Page 15 of Shattered Crown

“Feel the flow,” Thorne instructed, chest pressed to Silas's back, hands guiding his lover's movements. “Portal magic isn't about force. It's about finding the spaces between.”

Silas's concentration wavered as Thorne's breath ghosted across his neck. “Hard to focus when you're doing that.”

“Doing what?” Thorne asked innocently, teeth grazing an earlobe.

“You know exactly what.”

“Perhaps you need a more... thorough lesson.”

What began as instruction dissolved into exploration. Hands mapped familiar territory with new purpose. Magic built between them, wild and uncontrolled, until they were forced to stop or risk setting the room ablaze.

“Later,” Silas gasped, pulling away with visible effort. “We have work to do.”

Thorne growled but acquiesced, channeling his frustration into summoning ravens. The great black birds gathered on the windowsill, intelligent eyes watching as he imbued them with complex messages.

“Find the others,” he commanded. “Carry word of what comes. Ask for news of exiled Ashworths who chose love over duty.”

Silas added his own magic to the messages, marking them as coming from a united pair. The ravens launched themselves into the fading light, wings cutting through sunset like living shadows.

As darkness fell, they retreated to their chambers. The day's revelations had left them both raw, vulnerable in ways that only intimacy could soothe.

“I'm frightened,” Thorne admitted as they undressed. “Not of battle or death. Of facing what I buried. Of learning how badly I failed those who trusted me.”

Silas paused in removing his shirt. “You didn't fail anyone. You survived betrayal that would have destroyed most beings. And now you're strong enough to face the past, to build something better.”

“Because of you.”

“Because of us.”

They came together slowly, like the settling of storm winds after a long night. Thorne moved with reverence, not caution — tracing the sharp lines of Silas’s jaw with a hand that had once ended lives, now trembling with need. There was no ceremony in the way he kissed him, just hunger wrapped in tenderness, centuries of loneliness unraveling in the press of mouths and the heat between their bodies.

Silas's skin was warm, flushed, alive beneath Thorne’s touch, and it felt like touching the sun after a lifetime in shadow. They undressed one another without hurry, clothes stripped away like secrets, laid bare not just in flesh but in soul. Thorne's fingers skimmed across Silas's ribs, his hips, the delicate curve of his spine, and each breath Silas took was a silent yes.

When Thorne entered him, it was slow, deliberate. Not a claiming, not really — more like answering a call. Silas arched into it, meeting every thrust with a gasp, a moan, a whispered curse that melted into Thorne’s mouth. The rhythm they found wasn’t perfect, not at first. It stuttered, caught on the rough edge of emotion, on Thorne’s trembling control. But it built. Gods, it built. Like the pull of the moon on tide, relentless and inevitable.

Thorne’s cock slid deeper, slick with spit and need, and Silas clenched around him, eyes wide and blown with something close to awe. There was no pretense in this. No performative beauty. Just the raw, messy kind — sweat and teeth, nails in shoulders, the slap of skin on skin. Silas opened for him, legs around Thorne’s waist, voice rough as he said, “More. Don’t hold back.”

So he didn’t.

The bed creaked, sheets twisted beneath them, and Thorne pressed him down, forehead to forehead, trying to anchor himself in the moment. Magic thrummed between their bodies, ambient and heady — Silas’s forest magic blooming like vines across his chest and arms, reacting to Thorne’s own immortal energy. It sparked in the air, glowing faintly, and it smelled like pine, moss, sweat, sex.

Thorne fucked him slow and deep, every thrust a silent promise. He watched Silas fall apart beneath him, eyes fluttering closed, then opening again like he couldn’t bear to look away. His hole stretched around Thorne’s cock, greedy and slick, taking him to the hilt, again and again, until Thorne thought he might unravel completely.

And still, they didn’t rush it.

Because this wasn’t just lust. It was a declaration. A breaking of curses, old and quiet and clawing at the edges of Thorne’s mind. He was terrified, not of the magic, not of the sex, but of how right this felt — how goddamnrealit was.

“You’re beautiful,” Silas whispered, between shallow breaths, one hand tangled in Thorne’s dark curls. “Even when you’re being a dick.”

Thorne barked a laugh, teeth flashing in the low moonlight. “You love it.”

Silas grinned. “Yeah. I really fucking do.”

They came together like that, Silas first, with a shudder that made the light spirits dancing around the ceiling flare brighter. His orgasm hit like a wave, soaking both of them in the sound of his moan and the sharp, involuntary way his body tightened around Thorne’s cock.

Thorne followed a moment later, buried to the root, eyes locked on Silas like he could carve the image into memory and keep it there forever. He spilled inside him with a curse, breath catching in his throat, the world narrowing to the tight, perfect heat of Silas’s body and the sudden aching peace in his own chest.

After, they lay tangled in sheets that smelled like sweat and forest magic, the last remnants of moonlight sliding across the ceiling. Thorne created light spirits without thinking — they flickered into existence lazily, like fireflies caught in syrup. They drifted above the bed, casting slow-moving shadows on the walls, soft and golden.

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