Married To Darkness

Chapter 513: Hot searing Kiss

’What?!’

The tension in the room shifted, the heavy atmosphere Embrez had been weaving suddenly punctured by his sharp, mocking laugh. Salviana’s frustration flared; she was tired of the riddles, tired of the metaphors that made her feel like a spectator in her own life.

"You’re a difficult man, Embrez," she muttered, crossing her arms.

Embrez didn’t deny it. He simply adjusted the cuff of his glove, his eyes returning to that unreadable, porcelain-smooth calm. "And you’re a curious woman. A dangerous trait in this castle, but perhaps the only one that will keep you interesting to a man like my brother."

He began to move toward the door, his presence receding like a tide, leaving the room feeling suddenly cold. He stopped with his hand on the brass handle, not looking back.

"He’s upstairs, you know," Embrez said, his voice regaining that velvet-wrapped edge. "In the solar. He’s been staring at that needle for an hour. If you want the truth, Salviana, don’t seek it from the ghosts of the road. Seek it from the man who is trying to carve it into his own flesh."

With a final, enigmatic tilt of his head, he was gone.

The silence that followed was different than before—it wasn’t heavy with Embrez’s stories, but with the weight of what lay ahead. Salviana didn’t hesitate. She left the room, her heart a frantic drum against her ribs, and climbed the stone stairs toward the solar.

She found the door ajar. Inside, the room was bathed in the harsh, flickering orange of a dying fire. Alaric sat on the low stool where she had left him, his shirt discarded, draped over the back of a chair. His broad, scarred back was turned to her, a roadmap of past violences and silent endurance. On the small table beside him sat the ink and the needle she had prepared.

He didn’t turn when she entered. He didn’t have to. He could sense the rhythm of her breath, the specific heat of her "fire."

"Hello," she whispered.

"Fiery Wife," he turned with a vibrant smile and a glow in his eyes that made her melt, ’he loves me’ she thought.

He walked up to her put her red hair strand behind her ears and met her always curious eyes, he nodded, "Let us go inside" Alaric said after placing a kiss on her cheek, her face reddened but then she frowned after thinking about Anne-Marie again.

"Are you okay?" he asked.

"Yes, how is the wound?" she asked talking about the needle paint they did just hours ago.

Alaric shrugged, "I will survive,’ he laughed and lifted her off the ground. She giggled and Alaric took them down to their bedroom.

"Embrez was here," Alaric said, his voice a low vibration that seemed to pull at the very air in her lungs.

"He was," Salviana replied, stepping into the room. She walked toward him until she could see the side of his face—the sharp line of his jaw, the dark intensity of his gaze fixed on the table. "He told me a story about a fox and sheep. He told me I was the sheep."

Alaric’s lip curled in a ghost of a smirk. "Embrez thinks everyone is a sheep until they bite him. He likes the taste of his own cynicism."

The room was swallowed in the amber glow of the hearth, the shadows dancing along the stone walls as Alaric lifted Salviana easily, his hands firm and sure as he placed her atop the polished wood of her dresser. The cool surface was a sharp contrast to the heat radiating from him, a heat that seemed to intensify the closer he drew.

He stepped between her knees, his large hands settling on her waist, his thumbs tracing the fine silk of her gown. For a moment, the world outside—the riddles of Embrez, the cold halls of the Velthorne castle, and the weight of the crown—simply ceased to exist.

"You aren’t a sheep, Salviana," he murmured, his voice dropping into that dark, melodic timber that always made her pulse skip. He leaned in, his forehead resting against hers, his breath ghosting over her lips. "You’re the fire that keeps the wolves at bay. My fire."

Salviana reached up, her fingers tangling in the soft, dark hair at the nape of his neck. The frown that had been tugging at her brow softened, melting away under the intensity of his gaze. In this light, his eyes didn’t look like the cold abyss the stories described; they looked like a sanctuary.

’He loves me,’ she thought again, the realization anchoring her.

Alaric didn’t wait for her to respond with words. He tilted his head, his lips meeting hers in a kiss that started soft—a slow, reverent exploration—before deepening into something hungrier, something that spoke of the days they had spent apart and the dangers they had barely outrun.

His touch was different now than it had been in the library or the rain. There was no hesitation, no mask of indifference. Every press of his mouth against hers was a silent confession. He moved one hand from her waist to the back of her head, his fingers splaying against her scalp, pulling her closer until there was no air left between them.

Salviana let out a soft, shaky breath into the kiss, her heart hammering against her ribs like a trapped bird. She could taste the faint sweetness of the tea he’d shared with his brother, mixed with the metallic, heady scent that was uniquely his. As his tongue swiped against hers, a spark of that "divine" heat flared in her chest, spreading downward until her toes curled against the dark wood of the dresser.

He broke the kiss only to trail his lips down the column of her throat, his teeth grazing the sensitive skin just below her ear.

"Alaric..." she whispered, her head falling back, her eyes fluttering shut.

"I’ve got you," he rumbled against her skin, his hands sliding up to cup her face, forcing her to look at him. His eyes were dark, blown wide with a longing that made her breath hitch. "Whatever shadows Embrez tries to cast... they don’t reach here. Not in this room. Not with us."

But Embrez wasn’t the one to cast any shadows and she wanted to believe him. She wanted to let the name Anne-Marie drift away like smoke in the wind. As he leaned back in to claim her lips again, Salviana wrapped her legs around his waist, pulling him flush against her, choosing for this moment to lose herself in the heat of the man who called her his wife.