Page 144 of Heart Cradle
Their room was small with stone walls, a lantern of faelight, a trunk and a bed barely wide enough for two bodies. Maeve lay tangled with Eiran, his arm heavy over her hip, his breath steady against her neck, but her heart was a drumbeat in her throat.
She turned towards him. “I can’t sleep.”
“Then don’t,” he said simply. “Stay awake with me.”
He kissed her, slow and deep, like a promise wrapped in want. Her hands exploring the lines of his ribs, the warm press of his chest.
“I want to remember this,” she whispered.
“You will,” he said, his voice already fraying. “How could anyone forget me?”
His hand slid along her, cupping her breast, thumb brushing her nipple until she gasped. He kissed her neck, her shoulder, the curve of her ribs, murmuring against her skin.
“My mate,” he growled. “You feel like warmth and home all at once.”
She arched into him, her hand gripping his hard cock.
“Oh, you cruel, vicious seductress.” He retorted with a kiss to her neck. “A temptress, in fact!”
“I need you,” she breathed. “All of you.”
He slid down her body with reverent hunger, licking slowly between her thighs until she was shaking under his mouth. He teased her, worshipped her with filthy, focused devotion until she begged. Then he moved up her body, his cock rigid and slightly leaking against her thigh, and entered her in a deep, slow thrust.
Maeve gasped, as her legs wrapped around him. They moved together like an ache they’d never get enough of.
“I love you,” he whispered into her mouth.
“I love you,” she moaned. “Just don’t stop.”
He fucked her like a man who had everything to lose, and when they came, it was with each other’s names, breathless and wrecked.
Afterwards, still tangled and trembling, she kissed his jaw. “Say it again,” she whispered.
He kissed her temple. “It’s not a goodbye,” he said. “It’s a beginning, I promise.”
Chapter Sixty-Six – Dawnbreak
The first horn sounded before the sun touched the horizon, it echoed through the stone walls of Maelinar Ridge, deep and undeniable.
Maeve stood in the dark inner courtyard, breath white in the predawn air, her hand clenched tight around the buckle of her flight straps. Her pulse hammered behind her ribs, steady, insistent and louder than the horn that had just sounded. Every breath she took felt too loud, too sharp, like her body hadn’t caught up to what was coming.
Behind her, Jeipier shifted with nervous energy, claws scraping shallow grooves into the stone. His wings flexed and retracted in restless pulses, the leathery membranes catching the torchlight in dull flashes. He didn’t speak, he didn’t need to. Every part of him was braced for flight.
Around them, the keep surged with motion. It was still dark but large floating faelights illuminated the controlled chaos on the ground. Shouted orders echoed from every corner. Armour clattered, as blades were checked, re-checked, strapped tight to backs and hips. Fae moved fast but not frantically, this wasn’t panic, it was practiced precision. The quiet discipline of people who knew exactly what kind of hell they were about to walk into.
Archers sorted quivers, casters lined up behind them, runes already glowing faintly on palms and wrists. Bladeshields stood shoulder-to-shoulder in thick formation, silent and stone-faced. Warhealers moved between them all with glowing satchels and white-marked lilac cloaks, murmuring incantations, checking sigils and tracing protection glyphs on exposed skin.
Flags snapped overhead as realm crests were raised into position, each one stark against the black sky. The mountain-ringed hammer of Armathen. The spiral crest of Eldrisil. The veiled branch of Edhenvale. The tide-crest of the Storm Coasts, and at the centre of the courtyard, above it all. Melrathen’s standard, the dragon-wreathed heart, rippling gold and emerald in the wind.
From the northern gate came more resonant calls of war horns, deep and layered, like mountains shifting. The ground trembled under the hooves of the Fayean horn-striders, Ghaul’s warriors from the Glimmerhold. Towering half-beasts, all spiral antlers, luminous inked skin, and jewel-dusted horns. They moved in formation with effortless, terrifyinggrace. At their head rode Ghaul himself, gleaming and grinning, one elegant hand in a mocking salute towards the high banners.
“On time and under the influence,” Fenric muttered, watching from the courtyard with something like admiration. “That’s a proper fucking entrance.”
Above them, the sky was already alive. Dragons circled overhead like a storm system waiting to break. Vast shapes of muscle, scale and breathless magic, blightscales with jagged wings and acidic shine, emberwicks that glowed like hearth coals, frostmarrows pale as bone and thunderwings with crackling air trailing behind them. They flew in shifting patterns, some banking low over the battlements, others perched in place, tails lashing, ready. There was none of the usual draconic posturing, just the kind of readiness that said death was coming, and they would meet it first.
Eiran appeared, checking the saddle on Xelaini with grim efficiency. His face was relaxed, but Maeve could feel the frenzied emotions simmering beneath, the way his magic coiled tight around his bones like it was waiting to be unleashed.
“You ready?” he asked, without looking up.
