Page 24

Dahlia

Night came slow and heavy, the way it always did after long days full of revelations, old ghosts, and an alarming amount of cheese.

The house had finally started to settle.

Thea set up camp in the armchair, her boots planted wide and arms crossed, eyes locked on Silas like she expected him to turn into a demon mid-snore.

“Don’t worry,” she muttered when I offered her a blanket. “I’ll sleep when I’m dead. Or when he is. Whichever comes first.”

Henry accepted the offer of my bed without fuss. “Only if it’s no trouble,” he said, already halfway down the hallway, Sunny tucked under one arm like a fuzzy hostage. “My hips won’t forgive me if I take that couch.”

“No trouble at all,” I promised, grabbing an extra blanket from the linen closet and hugging it to my chest. “Kieran and I can share.”

Kieran, who had been silently rinsing dishes at the sink, went utterly still. “We… can?”

I glanced over at him, giving what I hoped was a casual shrug. “We slept together last night. You’re not exactly a stranger anymore.”

He turned slowly, water dripping from his hands, expression unreadable.

“If you'd rather, I can sleep on the couch,” I added, “But you'll have to fix my back.”

He smirked. “No need.”

We said our goodnights, each voice softer than the last, the cottage dimming room by room.

I led the way to my guest room—his room, technically, by occupation—and kicked off my shoes near the door.

The bed was already made from this morning, the sheets cool and smooth beneath my hand as I pulled back the covers.

Kieran stood in the doorway, watching me with that quiet, observing stillness he wore like a second skin. He looked tired. Not just from the day, but from the years behind it.

“You okay?” I asked gently.

“I will be,” he said.

He moved closer, and I could see the way his body favored his side. The healing spell had helped, but the deeper bruises—those took time. Especially with him pretending they didn’t exist.

I sat on the edge of the bed and patted the mattress beside me. “Shirt off. Let me check your wound.”

He hesitated.

“I taught you how to make lasagna,” I said. “Let me have this.”

That made him snort—just a soft breath of amusement—but he obeyed.

Slowly, carefully, he pulled his shirt over his head and dropped it to the floor.

I swallowed when I saw the bandages, the bruising still shadowing the skin around his ribs.

His body was a map of quiet suffering, marked with fading pain and old strength.

I stood in front of him and peeled the bandage back with careful fingers. “Still tender?”

“A little.”

“Let me know if I need to stop.” I grabbed the salve I’d tucked into the drawer earlier and smoothed it across the bruises, my fingertips moving lightly. He didn’t flinch, but he didn’t meet my eyes either.

After a long silence, he murmured, “That lasagna didn’t fall on its own.”

I paused. “What?”

He cleared his throat, gaze fixed on a knot in the wooden floorboards. “Silas. The spill. That wasn’t gravity. That was me.”

I stared at him.

“You used magic to dump lasagna in your brother’s lap?”

He nodded once, solemn. “Yes.”

I blinked.

And then I laughed.

It wasn’t a dainty giggle or a breathy chuckle—it was full and probably a little bit unhinged from everything we’d been through.

But once it started, I couldn’t stop. I leaned my forehead against his shoulder and my hands on his thighs, still laughing, and felt him exhale like he’d been holding it in.

“I thought I was being subtle,” he said dryly.

“You were!” I wheezed. “That’s the worst part. You were so smug and serene while his thighs were burning. I thought he was going to cry.”

“I hoped he would.”

I looked up at him, the last of my laughter fading into something softer. “That was wildly petty. And I think I love you a little bit for it.”

The words slipped out before I could catch them.

He stilled, eyes searching mine.

My heart dropped.

“I mean—” I tried to backpedal. “Love you like… in a hypothetical, lasagna-justice kind of way, not—”

“Flower.”

His voice was gentle. Firm. And warm. Too warm.

I stopped talking.

He didn’t move to kiss me. Didn’t rush the moment. Just smiled, small and crooked.

“Thank you,” he said. “For patching me up. For feeding me. For letting me be petty.”

Fuck it. Now or never, Dahlia.

I stepped in close—right into his space—and before he could speak, before I could second-guess the way my chest felt like it might explode from the pressure, I grabbed his face with both hands and slammed my lips to his.

Hard. Hungry. Reckless.

He froze for half a heartbeat—shocked—but then his hands found my waist and clutched like he’d been drowning for centuries and just broke the surface.

I didn’t kiss him like I was asking permission.

I kissed him like I’d been waiting my whole damn life and had just now realized it.

The kiss turned brutal, then reverent, then brutal again.

Teeth, tongue, gasps too loud in the quiet room.

He backed me up until my knees hit the mattress, then came down over me slow.

Slow, like he was afraid I'd vanish if he rushed.

The way he held me—tight, possessive—his calloused hands dragging down my hips like he was memorizing my very bones.

The pull between us snapped taut, heat arcing like magic itself had been holding its breath. I tasted tension, longing, two centuries of secrets and one strange, shared spark that had only ever made sense in the way it made no sense at all.

When we finally broke apart, we were both breathless.

Kieran stared down at me, stunned, lips parted slightly like he wasn’t sure if the world had tilted or just us .

I didn’t let him speak.

“I feel it,” I whispered, still holding his face between my palms. “Whatever this is. I feel it, and I’m tired of pretending I don’t.”

His voice came out hoarse. “I’ve been trying not to want this.”

“Then stop trying.”

We crashed again—less fury this time, more ache. Like the edges of something too long restrained finally breaking free.

"You smell like warm earth and honey,” he rasped, breath hot against my jaw. “No wonder they named you after something that grows wild.”

I blinked, dizzy with want. “You’re really leaning into this nickname thing, huh?”

He traced my cheek with his thumb, eyes molten. “No. I’m leaning into you , Flower.”

The way he said it made my skin break out in goosebumps. Not just the word. The reverence in it. Like I was something rare. Precious .

His fingers curled around the back of my neck, pulling me deeper into the kiss. That was the moment I knew, knew I wasn’t the only one who felt it, the heat, the burn . Like someone had set my soul aflame. Scorching me from the inside ou t.

He tasted like fire and sorrow, something ancient I couldn’t name. Like magic smoldering on his tongue.

When I finally pulled back, breathless and dazed, I whispered, “You kiss like you already own me.”

Kieran’s forehead pressed to mine, his voice hoarse. “I do.”

“You make me want things I have no right wanting,” he murmured, voice frayed, like the words were ripped from deep within him.

My chest tightened, throat thick. “I’m not asking you to deserve me. I’m asking you to try.”

The last vestiges of his restraint splintered in that moment.

He dragged his mouth down my throat, teeth grazing just enough to make me mewl. “ Mine . You understand that? You’re mine , Flower. And if the world forgets it—I’ll remind them.”

His hands mapped my skin like he owned it—slowly, thoroughly, trembling with restraint.

When he finally pushed into me, it wasn’t fast. It wasn’t frantic.

It was deep—a claiming . A shudder ran through him like it hurt to feel so much at once.

I wanted all of him—chaos, darkness, past, and all.

Because there was something about this man that had always felt like a covenant, even before I knew his name.

He eased out, then pressed in again with deliberate care, slow and grinding, like he needed to feel every inch of me. Like the drag of my body against his was the only thing tethering him to earth.

He moved like he was committing every breath to memory. Every gasp. Every time my hips arched into him, he murmured against my skin—sweet, filthy things that made me dizzy.

When I pulled him closer, when I let him take me with a slow, aching rhythm that made my bones tremble—I wasn’t thinking of curses or covens or locked-away pasts.

I was thinking of us . Right here. Right now.

The way he looked at me like I was the center of his universe. The only thing he believed in.

And when it came—when I unraveled beneath him—I did it with his name on my lips and his shadows consuming my heart.

I bloomed for him.

It was the only word that fit. My body trembled, hips rising, breath catching like petals torn open by heat and want. And he felt it—felt me —and leaned down, voice cracked and reverent.

He dragged his mouth along my collarbone, hands spread across my hips like he was holding something fragile but holy.

“Look at you,” he whispered. “Blossoming for me. Sweet. Swollen. Shaking. My flower. ”

I was still shaking.

Breath shallow, skin slick, thighs trembling. But Kieran wasn’t finished. Not with me. Not even close.

His hand curled around my hip like he was anchoring himself, using my body to tether him to this moment. And when he leaned in, pressing a kiss just beneath my ear, I felt it once more—that rush of heat, of knowing. Of him .

“You bloomed for me,” he whispered, voice rough and almost disbelieving. Like he hadn’t expected it to wreck him as much as it did me. “Like a flower blooming in the morning sun… mesmerizing.” He murmured reverently against my skin, lips grazing, breath hot.

I should’ve told him I couldn’t—should’ve begged for space to breathe, to recover—but all I could do was gasp when his fingers slipped between my thighs again. Gentle. Insistent. Worshipful. Ruthless in how he brushed against where I was still burning.

“I want to see it again,” he murmured, dragging his lips across my collarbone. “Want to feel you come undone on me. For me. Every shudder. Every twitch. I want you blooming around me until it drives us both mad.”

A whimper escaped me, body humming with leftover pleasure, already drifting back into its grasp. My body wasn’t listening to reason—it was listening to him . To the low, reverent rasp of his voice, to the fingers that circled and pressed until flames licked up my spine.

And gods , when he slid back into me—slow, deliberate, impossibly deep—my mouth fell open in a silent cry.

“Kieran—” His name was nothing more than a ragged breath, raw and unraveling.

“I know, Flower,” he groaned, and the way he said it—dark and covetous—made me clench around him. “You feel so fucking good. Like this— this —is where I’m meant to be. Inside you. Watching you fall apart.”

He thrust again, slow and steady, and I could feel him watching me.

Studying the way I arched, the way I bloomed around him again—hapless, starving, straining for more.

I didn’t just feel pleasure—I drowned in it, and gladly let it consume me.

He held me there, cradled in his hands like I was something sacred, a holy relic, something that had bloomed for no one else.

Every time he moved, it shoved me higher—past logic, past shame, past anything I thought I could feel.

“I can’t—” The words trembled on my lips, but I didn’t even know what I was trying to say.

“Yes, you can,” he growled. His fingers dug into my hips, guiding me back into his thrusts. “You will. For me. One more time, Flower. Let go.”

I imploded with his name on my tongue, my body bowed, breath caught, hips rising and falling with the rhythm he gave me. My orgasm tore through me like fire through dry petals—violent, beautiful, and too much all at once.

I bloomed again.

Gods help me, I bloomed for him, full and hot and wrecked.

Kieran groaned—one harsh sound torn from his throat—and then he followed, spilling into me with a curse, his entire body trembling as he held me close, like I was a sacrament. Something he’d built an altar to without even knowing.

And when it was over, when we lay tangled and breathless, his chest rising and falling, he drew me close, and wrapped his arms around me, whispering into my hair,

“Look what you do to me. You wreck me completely.” A kiss at my temple. “You bloom once and I forget everything.”

I didn’t care what came tomorrow. Tonight, I belonged to him. And maybe, just maybe… he belonged to me too.