Everyone, including me, was stunned to hear it. She continued displaying the exquisite smile, her fingers stopping at my eyelids.
"Have you seen his beautiful silver eyes? Can the real silver match the gleam of his?"
My heart skipped a beat, body frozen to be praised about my appearance for the first time in my entire life.
Her finger slowly dragged to my lips, "His lips, carved immaculately. The way they move when he speak, he knows how to own, to uphold authority and discipline,"
Then to my shoulder, "And his shoulders... they're so broad. He promised to lift me with one hand. He certainly can, and should."
"Tell me when he does. This is an important detail that should go in the reports." Zack said, amused, his brows lifting repeatedly as I hung my head low.
"Aboslutely." She giggled.
I… did not know how to react.
Yes, she scold-admired me last time too but it was different this time. She wasn't lusting, it was… sincere. She was speaking from the depth of her heart.
Her compliments were real.
"It seems like Lady Ardelle sees a jewel in our iron." His Majesty chuckled, giving us a genuine smile.
"Is he not?"
The camp fell silent. What did I do to hear that? There was not a single moment I could recall where I deserved that… endearment.
My chest constricted. My plan worked, but in an entirely different way. I intended to show her a crack, to earn a crack for my own stone-cold heart.
I felt my face heat—a sensation I hadn't felt since I was a squire.
"Ardelle," I growled, removing her hands from me. "You are intoxicated. You are making a spectacle of yourself. Sit down and—"
She didn't let me finish, her hand gracefully reached around, covering my mouth with one hand and grabbed my goblet with the other.
"Shhh," she whispered, her face inches from mine, her eyes hardening. "What did I tell you? Barking makes you look… bad."
"And the ale," She took a sip of it.
"It must have put you through a haze. Put it away. You are barely in your senses." She scolded, placing the goblet aside.
"You are barely in your senses–" Emerson tried to speak but she pressed her hand on mouth harder, yanking my head back to her shoulder.
"Shush, Kaldric. Do not speak. How can you even speak through my hand in your mouth?"
Everyone, at this point, was observing the scene with complete focus, etching this rare sight in their memory. They knew they wouldn't be able to witness it ever again.
She remained like this, embracing me, not moving an inch. For a moment, I thought this was over.
But, before I could lift a finger.
Her hand slid flat against the center of my chest, right over my heart.
She looked me dead in the eyes, her gaze suddenly heavy and dark with a flirtatious heat that scorched through my discipline.
"You're so cold on the outside, Kaldric," she breathed.
With a bold, uninhibited tug, she shifted, not just beside me, she climbed onto my lap, sitting on my thigh in front of the entire Royal Court.
I instinctively caught her waist, my large hands nearly meeting around her middle with a shut-down mind, staring at her in disbelief.
She leaned in, her lips brushing the line of my jaw.
"But I know how much fire you hide under all this iron. Show it, you empty-headed knight."
She bit down, a sharp, possessive nip on my jawline that made a low, guttural sound escape my throat. Commander assaulted in the open and yet impotent to punish the soul who dared to do so.
Oh Lord, grant me patience.
"My, my, Kaldric surely found a feisty stray cat." Emerson laughed but quickly covered it with his hand.
I looked up at the shocked faces of the knights, frozen, pale. And Emerson? He was amused, enjoying it to the fullest.
No, no, he was supposed to be horrified. To stop. It was wrong.
"My Liege,"
I closed my eyes sharply, trying to push the cat that was still biting my jaw, a small one, sucking it, but I could certainly feel the sting.
"I apologize for this... unseemly display. The medicine provided was perhaps more potent than intended. It seems the weed has finally overwhelmed her senses."
The King let out a booming laugh that shook the sparks from the fire. He leaned back, his eyes dancing with a mirth I had never seen.
"Do not apologize for having a wife who appreciates her husband, Kaldric," the King said, waving a hand toward the dark line of tents.
"Go. Take her away before she praises the rest of your anatomy to my entire vanguard. And Kaldric?" He leaned forward, his voice dropping to a teasing tone.
"Show her that you are fierce behind the armor, too. That is a royal decree."
I offered a singular, sharp nod.
"You have your king's permission now, too. Don't back away now." She giggled.
I have to. She, once again, had no idea what she was inviting.
I felt Ardelle shift against me, her lips pressing a soft, clumsy, and devastatingly sweet kiss against my cheek.
She didn't care for the King's words, she only cared for the man she was clinging to.
I let out a long, shuddering sigh, half exasperation, half surrender, and stood. I didn't let her walk.
I hooked my arm beneath her knees and lifted her, her head falling naturally into the crook of my neck when I threw her on my shoulder.
The walk to the tent felt like a march through a dream.
The soldiers, their eyes averted in a mixture of respect and sheer, unadulterated awkwardness when I walked past.
Good Lord, if it reached my mother, I would rather be burned than to confront what I did in a mindless sense.
Inside the tent, the darkness was a sanctuary. I laid her down on the furs, but she didn't let go.
Her fingers were knotted into my tunic, pulling me down until I was hovering over her, my weight over her as I braced my forearms on either side of her head.
The ale had made her soft, but it had also made her hungry.
Again.
"Enough for today, Ardelle. Sleep." I whispered.
"No, Kaldric…" she breathed, her eyes dark and heavy with a desire that wasn't just drunken but desperate.
"Not enough, nothing is."
"Oh?" I arched an eyebrow, "I thought you are appreciative, always grateful with the tiniest of what you have."
"With things? Yes. Not with my husband." She confessed breathlessly,
Her body arching slightly beneath mine, her hand wrapped around my neck, caressing me with purest affection, "I desire more, I pray for more, I want his… everything."
Oof. The words. Their intensity. Their purity. It dared slice me.
Her eyes were fixed on mine, enticing me, challenging the stone to crack. I watched the pulse jumping, the way her lips parted.
She was indeed the most exquisite, and she was mine.
My control fraying like sand slipping out of my fingers. I leaned down, my forehead resting against hers, my breathing rough, savoring the moment.
Suddenly, she buried her face in the crook of my neck, her teeth grazing the sensitive skin just above my collarbone.
Then, she bit me again, not how she did in the fire but how I did. How I showed her the sign of marking. She followed my movements, kissing intensely that made me hold my breaths back.
Her bite is enough to claim. She kissed the spot, her tongue tracing the heat she had created, marking me.
And I… let her.
I stiffened, a low growl vibrating in my chest. I should have pulled away. I should have been appalled, and scolded her. I didn't.
I let her do it.
But as I finally sat back, watching her eyes flutter shut as she drifted toward a satisfied sleep, I touched the stinging heat on my neck.
For the first time in my life, scars were badges of honor for a warrior but as I stared at her, this one was an entirely victory.
I stood up slowly, adjusting my tunic to hide the darkening mark on my throat. I walked out of the tent and into the freezing night air, the wind hitting my heated skin.
My fingers went to my neck, tracing the sensitive skin where her teeth had claimed me. It stung, a sharp reminder of the fire she had dared to light beneath my obsidian shell.
I mean, I am a man, I had a need. Now that I am married, I have to produce an heir eventually. Why must I be… ashamed?
"Well, well. If it isn't the 'Great Pillar' himself, looking a bit... weathered." Zack chuckled.
He was leaning against a supply wagon, a grin splitting his rugged face as he eyed the dark mark clearly visible above my collar.
"Compromising Pillar's dignity again, aren't we, Commander? I thought you were supposed to be made of stone, not clay for a girl to mold."
"Lust and desire were natural, especially when I had a spellbinding ruse as a bride, Zack?" I replied monotonously, staring at the moon.
"Why must I not lust for the one everyone could only imagine about?"
"Are you no less than those dogs?"
"I have the right to do so, Zack." I obviously won't force her. If I wanted to, I would have done it long ago.
"You have a duty to uphold. Do it when you reach home, not before the hundred soldiers. You are not a husband here, but a Commander." He scolded me, worried for me.
I agree it was wrong of me. I had no idea that it would go to such an extreme, else I would have done it alone with Emerson.
He made a clicking sound with his tongue, shaking his head in mock disappointment.
"Tsk tsk, The men are talking, Kaldric. They've never seen the Commander look so... disheveled. If the King hadn't given his blessing, I'd say you were losing your grip on the reins."
"Let them talk, Zack," I retorted, my voice regaining its flat, military edge.
"A soldier needs a story to tell over his ale, and I've given them a fine one. Nothing more, nothing less." I smirked, folding my arms at my chest.
"Careful, Kaldric," Zack warned, his tone shifting from teasing to a rare moment of sincerity.
"You're playing a dangerous game with that girl. You might find that some marks don't wash off with the morning dew."
I turned my gaze toward the dark horizon, where the first hint of gray was beginning to bleed into the sky. I thought of the letter. I thought of my father's shame and my mother's tears-stained plea.
"It was nothing, I miscalculated," I confessed, my amusement, the lies dying in my throat, finally facing Zack.
"A moment of tactical diversion to silence the Earl. He was exasperating me, I wanted to silence him."
"You hate his presence, no? You do not want him anywhere near the girl. Do you think he will take away your bride too?"
"No, nor would he dare." I admitted the truth.
"I know he wouldn't dare but I wanted to prove him wrong–I won't fall in love. He was imagining."
"Why the denial, Kaldric? Is it the oath you took? Or your mother? Or are you afraid to imagine a woman weakening you?"
I remained silent because what he found as 'restriction' was something I had chosen wholeheartedly, for the betterment of my own heart.
Zack raised an eyebrow, clearly unconvinced, but he knew better than to push further. I won't break, It took me years to become immovable after all.
"Night, Commander." He muttered, disappointed.
"Night."
I stood there long after Zack had wandered back to the scouts' line.
I convinced myself that I was still in control. That the hunger I had felt when she bit me was merely a biological reflex, not a spiritual surrender.
I had taken an oath. To my King. To my mother. To the very blood that ran through my veins.
'I will not fall,' I told the rising sun.
'I will use her, I will protect her, and I will even desire her. But I will never, under any gods or any crown, love her.'
I was a Pillar. And a Pillar stands alone, regardless of the beauty of the vines that endeavor to embrace to its surface.