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I drag my cock in and out, feeling her sheath tighten and quiver. Fuck, she is shaking all over, and I’m mad with it. I want to send tidal waves throughout all of Nightfall proclaiming it, but I don’t.
This is just for us. For her and me.
“Kael!” she cries out my name like it’s something holy. Something worthy, and I know she’s almost there.
I need her orgasm.
Crave it like I crave oxygen.
“Tell me when, viyella. Tell me when you come. Scream it,” I demand.
She nods.
And I pump harder, pounding into her until her entire body trembles and she gasps, then moans.
“Oh, God! Yes! Kael, I’m coming!”
“Fuck. That’s it. So good for me, aren’t you, Telya? My perfect viyella,” I groan.
And when at last I’m coming, seated inside her fully, I know it’s not just possession.
It is reclamation.
The Lord of Water and his viyella, bound as tide to moon, as wave to shore—forever.
The magic of the festival hums around us, folding the tent into silence and shadow, bearing witness as we are remade together.
Chapter 20
Phoebe
Fifth Shore—TheTidal Lands, Nightfall
Each village teaches me something new.
Here, they braid kelp into crowns and pour sweet, spiced wine into shells.
There, elders chant the names of the tides and bless the newcomers with salt on their tongues.
I learn that a bow isn’t always submission in Nightfall—it can be a prayer, a promise, a pact.
People show me how to tie offerings into the rigging of a boat so the sea will forgive them for taking at harvest time.
A woman kneels and presses a shell to my palm and tells me I have been given the name of someone the tides favor.
My name feels foreign and right in my mouth.
I am learning this world, and Kael is, for reasons I still don’t understand, teaching me to belong in it.
Every lesson is a thread in something bigger.
But threads can be woven into comfort or into traps.
There are moments—alone, in the hush between shores—when he presses his forehead to mine and I feel that same fierce, guttural claiming again, but softer this time.
Not just ownership, but a promise.
I let myself lean into it.
