Page 81 of Queen
My palm spreads flat against his chest. His heart hammers wild beneath my hand, a caged animal beating against bone. He shudders—not from weakness, but from the violence of restraint. His pride wars with his body, and his body is losing.
I drag my nails down his chest, slow, deliberate, leaving red trails across muscle. He doesn’t flinch, doesn’t yield—but his breath stutters, and I feel the tremor ripple through him. His silence is louder than any plea.
“You think power is control,” I murmur, lips grazing the sharp line of his jaw. “But true power is surrender. To me. To this.”
I sink to my knees before him. His curse cracks the air like thunder. “Fuck—Zina.”
I don’t let him finish. My mouth claims him—hungry, merciless, worship and punishment entwined. His body betrays him instantly, hips jerking forward, bound hands straininguselessly against silk. He growls, low and feral, the sound of a man dragged to his knees on a battlefield he thought he owned.
My nails dig deeper into his thighs, marking him, claiming him. He throws his head back, teeth bared, a sound tearing from his chest that is equal parts rage and devotion. Sweat shines across his skin, muscles trembling with the effort of holding back, of not breaking completely.
When I finally pull away, his chest heaves, his body wrecked but unbowed. His eyes find mine, wild, desperate, undone.
“You’re going to ruin me,” he says, voice shredded to ribbons.
I rise slow, deliberate, licking the taste of him from my lips. “No.” My palm presses to his throat, not with pressure, but with possession. “I’m going to crown you in fire.”
I kiss him then—hard, savage, our teeth clashing, mouths devouring. The kiss is war. The kiss is ruin. His pride burns away under my hands until all that remains is him—raw, stripped bare, mine.
When I untie his wrists at last, he doesn’t lunge for control. He doesn’t snarl or seize me. Instead, he cradles my face with trembling hands, eyes blazing with something more dangerous than power.
After, I cup his jaw, still tasting him on my tongue. “This wasn’t about revenge.”
His breath stutters, rough against my cheek. “What was it about?”
I kiss him softer this time, slow, reverent, sealing the vow with lips that no longer lie. “Claiming what’s mine.”
Pillow Talk of War
The fire is gone from the candles, only molten wax dripping down their spines like veins left behind after a battle. The room smells of smoke, sweat, and us. The crimson silk that bound him lies discarded across the floor, curled like a serpent shed of its skin, a reminder of the power we traded back and forth until neither of us could breathe without the other.
Emiliano lies beside me, chest heaving, damp hair clinging to his temples. I’ve never seen him like this—wrecked, raw, almost human. His arm rests against mine, not possessive, not staking a claim, but as if he’s anchoring himself to the only thing still solid in the ruins of the night.
For a long while, the only sound is our breathing. The silence doesn’t comfort. It vibrates with the ghosts in the walls, with the vows unspoken. I stare at the carved ceiling, once a witness to blood oaths, and wonder if the stones know what we just did—if they’ll hold it against us, or if they’ll carry it like scripture for the next traitor who dares step foot here.
Then he breaks it.
“There’s a prophecy,” he says, voice low, rough, as though dragged from a place he’s never let anyone touch.
I turn my head, watch his profile etched in the dying glow. He’s not the man who tied me to the ground of his empire, nor the wolf who clawed me raw an hour ago. This is something else. Something older. Something I didn’t think Emiliano Maritz was capable of showing.
He doesn’t look at me when he continues. “It was passed down through the Maritz bloodline. A queen who rises not bybirth, but by ruin. One who either unites the families… or burns them all to ash.”
The words coil in the air, heavy, inevitable, like smoke that refuses to clear.
My pulse thrums in my ears. “And you think that’s me.”
“I don’t think,” he mutters. Finally, his gaze drags to mine, storm and fire tangled in the dark. “I know.”
The room feels smaller, the ceiling pressing down, the air weighted with every ghost that’s ever touched us. My mother’s voice echoes in the back of my skull—Queens don’t cry. They conquer.
I swallow hard. “This was never just about us, was it? It was always bigger.”
His hand brushes mine. Not dominance. Not demand. Just touch. “Zina… I never wanted the throne. I wanted you.” His words falter, edges raw, unguarded. “But now… fuck, now I need both.”
It should terrify me—this admission, this hunger that matches my own. Instead, it steadies me. It crowns me.
I shift closer, press my palm to his chest where his heart pounds relentless, refusing to be tamed. “Then we take it together.”
