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HAVE YOUR CAKE AND EAT IT TOO

Severath

S everath wrote with ferocity. Letter after letter, to Lazerath, to the human Rosalind and the demon Zaiya, and to the Horn of Arbitration. “Nearly finished,” he called from the parlor as he folded the last of the parchment and went to the front door to slip them in the post box.

Morning had come, and with it the joy of finding Ember still wrapped in his arms and tail.

The previous day had worn on them both, immediately falling into bed when they returned content only to sleep, but hunger and duty called once the moon rose.

Severath first had to thank those who had helped, though, as he’d rushed Ember out a back door at the council chambers and avoided everyone else.

Letters would have to do for now, offering his services in return with his gratitude.

Still, he did not want to leave Ember to prepare breakfast on her own, so he hurried back into the kitchen.

But there on the table was…not breakfast exactly , but food nonetheless.

“Did you sneak out and purchase this?”

Ember grinned sidelong, leaning a hip against the table. “It’s been in the icebox since yesterday, but I’m the one who made it.” She uncrossed her arms, gaze dipping to the ground. “For you.”

Severath was no stranger to receiving sweets—it was a regular occurrence when one’s brother was a baker and emphatic about showing affection—but he had never been gifted a…

“I accept.”

Her eyes popped back up to him, expectant whites wide but not with fear. “You…accept?”

Severath nodded, heart swelling as if she had breathed new life into it.

She scratched her head. “Okay, well, good because I was going to make you eat it anyway. It wasn’t easy baking, and I had to get Bri to read the recipe to me, which means I also had to listen to her gossip about Kat’s secret love life, and I don’t even know her.

Well, actually I guess I sort of do now… ”

Severath went to the table smiling widely because of course Ember would force him to eat a slice of blightspawn cake if he even deigned to hesitate.

He tipped his head along with the leaning tiers but thought better than to comment.

It could have fallen on the floor and been trampled, and he still would have thought it the most beautiful thing second only to her face.

She had not just gone to such trouble, but she had done it in the ways of his kind, and it meant that she…

“Wait.”

Ember raised her dark brows at him, poised to slice into the cake. She didn’t know. Blazes—he hadn’t yet told her, and she still didn’t know .

“Yesterday,” he began, and the lightness that had floated in his chest was struck through by a flaming arrow of unfortunate reality. “My evaluation…”

Ember gasped, knife abandoned as she scurried around the table. “I didn’t even ask! Did you…”

He shook his head.

“Oh.” The disappointment in her voice was more crushing than the fact he had failed. “Severath, I’m so sorry.”

“No, I am sorry.” He ran a hand through his hair, mussing it and the bandage.

“There is no spot for me on the scouts or in the guard any longer.” Somehow he found himself sitting, dragged down by the weight of the truth.

“I can hit a mark—I know that now—but not during the evaluation, and there won’t be a second chance. ”

“But you’re still strong and fast and smart.” Ember clicked her tongue. “They would be stupid not to take you back.”

He shrugged, eye—one eye—finding the floor, vision lost in the knots of the wooden boards.

“They don’ t want me, not like this. As if I haven’t given them everything.

” The words broke out of him, voice cracking.

The anger he expected was frail, perhaps exhausted when he heard Ember was in trouble the day before, and all he was left with was sorrow. “I would only be a burden now.”

“Severath.” Ember’s voice was quiet, but she had come so near, and he hadn’t noticed. “You are not a burden.”

“You are right—I’m not serving in the guard, so I’m not burdening them. But without my position, I am worthless.” It was as if the words forced their way out, painful and heated, held in for too long and hidden under false hope.

“Worthless?” Ember sat herself on his thigh, and her weight snapped his vision back to her. Her small mouth was drawn down, brows bent, eyes heavy, but by blazes she was beautiful, and he deserved none of her. “You can’t really think that.”

He had been thinking it for a long time now, fearing it, but there was no hiding anymore. “Being in the guard was my whole purpose. It was what made me worthy of living in Heck, of having this home and this life, worthy of being…a good mate.”

“No.” Her hands clamped down on either side of his face, the browns of her eyes boring into him, and his chest swelled so close to her own as if being drawn in. “Is your ability to carve a bow worthless?”

He shrugged slightly, but when she narrowed her gaze, he shook his head .

“Or how about the knowledge you’ve been passing onto those children? Is all of that worthless?”

“I suppose not, but?—”

“Is the way you make me feel worthless?”

The arrow that had struck his heart flamed anew, but this was a different heat. Magical, yes, but it couldn’t be cast, it could only burn. “How do I make you feel?”

“Safe.” She ran knuckles down the side of his face, eyes trailing after. “Even when you’re not right beside me, just knowing you exist makes me feel capable and secure, Severath. For the first time in my life, I feel safe, and it’s because of you. That’s not worthless. Not to me.”

Ember pressed her lips to his, cradling his face tenderly like he might break, but in that moment he felt invincible, and his insides lit up. It began with just a spark, but he was utterly engulfed, and there was no denying what his soul wanted. Her .

“I don’t know anything about being a good mate, but I know a good demon when I see one.” She rubbed her thumbs over his cheeks. “When I touch one.” She kissed him again. “When I kiss one,” she said right up against his mouth.

“You would still have me?” he asked though he knew the answer because the bond told him so.

“Many times over.” She snickered as she shifted on his lap.

“Oh?” He cracked a grin as she placed a hand on his chest and bit her lip.

“I’d like to show you just how much I want you,” she said. “But not if you’re too sad to?—”

He shook his head violently.

Ember pulled at his tunic, and he let her strip it off without complaint.

It didn’t catch on his broken horn as it had so many times before she’d filed it down.

She shifted even closer, pressing her mouth to his with more fervor.

He sucked on her bottom lip as her fingers teased at his skin, running themselves over his shoulders and around to the back of his neck.

“Good,” she said, sliding off his thigh and walking behind him. She gave his shoulder a push and collected his arms, and then he felt his tunic being used to secure his wrists together. “Because I’m actually a little upset with you,” she breathed into his ear.

“What?” Severath straightened, arms secured behind him and a shiver running all the way to the tip of his tail.

Ember sauntered back in front of him and cocked her hips. “You embarrassed me yesterday.”

His heart pumped harder, both because of the constriction and the irascible look she was giving him. “I did not mean to make it so obvious we were…intimate.”

“Oh, not that. I actually sort of liked that.”

He watched her strip off her dress, nonchalant now with her nudity, an arousing relief that made him go stupid. Who cared if she was mad? It was good, in fact, because she was about to take it out on him .

“You knew I wasn’t going to be able to pronounce any of those words, and you still made me struggle with that letter.”

“It was the only way to protect you,” he mumbled, lazily taking in the humble swell of her breasts, the lean lines of her stomach, the gentle curve of her hips.

She leaned against the table with her legs crossed, and his gaze settled there as if he could will them to open.

“If I’d just told them, they might have thought I was lying and you were only playing along. ”

She made a flippant noise in the back of her throat and hopped herself up to sit on the table’s edge. “I still think you can make it up to me.” Finally, mercifully , she slid her knees apart.

“Breakfast,” he growled and immediately fell to his knees.

All it took was one lick, and Severath knew he had chased away whatever anger Ember was still harboring about the day before, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t going to take his time absolutely feasting on her. He traced his tongue away from her center and gave her inner thigh a gentle nip.

“Sev,” she grunted when he switched to her other thigh to trail kisses farther away from where she wanted them most.

He ran his tongue under the crease of her knee, and she snorted a laugh because that always tickled her, and then there was a rough tug at his remaining horn as his head was hauled closer.

Thrown slightly off-balance with his wrists still tied behind him, he bit his lip with his fang as his head was tipped up to her.

“Get to work,” she demanded.

It would be only a little difficult without the use of his hands, but Severath was used to that. He scooped his shoulders under her thighs and lifted, sliding her up and then spilling her onto her back, and then he descended.