Page 130 of Haunted Crowns
“Stephan—” she gasped.
He didn’t stop. Couldn’t. Not when she sounded like that. His hand cupped her jaw, steadying her as he drove into her, deeper. “You are everything,” he rasped against her throat.
She shattered.
Her body convulsed, a cry tearing from her lips as she clung to him, legs wrapped tight, soul bare.
He followed with a snarl, burying himself to the hilt. Release ripped through him like a detonation of stars behind his eyes, hot, thick, flooding her with everything he was.
There was no kingdom left, no curse that could touch them, only breathless bodies, sacred and bound, held in the stillness of forever.
Silence stretched, infinite and holy.
Their eyes met. Then they laughed, soft and disbelieving. The sound of surviving the impossible. Stephan brushed her lips, a lazy smirk tugging at his mouth.
Her fingers slid through his hair, eyes glowing, deeper than passion, older than time. “Finally,” she whispered, breath still tangled with his.
He smiled, forehead pressed to hers. “Finally.”
After torment, distance, and everything, they were one.
He touched her cheek, memorizing her with his hands. “Eris.” Her name left him raw, his voice stripped with devotion. “I love you. Beyond this life. Beyond the stars. If the gods demanded my soul, I would give it, as long as it led me back to you.”
She swallowed hard. Her palm found the back of his neck, grounding him. “I do not need the stars, Stephan,” she said, voice low and dangerously certain. “I do not need eternity. I only need you.”
His heart staggered, their breaths slowing. Peace slipped into the spaces where war had lived.
She pulled his head to her chest, fingers stroking through his hair. He shuddered, then breathed. Her heartbeat cradled him. The only place he had ever truly belonged.
For the first time in years, nothing pulled them apart. Only this. Only each other.
Their bodies stilled, wrapped in warmth as sleep gathered at the edges. Then the royal comm pulsed, sharp and sudden.
Stephan tensed. The warmth shattered beneath the cold weight of duty.
He groaned, reached for it, and clenched his jaw. “I have to go.”
Eris sat up. Worry cast long shadows across her face. “What is it?”
“The Obsidian Order. They have hit the eastern strongholds. It is escalating.”
She pressed a hand to her temple. As her fear surged, the storm answered. Thunder cracked, and rain began to fall against the glass.
Stephan frowned, eyes flicking to the window. The shift had come too fast, but he said nothing and shook the thought away. He caught her hand and kissed her fingers.
“Nothing will take our future, Eris.” His voice was firm, burning with certainty. “I swore we would be together, and I will tear the world apart before I break that vow.” He kissed her again. The moment lingered like the taste of forever.
“Be careful,” she whispered.
“I will.”
Then he was gone.
The door shut behind him, and the room felt hollow without his presence. Eris closed her eyes and pressed her hand to her heart. It was still racing, still pulsing with him.
War was coming, but this time, she would not wait. She would rise for him, for their future, and for a love that had defied death, and would defy fate itself.
“Tarnish their crowns. Crack their skulls.
