Page 31 of She Who Was Severed (The Ashen Chain Trilogy #1)

She wraps her legs around my waist and pulls me deeper. Her gasps, her hands, the arch of her spine—none of it asks for permission. It’s declaration. I sink into her in one clean thrust, and she takes it like a dare, like an answer, like she’s not just surviving this, but choosing it.

She kisses me like she wants to live inside my lungs.

Like she’s memorizing the shape of my bones from the inside out.

I press my mouth to her throat, the pulse there wild and sacred. Her name lives under my tongue. Her body arches to meet me again.

The Chain tightens—not cruel. Not ceremonial.

Sanctified.

Because this isn’t about forgiveness anymore. Not about vengeance. It’s about the truth that even after everything, she still came back. She said yes with her body when the world only gave her reasons to say no.

And gods help me, I will never let her fall again.

Freya’s nails rake down my back as I thrust into her, hard and clean. She doesn’t flinch. She pulls me closer, eyes locked on mine. And what’s there isn’t just lust.

It’s reckoning.

I would’ve burned the world for you.

The words rise like fire in my throat.

I don’t just say them.

I am them.

She holds my jaw, soaked and shaking. “You already did.”

And she kisses me like that’s permission.

So I keep going.

The pace breaks. Rebuilds. Breaks again. It’s not about rhythm. Not even about pleasure. It’s about release. Letting the world fracture around us and choosing, breath by breath, not to care.

The Chain winds tighter around us both. It hums like a second heartbeat between us—not magic. Meaning.

Because this?

This isn’t sex .

It’s aftermath.

It’s what you do when everything tried to break you, and didn’t.

The rain softens, like the storm’s embarrassed by how loud it got. Her chest rises under mine, slow and steady now. Her arm curls around my shoulder—not gripping, just staying.

And for a minute, I let it be enough.

I ease out of her slowly. Careful. Reverent. The stone is slick beneath us—wet with rain and memory and everything we didn’t say. My clothes are scattered. My thoughts worse. I don’t reach for either.

She doesn’t speak.

The Chain brushes my back—barely there. Not wrapping now. Just resting. Like it’s watching her the way I am. Unsure what comes next.

Because something’s coming. We both know it.

Freya shifts, breathes a little deeper. Her fingers trail down my chest, then still. Not claiming. Just present.

And the silence isn’t empty. It’s full of everything we survived.

I almost broke the world to get back to her.

She almost let it.

I press my mouth to the hinge of her jaw, just beneath her left ear—the spot I’ve never marked, but still call mine. Not out of ownership. Just knowing. Just hers and mine and no one else’s. Then I lie beside her on the stone, one arm folded behind my head, the other tangled in her hair.

She turns into me.

The broken city of Ashmere murmurs below.

And above us, something ancient listens.

The Chain doesn’t glow. Doesn’t hum.

But it stays.

Because we’ve just redrawn the line between who we were—

And who we’ll have to become.

- x -

Freya

Outside, the rain has finally stopped, but everything still feels wet. My skin, my clothes, the city. We made it down from the rooftop sometime after midnight, half-dressed and wordless, and crashed into this cot like it owed us a place to land.

The air tastes like ash and blood-warm metal, tinged with the scent of dragonfire that no longer burns but hasn’t fully left.

Kellen’s arm is still under my neck, his breath slow and even where it brushes my shoulder.

His hand rests at my hip, loose but present, like some part of him refuses to let go even in sleep. I don’t know if I want him to.

The Chain is quiet—but not idle. It coils at my ribs like a thing waiting to speak. Not pain. Not pressure. Just presence. Watching me from the inside. I shift gently, hoping not to wake him, but the Chain shifts too, tightening half a link like it’s weighing my guilt against his.

The cot creaks when I sit up. The sheet drags against my skin, rough with cold. My muscles pull like I’ve been braced for impact all night. I drag my fingers across my stomach, half-expecting heat or light, but there’s just skin—and beneath it, the low hum of magic that still hasn’t settled.

The door doesn’t open. It creaks like it’s tired of being used, and then Vale is just there—no sound, no warning.

Dagger at her thigh. Rain still clinging to her hair.

There’s blood smeared across her left boot and a tear at her collar that wasn’t there yesterday.

She looks at me, at the bed, then back to me .

“You’re glowing,” she says. Flat. Unimpressed. Her voice cuts the room like a knife that isn’t trying to draw blood—it just wants to remind you it could.

Then she’s gone.

No commentary. No smirk. No offer of understanding. Just the kind of glance that tells you someone knows too much and won’t say a word until it matters.

I run a hand through my hair, catching in a knot near the nape. My spine aches. My thighs burn. My ribs are tight with the weight of too many hours spent trying to pretend there was still something clean in the way we touched each other.

The door creaks again. No knock. No preamble.

Owen walks in holding two mugs of something steaming and mildly threatening. He’s wearing a robe that might’ve been white once. There’s a smear of ink across his cheek and the kind of smirk people don’t survive long in polite society.

He sets the mugs on the table with more ceremony than required. Then, gently, he places a single match between them. “Tea,” he says, too brightly. “And, presumably, whatever’s left of your dignity. Though I doubt either of you have any left to spare.”

He glances at Kellen’s sleeping form, then at me. Winks. “Busy day ahead, my radiant troublemakers. Drink up. Try to hydrate.”

And he’s gone. No explanation. Just robes flaring, voice trailing into silence like he’s announcing a wedding rather than delivering the aftermath of vengeance and sex.

Kellen shifts behind me. His hand slides up my waist like he’s waking with his whole body, not just his mind.

“You’re awake,” I murmur.

He doesn’t open his eyes. Just lets out a low sound—half breath, half acknowledgment—and tugs me gently back into him .

I reach for one of the mugs. The ceramic burns my fingers. I hold it anyway. The heat is good. Familiar. Like the press of his chest behind me. Like the Chain curled between us, no longer binding—just there.

He noses into the space behind my ear. Breath warm. Mouth soft. His hand slides up my thigh under the sheet, slow but certain, and I don’t stop him. I don’t even breathe.

We don’t talk.

We don’t need to.

He’s already hard. I’m already aching. There’s no ceremony to it. No build. Just the rhythm of bodies that already know the shape of each other, moving in sync without asking permission.

It’s fast. Quiet. A shared inhale in the space between storms.

When it’s over, we don’t move. We don’t have to.

The match is still on the table. The mugs still steam.

And the morning is just beginning.