Page 14 of Sereis
In the corner sat a rocking chair that took my breath away. Carved from single piece of eternal ice like the vanity, but this ice was warm to look at, inviting. The cushions were white and pale blue, so soft my fingers sank in when I touched them. It was sized perfectly—large enough for me to curl up in, but built in a way that suggested being held, being rocked, being safe.
Blankets draped over every surface, each one a different texture but all in shades of white and blue and silver. Some were weighted, designed to feel like being held. Others were so light they might have been woven from clouds. All of them whispered comfort, safety, home.
"If this isn't what you want," Sereis said quickly, and I heard centuries of uncertainty in those words. "It can change. The room responds to desire. I just thought—hoped—" His hands moved in an uncharacteristic gesture of nervousness. "I've been adding things for centuries. Every time I'd see something thatmade me think 'she would love this,' even when I didn't know who 'she' was. It might be too much, too presumptuous—"
I cut him off by picking up the nearest stuffed dragon—a small one, white with silver wings, that fit perfectly in my arms. The cloud-silk was softer than anything I'd ever felt, and when I pressed it to my chest, it seemed to pulse with warmth that had nothing to do with temperature and everything to do with feeling held.
"It's perfect, Daddy."
The word slipped out natural as breathing, and the relief that transformed his face made my eyes burn with sudden tears. He crossed to me in two strides, movements fluid with barely controlled emotion. His hands cupped my face with such tenderness I thought I might shatter, and then he pressed his lips to my forehead in a kiss that felt like benediction, like blessing, like coming home.
I broke.
Tears I'd been holding for three years—since the moment my father signed the papers, since I'd understood I was currency, not daughter—poured out in ugly, wrenching sobs. Sereis gathered me against him, careful not to crush the dragon I still clutched, and his arms were safety and strength and the promise that I'd never be sold again.
"My precious girl," he murmured against my hair, and through the bond I felt his own eyes burning. "My brave, perfect Little. You're safe now. You're home. You're mine, and I'm yours, and nothing will ever change that."
The stuffed dragon absorbed my tears without complaint, and Sereis held me while years of fear and loneliness poured out against his chest. His hand stroked my hair with infinite patience, and through the bond I felt his contentment—not despite my breakdown but because of it. Because I trusted him enough to break. Because I felt safe enough to not be strong.
When the sobs finally quieted to hiccups, he pulled back just enough to thumb away the tears from my cheeks. The frost patterns on both our skins pulsed in perfect synchronization, and I knew with certainty that bordered on prophecy that this was where I belonged.
"These have to go," Sereis said with quiet vehemence, fingers ghosting over the rough wool of my servant's uniform without quite touching. "You smell of him. Of that pretender who dared to claim what was never his."
The possessiveness in his voice should have frightened me. Three years under Caelus's careless ownership had taught me to fear male jealousy, to make myself small when voices turned sharp with territorial anger. But this was different. Through the bond, I felt not rage but offense—genuine hurt that I bore another's mark, even one as simple as clothing.
"Let me," he said, and it wasn't quite a question. "Please. I need to remove every trace of him from you."
I nodded, not trusting my voice. His hands moved to the leather ties at my throat, fingers careful and precise despite the tremor I could see in them. The bond sang between us, translating his every emotion—desire held in check by iron will, reverence that bordered on worship, need that threatened to crack his centuries of control.
The first tie came loose, and he made a sound low in his throat. Not quite a growl, but something that spoke to the dragon beneath his human seeming. The rough wool parted, revealing the hollow of my throat, and his fingers brushed across my pulse point with touch light as snowfall.
"Your heart is racing," he observed, voice dropping to registers that made heat pool between my thighs.
"Yes." What point in denying what he could feel through our connection?
The second tie yielded to his careful attention, and more skin revealed itself—collarbones that stood out too sharp from years of carefully rationed meals, the swell of breasts that even poor nutrition hadn't completely diminished. His intake of breath was audible, and through the bond I felt his arousal spike so sharply it made me gasp.
"Beautiful," he murmured, but he didn't touch beyond what was necessary to remove the garment. "So beautiful it hurts to look at you."
Heat flooded my cheeks that had nothing to do with the room's warmth. No one had ever called me beautiful. Useful, perhaps. Serviceable. Worth three years of grain debt. But never beautiful.
The wool dress fell away in pieces—it had been mended so many times that it barely held together, and Sereis's careful handling couldn't prevent its final dissolution. I stood in my underthings, such as they were—a band around my chest that had once been white, smallclothes that were more patches than original fabric.
"These too," he said, and his voice had gone rough. "Everything he gave you, everything that marks you as his."
My hands shook as I reached behind to undo the breast band. The moment it fell away, Sereis's control visibly fractured. His eyes went silver-white, the color of winter storms, and the frost patterns on his skin flared so bright I had to squint. Through the bond, desire hit me like a physical force—his need to touch, to claim, to mark me as his in ways that would never wash off.
But he didn't move. Stayed perfectly still as I pushed the smallclothes down my hips, stepping out of them on legs that trembled. Naked, I fought the urge to cover myself, to hide the too-prominent ribs, the scars from kitchen accidents.
Sereis studied me with the intensity of someone memorizing sacred text.
His gaze tracked over every inch—the storm-gray eyes he'd already praised, the dark hair that fell in waves when not severely bound, breasts that felt too small under such scrutiny, the curve of waist to hip that years of work had made strong if not soft. When his eyes found the marks—old burns on my forearms, the whip scar across my shoulders from a game that had gone too far—the temperature in the room plummeted.
He raised one hand, still not touching, and cold fire danced between his fingers—white-blue flame that gave no heat. "May I?"
I nodded, not understanding until he directed that cold fire toward the pile of discarded cloth. The servant's uniform didn't burn so much as cease—consumed by fire that left nothing, not even ash, not even memory. Every thread that had marked me as Caelus's property erased from existence.
"You'll never wear another's mark again," he said with quiet certainty. "Never bear another's brand, another's colors, another's claim. You are mine, and I am yours, and that is absolute."
