Bound by Shadow, Claimed by Storm

The air in the archives was thick with the scent of decaying paper and binding glue, a smell that always settled in the back of my throat. I shifted on the hard wooden bench, a familiar ache blooming deep in my hip joints. It was a dull, constant pain, a reminder of the body I was trapped in, the one that threatened to betray me with every step, every climb, every demand of a rider’s life. My fingers, thin and pale against the yellowed pages of Advanced Channeling Theory, traced the intricate diagram of a lightning strike. The text was dense, the theories complex, but power was the only thing that could compensate for my physical weakness. If I couldn't be strong, I would be deadly.

Tairn was a low, rumbling presence in the back of my mind, a steadying weight. You are pushing yourself too hard, Silver One.

Andarna chimed in, her mental voice a flash of bright gold. But she is learning! It is very interesting!

I offered them a flicker of reassurance, trying to focus on the arcane script. But my focus fractured. The silence of the archives wasn't truly silent; it was filled with the ghost of a sound, the memory of a low groan torn from the back of a throat. Cyril’s throat. My gaze unfocused from the page, and I was back in his room, hours ago. The memory was so vivid it was almost a physical sensation. His hands, large and calloused, gripping my hips, holding me in place. The sharp angle of his jaw, dark with stubble, pressed against my neck.

My own hips shifted again on the bench, a reflexive movement, remembering the way he’d pushed into me. The blunt, thick head of his cock sliding against my entrance before he drove in with a single, possessive thrust that stole the air from my lungs. I remembered the slick heat of it, the feeling of being filled completely, stretched around him. My legs had been wrapped high around his waist, my ankles crossed behind his back, my muscles trembling with the effort of holding the position and the sheer pleasure of it. He’d moved with a slow, deliberate rhythm, his shadows coiling in the corners of the room as if watching us, drawn to the intensity of the act. I could still feel the phantom pressure of his mouth on my breast, the wet pull of his tongue circling my nipple before he took it between his teeth, just hard enough to make me gasp his name.

A flush crept up my neck, a stark contrast to the archives’ chill. I squeezed my thighs together, the leather of my breeches creaking softly in the quiet. It was a dangerous game, thinking of him like this, letting the memory of his body, of what we did, bleed into the safe, scholarly corners of my day. The memory of him finishing inside me, the hot pulse of his release deep within my womb, was enough to make my core clench with a hollow ache of want.

“Cadet Sorrengail?”

The voice, soft but firm, sliced through my thoughts. I blinked, my heart hammering against my ribs as if I’d been caught doing something forbidden. And in a way, I had. A young scribe, no older than fifteen, stood a few feet away, his expression carefully neutral. He held a rolled parchment tied with a plain cord and sealed with a dollop of black wax. The wax bore the unmistakable imprint of Professor Kaori’s signet.

A cold dread, immediate and absolute, washed through me. Unscheduled, hand-delivered summons from the head of Rider Studies were never about commendations. They were about new, impossible challenges. Or punishments. My stomach twisted. I took the parchment from the scribe, my fingers feeling clumsy and weak as I broke the seal. The message was brief, the handwriting a severe, unforgiving script.

Ashton Sorrengail. My office. Now.

My joints protested with every step away from the archives, a familiar litany of clicks and aches that echoed the frantic beat of my heart. Tairn remained a silent, watchful presence, his stillness a sign of his own apprehension. I didn't need the mental link to know he was on edge. The path to Professor Kaori’s office was one I knew well, but it felt longer today, each stone in the corridor a step closer to some unknown verdict. My hand instinctively went to my stomach, a strange, protective gesture. The memory of Cyril’s weight on top of me, the raw friction of his skin against mine, was a ghost clinging to my senses.

I pushed the heavy oak door open without knocking. The office was small, crammed with scrolls and tactical maps, smelling of ink and dry wood. And he was there.

Of course, he was there.

Cyril stood near the window, his back partially to the door, but he turned as I entered. The space, already cramped, seemed to shrink, the air growing thick and heavy. His shadows weren't active, not in any way an observer could prove, but they clung to the corners of the room, drinking the light, making the space feel dense and suffocating. He was dressed in his black rider leathers, the silver scales on his uniform catching what little light his presence hadn't swallowed. He was an imposing figure, tall and broad, a physical manifestation of the power he wielded.

His eyes found mine, and any warmth I might have imagined lingered from the early hours of the morning was gone, extinguished. They were cold, flat, the eyes of a wing leader assessing a threat. His expression was a carefully constructed mask of indifference bordering on contempt. It was the face he showed the world, the face of the son of the Great Betrayer. The face of a man who hated everything I represented.

A muscle in his jaw jumped. That was the only sign of life, of any emotion beneath the surface. My gaze dropped for a fraction of a second to his mouth. I could still feel the pressure of those lips on my collarbone, the scrape of his stubble against the sensitive skin of my inner thigh. I remembered him lifting my hips, his gaze dark with a different kind of intensity as he positioned the head of his penis at my entrance, slick with my wetness, before pushing into me with a single, controlled motion. My body gave a traitorous little twitch, a memory of being filled by him so completely.

I forced my eyes back to his, my own expression hardening into the mask I was required to wear. Ashton Sorrengail, daughter of the General. Fragile in body, perhaps, but unyielding in will. I would not let him see that his coldness was a physical blow, a bewildering counterpoint to the man who had groaned my name as he came inside me not eight hours ago.

The silence stretched, thick and charged. It was a tangible thing, built from years of bad blood and a few stolen hours of impossible intimacy. We stood there, two sides of a war locked in a tiny room, the memory of his naked, sweat-slicked body a secret screaming between us. His hands were clenched into fists at his sides. I remembered those hands, splayed wide across my back, his fingers digging into my skin, holding me pinned to the mattress as he moved. The sheer, brutal force of his passion was now replaced by this rigid, hateful control. It made my stomach hurt. I lifted my chin, a silent challenge. If this was the game we had to play in the light of day, then I would play it. I would not be the first to break.

Professor Kaori didn’t look up from the document she was reading on her desk. She let the silence stretch, a deliberate tactic to fray our nerves. She was a small woman, but her presence was as sharp as a shard of glass. “The two of you will be undertaking a reconnaissance mission,” she said, her voice crisp and devoid of any warmth. She finally lifted her head, and her dark, intelligent eyes flicked between us. “Effective immediately.”

My mouth went dry. A mission. Together. The idea was so ludicrous, so utterly impossible, that for a second I thought I’d misheard. I glanced at Cyril. His expression hadn't changed, but I saw it—a subtle tightening around his eyes, a stillness that was more telling than any outburst. He was processing it, calculating. I wondered if he was thinking what I was thinking. That this was some kind of trap.

“There are anomalous energy readings emanating from an abandoned outpost near the Krovlan border,” Kaori continued, her tone leaving no room for questions. She gestured to a large map pinned to the wall, tapping a location deep in unmarked territory, well beyond the wards. “The source is unknown. The signature is unlike anything our scribes have on record. It’s causing… disturbances.”

Disturbances. The word was chillingly vague.

“Your objective is to fly to these coordinates, assess the nature of the energy source, and report back. You are to engage only if absolutely necessary for your own survival. This is reconnaissance, not an assault.” She paused, letting the weight of the assignment settle. Then came the part that sealed my fate. “Your signets have been deemed uniquely complementary for this task. His ability to mask your approach, your ability to provide overwhelming defensive power if you are discovered. It’s a logical pairing.”

Complementary. The word struck me with the force of a physical blow. I thought of his body, hard and defined, moving over mine. I thought of the way his shadow-darkened room had felt like a sanctuary while he was buried deep inside of me, his hips slamming against mine with a rhythm that felt like it could shatter the world. I remembered the slick, hot friction of his penis sliding in and out of me, the way my own wetness coated his shaft. The memory was so sharp, so visceral, that a jolt of heat went through me, right there in the cold, sterile office. I felt a phantom ache between my legs, a longing for the blunt force of his presence. His power had complemented mine then, his darkness swallowing my gasps, his strength supporting my fragile frame as he fucked me until my mind was empty of everything but him.

Now, that same complementarity was being weaponized, twisted into a military strategy by people who knew nothing of the truth. I looked at him, at the cold mask he wore, and a wave of nausea rolled through me. Was this a test from him? Had he orchestrated this somehow? But his face gave nothing away. He was a locked vault.

“The order,” Professor Kaori said, her eyes pinning me in place, “comes directly from General Sorrengail.”

The air left my lungs. My mother. The one person whose commands were absolute, whose strategic mind was legendary and whose feelings for the children of the rebellion were anything but compassionate. This wasn't a test from Cyril. It wasn't a random assignment from the college. This was a direct order from my mother. It felt like a betrayal, a deliberate, calculated move on a board I couldn't even see. She was throwing me to the wolves, and she was shackling me to the one wolf I was beginning to think I couldn't live without. The room felt like it was closing in, the air thick with his scent and the impossible weight of my mother’s command.

“Professor,” I started, my voice thin but steady. It felt like someone else’s. “With all due respect, this pairing is… unwise.”

Kaori’s eyebrows lifted a fraction of an inch. It was the only sign of her impatience. “Explain yourself, Cadet.”

My gaze flickered to Cyril. He hadn’t moved. He just stood there, a statue carved from shadow and fury, his eyes fixed on the map on the wall as if he found it more interesting than this conversation about his potential treason. The sight of his rigid back, the line of his shoulders under the black leather, sent a fresh wave of heat through me. I remembered that back, the muscles contracting under my hands as he drove into me, his rhythm hard and punishingly deep. I remembered the sound he made, a low groan against my ear, when I wrapped my legs high around his waist, taking him in even further.

I forced the memory down, my throat tight. “His loyalties are, at best, divided,” I said, the formal words feeling like ash in my mouth. “His father led the rebellion. To send him on a sensitive mission beyond the wards is an unacceptable security risk.” I was quoting the military doctrine my mother herself had written. Using her logic against her. It felt pathetic.

I dared to look at him again. His jaw was tight, a muscle flexing rhythmically. He was listening. He knew what I was doing, what I had to do. We were playing our parts. But under the table of this political theater, I could still feel the phantom sensation of his fingers pressed into the flesh of my ass, holding me in place for his thrusts. I could feel the blunt, heavy head of his penis pressing against my cervix with each movement, a feeling so complete it had erased every thought from my mind. How could I speak of his divided loyalties when I had felt the single-minded focus of his entire being as he came inside of me, his body shuddering, his hot seed flooding my womb? The memory made my own body clench deep inside.

“Your concerns are noted, Sorrengail,” Kaori said, her tone dismissing them entirely. “And they have been considered by the General. She believes, as do I, that Rider Riorson’s desire to protect Navarre from the venin threat supersedes any lingering political sentiment. His record since being conscripted has been exemplary.”

Exemplary. I nearly choked on the word. I thought of his hands, those exemplary hands, tangled in my hair, pulling my head back as he kissed me, his tongue pushing past my lips with an ownership that left no room for debate.

“This is a mistake,” I whispered, the words aimed more at myself than at her.

For the first time, Cyril spoke. His voice was a low rumble that vibrated through the small room, unsettling the dust motes in the air. “I will fulfill the mission’s parameters.”

He said it to Kaori, but his eyes, dark and unreadable, finally met mine. There was nothing in them. No memory of our shared night, no secret acknowledgment. Just the flat, cold declaration of a soldier. And that, more than anything, felt like a slap. He could erase it. He could stand here and pretend he hadn’t been inside my body, that he hadn’t left his scent on my skin, that he hadn’t looked at me in the dark with an expression so raw it had stolen my breath.

“There is no mistake,” Professor Kaori said, her voice sharp as a blade, cutting through the tension. “This is not a debate. It is an order. From your General. You will prepare your dragons and your gear. You will leave at dawn. Am I understood?”

The question was a formality. A nail in the coffin. My arguments were gone, my protests rendered meaningless. I was trapped. I had to go into the wild, unprotected lands with the one man who represented everything I was supposed to fight against, and everything my body now craved with a desperate, shameful hunger.

I gave the only answer I could. A single, sharp nod.

My eyes stayed locked on Cyril’s. The mask was still there, but behind it, just for a second, I saw something flicker. A darkness that wasn’t his signet. A shared understanding of the precipice we were now standing on. The mission was dangerous, but the true danger was right here, in this room. It was the secret burning between us, a force as potent and volatile as lightning and shadow combined. And we were about to be thrown into the storm.