Page 7 of Realms of Swords and Storms (Empire of Vengeance #3)

T he room was small—just a large bed, a washstand, a single window with tattered curtains. Moonlight filtered through, casting Septimus's face in silver and shadow. For a moment, I just stared at him, feeling the tension between us crackling like lightning before a storm.

"You shouldn't have followed me," I said finally, my voice quieter than I intended, almost weary. "These people—what they're doing—it's dangerous."

"Treason usually is," he replied, that familiar contempt hardening his features.

I ran a hand through my hair, frustration building inside me. "Is that what you think it is? Treason? To question the lies we've been fed our entire lives?"

He shifted uncomfortably, doubt flickering across his face before he masked it with anger. "I don't need lectures from a half-demon."

Those words—always those words from him. As if reminding me of my blood would somehow make me less of a person. As if it would justify the hatred he clung to so desperately.

"No, what you need is to stop hiding from the truth—about the Empire, about the Talfen," I said, my voice dropping lower. "About yourself."

He spun to face me, his control visibly slipping. "You don't know anything about me."

I almost laughed at that. No one knew him better than I did—not even Livia, who saw only what he wanted her to see. I knew his darkness, his desires, the parts of himself he hated most.

"I know more than you think," I told him, holding his gaze steadily. "I know how your breath catches when I enter a room. I know how your body responds to my touch—how you fight it until you can't anymore, then surrender completely."

Heat flooded his face, that delicious blush spreading down his neck. "That's just—"

"Lust?" I finished for him, stepping closer. "Is that what you tell yourself when you're begging me not to stop? When you're coming apart in my arms?"

He grabbed the front of my tunic, pulling me closer. I could see the conflict in his eyes—violence and desire warring for dominance. "Shut up."

I was tired of his denial, of the way he gave his body so completely only to retreat behind walls of hatred afterward. I needed to know if there was anything real between us, or if I was just a shameful outlet for his repressed desires.

"Tell me you feel nothing but hatred for me, Septimus," I whispered, our faces inches apart. "Tell me you don't think about me when we're apart. Tell me you don't crave what happens between us, and I'll never touch you again."

I watched the struggle play out across his face. He wanted to say it—to spit the words that would end this dangerous game between us. But he couldn't. The lie wouldn't come.

"I despise you," he finally managed, but the words rang hollow.

Something twisted painfully in my chest—hope and hurt intertwined. I tried to hide it quickly behind contempt. "Then we understand each other perfectly."

I moved to push past him, to escape before I revealed too much of myself. But before I could leave, he lunged forward, slamming his mouth against mine. It wasn't a kiss—it was an attack, teeth and rage and hunger.

I responded instantly, shoving him back against the wall of the room, one hand gripping his hair while the other worked at the fastenings of his tunic. Heat surged through me, the familiar intoxicating blend of dominance and desire.

"This is what you came for, isn't it?" I growled against his mouth.

Gods, I hated him. I hated how much I wanted him.

Livia was everything to me from the moment we met—brilliant, compassionate, fiercely determined to change a world that had broken us both. She saw me as a person when the rest of the Empire saw only a half-breed demon. Her love was like finding shelter after a lifetime of storms.

But Septimus... Septimus was the storm itself.

At first, I merely tolerated him for Livia's sake.

Her loyal protector, the man who'd sworn to keep her safe, who stood at her side with unwavering devotion.

His hatred of me was palpable—in every glare, every barely civil word, every tense muscle when I entered a room.

I told myself his contempt meant nothing to me.

Until I caught him watching.

Not with hatred, but with something far more complex.

Desire, shame, and confusion warring in those dark eyes when he thought no one would notice.

The way his breath would catch when I moved too close.

How his gaze would linger on my mouth, my hands, my body, before he'd force it away with renewed contempt.

That night in the alley, when I confronted him about following me, I'd intended only to threaten him.

To make it clear that I wouldn't tolerate his interference.

But something in his defiance, in the way he stood his ground despite his fear, awakened something primal in me.

I wanted to break through that hatred, to force him to acknowledge the desire beneath it.

And gods help me, when I pushed him to his knees, when I saw that mixture of shame and hunger in his eyes, I was lost.

What began as a game—a way to expose his hypocrisy and gain power over him—quickly became an obsession.

Each encounter revealed new layers to him that no one else saw.

Beneath the stoic protector, the dutiful slave, the man defined by hatred, there was a raw vulnerability that called to something equally vulnerable in me.

With Livia, I was gentle. Tender. The best version of myself.

With Septimus, I could be everything the Empire feared—dominant, feral, unleashed. And he responded to it with a passion that matched my own, even as he hated himself for it.

That was part of the addiction, I suppose.

The pure honesty of our encounters. No pretence, no performance.

Just raw need and the strange intimacy of two enemies who knew each other's bodies better than anyone else.

When he surrendered to me, when pleasure stripped away his defences and left him gasping beneath me, there was a truth between us that I found nowhere else.

And sometimes, in rare unguarded moments afterward, I caught glimpses of who he might have been without the weight of hatred and vengeance.

A fleeting smile. An unexpected conversation as though we were equals in his eyes.

These moments were more intoxicating than the sex itself—brief windows into a connection that might have been possible in another world.

I fell in love with Livia easily, naturally, like sunrise after darkness.

What I felt for Septimus was different—complicated, destructive, impossible. A hunger that only grew sharper with each taste. A challenge I couldn't walk away from. The maddening possibility that beneath his hatred lay something else—something he was too afraid to name.

Perhaps it was simply the appeal of the forbidden. Or perhaps it was because in him I saw a reflection of my own divided self—the constant battle between who we are and who we're told to be.

Whatever it was, I couldn't stop. Even knowing that each encounter deepened a bond that might ultimately destroy us both. Even knowing that he might never see me as anything but a monster.

Even knowing that I loved Livia with every fibre of my being, there was this other hunger that belonged to him alone.

And sometimes, in the darkest hours of night when he moved beneath me, when his defences crumbled completely, I allowed myself to imagine a future where he didn't hate what I was.

Where he didn't hate himself for wanting me.

It was a dangerous dream. But it kept me coming back to him, night after night, trapped in this twisted dance of desire and denial, hoping that someday the walls he'd built would finally fall.

I captured his wrists, pinning them above his head against the wall. The little noise of protest he made sent heat coiling through my stomach.

"Not yet," I growled. "Not until you admit why you're really here."

His chest heaved against mine. "I was following you. Making sure you weren't—"

"Lying," I finished, pressing my thigh between his legs, feeling his hardness against me. "You didn't follow me because you thought I was betraying the cause. You followed me because you can't stay away."

"That's not—"

I silenced him with a bruising kiss, biting his lower lip hard enough to draw a gasp. When I pulled back, his pupils were blown wide with desire.

"Your body doesn't lie as well as your mouth does, Septimus."

I reached down to cup him through his trousers, squeezing just on the edge of pain. His hips bucked forward involuntarily.

"You despise the Talfen, yet here you are, trembling for one."

He struggled against my hold, but it was a token resistance. We both knew he could fight harder if he truly wanted to escape.

"I hate you," he gasped as my free hand slid beneath his tunic, tracing the taut muscles of his abdomen. "By all the gods, I despise what you are. Not how you make me feel."

The admission stunned me, momentarily breaking through the haze of lust. It was perhaps the most honest thing he'd ever said to me. Before I could respond, he surged forward, claiming my mouth again, desperate to drown whatever dangerous truth had just emerged.

I dragged him to the bed, tearing his clothes away. He responded in kind, fingers clawing at my tunic, my belt, cursing when they caught on the buckle.

"Too slow," I muttered, shoving his hands aside to remove it myself as he laid down on the bed, watching me undress.

The moonlight painted silver streaks across his exposed skin.

He was beautiful—all lean muscle and battle scars, the body of a soldier who'd survived things that would have killed lesser men.

I leaned over and traced a particularly vicious scar that ran from his collarbone to his ribs—a wound that should have killed him.

We both bore scars from the arena, though it felt like a lifetime ago now.

He closed his eyes and shivered under my touch as my fingers stroked lower.