She came back. No fanfare. No portal flare. Just… there. Arbor felt it first. Lights bloomed across the ceiling like dawn cracking through clouds, the air warmed cinnamon-sweet, the whole Realm exhaling relief. Our room, her room, waited just as she left it: one side messy, one side architecturally precise, her mug on the nightstand screaming Gods, I Need Coffee. She stepped in and shut the door. Home. I felt it before she even opened the bond. That whisper across my soul: My Chaos… I'm home.
I was gone. Gone to her. The bond didn't just tug, it yanked. I arrived in a blur of sound and glitter, crashing through the room with cupcakes stuck to my leg and what I think was jellyfish goo on my sleeves. Didn't care. Didn't ask. Just ran. "My Eternity." My voice cracked, half a prayer, half a sob. "You came back."
I didn't demand answers. Didn't crowd her. I just held her. Pressed my forehead to hers and breathed like I hadn't exhaled since she left. She showed me. Not words. Memories. Pouring into me like ink and fire: the ash of Aerion's realm, the silence of its ruin, the Room where pain lived in stone. I froze. My chaos stilled. Then the rage came, silent, nuclear, unbearable. My fingers twitched as the bond flared hot with fury and heartbreak.
"He made you bleed there," I whispered, not into the air but into the bond itself, voice too sharp for sound. I saw the rest. Aerion. Navir. The fight. My magic flared with every blow she took. I paced the room, hands in my hair, muttering prayers to gods less dramatic than me. "No, no! Block left! BLOCK LEFT! YES! That's my girl!"
When she pivoted, when she parried like the divine menace she is, I shouted at nothing. "You beautiful queen! That pivot? That parry? Chef's kiss!"
When she stole the air, when she bent his own element back into his throat, I went still. Not with fear. With awe. Hand over my chest like my heart had just been rewritten. "You didn't just win," I whispered. "You unmade the script."
The memory carried me to the end, Aerion choking, Asha walking away, sovereign. Then I heard it. Navir's murmur. A string of numbers, recursion failure, constants. Just a simple word, Axiom.
My eyes widened. Only slightly. She didn't hear it. Didn't even blink. She missed it. The word wasn't just data. It was a title. A prophecy. Hers. I didn't tell her. Not then. I only held her tighter, hand sliding up her back, memorizing how she felt at rest while a storm built in me. Navir knew something. I would get it out of him. Ask was such a generous word for what I had in mind. I started pacing again, adrenaline still rattling through me. "You! You absolute menace!" I spun, eyes wide, grin wider. "That blade? That stance? The divine pivot?"
I threw my arms skyward, then dropped into a bow so dramatic it nearly leveled a bookshelf. "I am in the presence of glory. Of violence. Of terrifying, sexy, entropy-born precision."
She rolled her eyes, lips twitching like she couldn't stop the smile. "You watched the whole thing?"
"Watched? I narrated it. Choreographed it. Debating a musical number." I flung myself onto the bed like a glitter-soaked starfish. "You know what we should do?"
"Sleep?"
"WRONG. Shower. Because I smell like frosting committed a war crime on me."
She laughed. My favorite sound. I nearly fainted from joy. Grabbed a pillow, lobbed it at her chest like a weaponized cloud. "Shower it is," she caught it one-handed. "But if there are sparkles in that soap again..."
"I make no promises." I winked. "Come on, Eternity. Let's rinse trauma in style."
The shower was quick. Efficient. Reverent. I washed her hair like it was sacred; she flicked water in my face whenever I got too reverent. I kissed her shoulder. She told me to focus on the soap. I pretended to sulk.
Then came the bath. She stood over my masterpiece: porcelain tub overflowing with iridescent bubbles, sparkles, confetti, and a duck in a pirate hat. "This is… a war crime."
"This is art."
"Why does it smell like strawberries and sin?"
"Because you deserve both." She slid in with a sigh that cracked time. I followed, wrapping around her like smug affection incarnate. "My Eternity," I whispered against her neck. "You are an entire religion to me."
My hand drifted. She caught it. "Bath. Not battle."
"I was tactically appreciating your thighs," I protested.
She smashed bubbles onto my head. They dripped into my eyes. "Pffft! My nostrils! How dare you!"
"Oh, it's war now!"
What followed was chaos in aquatic form. Bubbles flew. I fake-died twice. She dunked me mid-monologue about being the "God of Bubble Supremacy." We laughed until our ribs ached, until joy clung to our skin like glitter. When the war ended, we collapsed into each other. Soft. Safe. Soapy. Her head on my shoulder. My lips in her hair. My whole body finally at peace. "This," I murmured, sighing like I'd just survived divine apocalypse, "is my favorite ritual."
The bubbles had barely begun to settle when I looked at her. Really looked. My chaos-streaked hair was dripping into my eyes, and my skin still gleamed from the bathwater, but none of that mattered. Not when she was in front of me like this, powerful, glowing, devastatingly calm.
"You're dangerous, you know that?" I murmured, voice rough, reverent.
She smirked and flicked a stray bubble at my nose. Gods. "Took you long enough to figure that out."
I caught her wrist gently, like she was made of something sacred and volatile all at once. "No. Not just dangerous," I said, brushing my thumb over the pulse beating at her wrist. "Divine." I hesitated. Then, almost bashfully: "I have a thing for powerful women. Especially the Amazon women."
She arched a brow. "Yeah?"
"Yeah," I grinned. "Tried to sneak onto the Amazon Island once."
Her curiosity sharpened. "Did you now?"
I conjured the journal from thin air, battered, red, its edges singed and smelling faintly of desperation and sea salt. "Tried," I repeated, deadpan. "Disguised myself as a historian. Made it forty-two steps before I was tackled, disarmed, and tied to a sacred tree for 'evaluation.'"
"Evaluation?"
I nodded solemnly. "They debated whether I was too pretty to kill."
A beat. "They voted no."
She laughed. Full. Unrestrained. I felt like I'd just been crowned king of the cosmos with the sound of her joy alone. "I've never loved and feared a group of women more," I declared. "Until now."
I snapped my fingers. A trunk appeared at the foot of the tub. Gilded. Glorious. It opened with a dramatic sigh of sparkles. Inside: armor. Gold. White. Crimson. A warrior queen's dream.
She stared. "You planned this?"
"Always," I breathed. I climbed out first, water cascading off me, completely unbothered. I extended a hand. "Let me dress you," I said, voice trembling. "Let me worship you properly."
She took it. Gods help me, she took it. I dried her slowly. Reverently. Pressing kisses to every patch of skin I revealed. Shoulders. Wrists. The curve of her spine. Then came the armor: White leather bodice, etched with runes of chaos. I tightened the laces slowly, my fingers lingering just a breath too long. A gold belt, slung low on her hips. I adjusted it. Thoroughly. With a grin that I absolutely did not apologize for. Armored bracers over her forearms. I kissed each wrist before fastening them. Thigh-high boots. Sculpted. Perfect. Finally, a crimson cloak. Fastened at her throat with a sunburst brooch. When I stepped back, I nearly staggered. "My gods," I whispered. "You're the beginning and the end of war itself."
She pivoted, hand on hip. Posed like a goddess. "You going to survive this?"
"Unlikely," I said fervently. "But what a way to go."
I dropped to one knee. "May I?" My voice cracked. The god of chaos brought low by the curve of her thigh. She nodded.
I kissed the inside of her leg first. Not greedy. Not rushed. Reverent. "You walk through fire and never burn," I whispered against her skin. "Let me burn for you."
Another kiss. Higher. She gasped, trembling, my name spilling from her lips like a secret prayer. When she shattered, I worshiped her through it. I wasn't done.
"Again," I murmured. Not cruel. Not demanding. Commanding because I knew she wanted to give it. She obeyed, beautiful menace that she was, and when she came undone a second time, she was glowing. Boneless. Divine.
I crawled up her body, grinning through the wreck of myself. "How do you feel, my commander of chaos?"
She blinked at me. Dazed. Wrecked. Alive. "Like I could murder you with a kiss."
"Tempting," I said, pressing my forehead to hers. My heart refused to slow. "Happy battle day, my love." I kissed her, not to conquer but to give. Because tonight wasn't about dominance. It was about devotion. I thought that was the end. It should have been. Me giving. Her receiving. Our pattern. Our truth. But then she shifted. She pushed me back. Her eyes burned like something inside her had made its choice long before this night. "I want to," she whispered.
Gods. I didn't understand at first. Not until she slid down my body. Lower, deliberate, her lips parting, her hands steady. My entire chest seized. "Asha," I begged, already trembling. "You don't-"
Her gaze snapped to mine, sharp and unyielding. I want to. Then her mouth was on my throbbing cock. The shock was a blade. Not the pleasure. Though it was fire and lightning all at once but the truth behind it. Because I felt it through the bond she suddenly threw open wide. She had never let me feel this before. Always guarded. Always controlled. But now? She let me in. The bond screamed with memory. I felt her shame, her numbness, the way she had locked this part of herself away and never, never let it be hers. Then the fire. She burned it all. Took of those memories, drowned it in flame, and replaced it with this moment. Her mouth, her will, her gift. I sobbed. Gods help me, I sobbed like a child. Not from pain. From devotion so sharp it tore through my ribs.
"You're killing me," I gasped, clutching at the sheets, shaking apart. "I've never loved death more."
She moaned against me, and I felt it in the bond, her determination braiding with my unraveling. She wanted me to know that this time was different. This time was hers. I pressed my fist to my mouth to keep from screaming, but it didn't matter. She felt it anyway. Every pulse of ecstasy, every ounce of awe, every prayer of gratitude that I had no words for.
When I finally orgasmed, I broke. Hard. Tears running down my temples, name after name of hers spilling from my lips like holy scripture. She didn't flinch. Didn't stop. She took it. She claimed the act that had been stolen from her and turned it into worship.
She finally climbed back up my body, kissing me deep, I tasted myself on her tongue. Instead of shame, there was pride in her eyes. Power. Reclamation. I couldn't stop shaking. My voice cracked raw against her ear. "You don't know what you've just done."
She did. Her fingers threaded through my hair, pulling me close. "I gave you what they stole from me," she whispered. "This time, it was mine to give."
She guided me down, straddling me, kissing me like I was sacred, like I was the altar. She took me inside her, it wasn't conquest. It wasn't worship. It was reciprocity. Pure. Absolute. I let her lead. Gods, I let her take. She broke me apart. Built me again. When I came undone beneath her, when I moaned her name like salvation, when she smiled down at me with wonder instead of weariness, I knew. I was hers. Utterly. Completely. Finally.
When it was over, we collapsed together. Tangled. Laughing. Clinging. I pressed my forehead to her collarbone, still shaking with the aftershocks of what she'd given me. I wept into her skin. Joy. Grief. Love so vast it nearly destroyed me. She held me, bond still open, letting me feel not just her body but her triumph. Gods forgive me, I cried. For joy. For love. For the impossible, radiant truth of finally being wanted back. She held me through it. Because tonight wasn't about survival. Tonight was about us. This time, she had chosen me.