable inch. The stretch was exquisite, a fullness that stole the air from her lungs. Her back bowed off the bed, a silent cry shaping her lips. He stilled, his entire body trembling with the effort, his forehead dropping to hers. Amber eyes burned into grey.
“Look at me,” he commanded, his voice raw. “Look at me while I ruin us both.”
She obeyed. Her gaze locked on his as he sank the rest of the way home, burying himself to the hilt. The feeling was a devastation—a claiming, a homecoming, a fracture along the fault line of every lie they’d ever lived. A tear escaped the corner of her eye, tracking hot into her hairline. He caught it with his thumb, his expression something shattered and fierce.
He began to move. Not with the conqueror’s calm from before, but with a ragged, driving need. Each thrust was a punctuation to a decade of silence. Her nails scored his back, finding the ridges of his scars. She met him, lift for lift, her legs wrapping around his hips to take him deeper. The world narrowed to the slap of skin, the creak of the bed, the broken rhythm of their breathing.
His mouth found her breast, his tongue circling a tightened peak before drawing it deep. The sharp pleasure-pain arced straight to her core, coiling the tension tighter. She was close, teetering on an edge she hadn’t known she’d been climbing. He felt it, his pace turning punishing, his grip on her hip bruising.
“Isolde.” Her name was a prayer, a curse. “Come for me. Let go.”
The command shattered her. Pleasure detonated, white-hot and blinding, wracking through her in relentless waves. She cried out, the sound swallowed by his mouth as he kissed her through it, his own release following hard upon hers. He drove deep and held there, a groan ripped from his chest, his body shuddering against hers.
For a long moment, there was only the sound of their ragged breathing in the dark room. The fire popped in the hearth. He collapsed beside her, his arm slung heavily across her waist, his face buried in the black silk of her hair. The scent of sex and sweat and him filled the air. The wolf on the mantle watched, unmoved.