Chapter 255: Kingdom Of Light Said YES
Landon Solveil had been awake for almost three days, frozen in a river, and emotionally dismantled by a woman who didn’t know his name. The night was about to get worse. Or better. Depending on who you asked.
The portal closed behind him, the mountain swallowed the golden light, and Landon Solveil stood on the upper terrace of the most powerful Luminari stronghold on the continent holding a woman who meant everything.
The solite beneath his boots lit with every step, amber warmth blooming across the courtyard stone the way it always did for royal blood. But tonight it wasn’t just where he stood. The entire courtyard lit beneath his boots and the levitating fountains tripled in size.
Guards looked up in awe.
The Kingdom of Light didn’t welcome newcomers. Landon glanced down at the unconscious woman in his arms and thought: Where have you been my entire life?
"Your Majesty." The nearest guard dropped to a fist-over-heart salute.
"Master Healer. My chambers. Now."
The guard was already running before the sentence finished.
Landon was holding a glowing woman. The fountains lost their minds. And the guards, to their credit, asked zero questions.
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SOLVEIL - CITADEL - ROYAL CHAMBERS 10:15 PM
The old Master Healer looked at Guinevere in Landon’s bed but did not say a word. Smart man.
"The good news is her lashes are partially healed by her light and closing for me now," he began. "The bad news is her light is at excess. I’m sure you felt that."
"Yes. She’s been releasing into me."
"Which is why you’re standing upright instead of face-down on my floor. Her light has been feeding yours. Congratulations, you’ve been using your mate as a charging station."
"That’s reductive."
"That’s accurate. Your reserves were empty and now they’re at eighty percent. You didn’t do that. She did. While unconscious."
The old man’s hands stopped over her sternum. The golden diagnostic light shifted, then stuttered. His brow creased.
"I do feel there’s something in her now that was not there before. Or it has grown. I don’t know which." He glanced up. "Octavian should look at her when he is back from the wolf kingdom."
The healer pushed deeper. The diagnostic light turned grey at the edges where it met the dark magic.
"The infection is threaded through her light channels, feeding on the excess, growing every time her reserves spike. That explains part of why she’s been destabilizing. Her body produces more light to fight the infection, and the infection eats the extra light to grow. She’s been fueling her own poison."
Landon’s hands were in fists at his sides. Every word the healer spoke was adding weight to a guilt that was already crushing him. He’d been at the rogue camp when she needed him. He’d been in the air when she was being whipped. He’d arrived at Lunaris after the battle was over. He’d found her at Greyhall too late to do anything except carry her here.
Always late. Always chasing. Always one step behind a woman who kept bleeding while kings argued about who got to save her.
"Why does it not touch me?"
"To start with, she doesn’t have the immune system. Think of her light as brand new. Extra bright, but also extra fragile."
"Can you remove it?"
The old healer pulled his hands back. His face had the careful neutrality of a healer about to deliver news the patient’s family was going to hate.
"Her light needs to be calibrated first. Stabilized. If I try to extract the dark magic while her reserves are spiking, the extraction could trigger a surge that kills her, kills me, or kills everyone in this wing. Possibly all three in that order."
"Calibrated how?"
"Skin contact with a compatible light-bearer. Sustained. Hours. Her light needs to equalize against a stable source before I can safely separate it from the infection. Think of it as tuning two instruments to the same frequency before you can hear which note is wrong."
"You’re describing what she and I already do. Every time we touch."
"I’m describing it with intention this time, Your Grace. Every accidental transfer you’ve had has been uncontrolled. She dumps excess into you, you absorb it, and neither of you is steering. I need you to HOLD the connection open and regulate the flow. Slowly. Evenly. For hours. Which means sustained physical contact, which means skin, which means clothing becomes counterproductive."
Landon stared at him.
The healer stared back with the unflappable calm of a man who had been delivering uncomfortable medical recommendations to the Luminari royal family for over a century.
"You’re telling me to get in the bed with her."
"Yes. I’m telling you that the most effective calibration method requires maximum skin-to-surface contact between her body and a compatible light-bearer, which would be you. Or that young dragon if you want him to mark her."
"She’s unconscious," Landon said right away.
"Which is actually better for the calibration because her conscious mind would interfere with the transfer. Her light operates more cleanly when she’s asleep. Think of it as her light trusting your light without her brain getting in the way and asking questions."
"She’s also injured. And she doesn’t know who I am."
"All the more reason to stabilize her before she wakes up confused, overpowered, and carrying an infection that’s been eating her alive. But by all means, Your Grace, stand there looking conflicted for another ten minutes while the parasite grows. I’ll wait."
Landon dragged a hand down his face.
He’d been flying for hours and in a frozen river before that, all while trying to process the emotional aftermath of finding his fated mate and being cosmically blue-balled by the universe for the last three days.
Now his best healer was telling him to strip down, climb into bed with an unconscious woman, and hold her for hours while their light calibrated.
"Leave us."
The doors shut. Landon stripped without ceremony, his clothes hitting the floor in the order gravity decided.
He turned to her. His hands hesitated over her tunic, then moved carefully, peeling the fabric off like he was unwrapping something that would bruise if he breathed too hard. She didn’t stir.
She was completely bare in front of him and he froze.
Fuck, she was perfect.
"I’m a dead man."
He closed his eyes, swore again for good measure, and got in the damn bed, carefully pulling her on top of him.
The second her bare breasts pressed against his skin, heat punched straight through his gut and his hands locked on her waist like they’d been ordered to hold position.
Her excess light poured into him in a steady stream that was immediately, overwhelmingly warm.
Too warm. Hot actually.
Full skin was different than what they were doing earlier. His light pushed back into her slow and deep, and every pulse made his cock jerk. The transfer was thick, intimate, and so sexual it made his jaw clench.
His free hand slid down without permission, spanning the soft curve of her waist before settling on the upper swell of her ass.
His pulse thudded in his ears. He wanted this woman more than he had ever wanted anything in his life and this was making it much worse.
"Gods. I’m in trouble."
The lash wounds on her back were healing from his light. He could feel an echo of it.
His eyes were closing. His body was shutting down whether he approved or not. Hours of flying and searching for her and he finally had her.
The last conscious thought he had was: I’m holding everything I’ve ever wanted and I’m too exhausted to stay awake for it.
His arms tightened once. His chin pressed against her hair.
He was asleep in under a minute.
The light between them pulsed steady and even, two systems finally synchronized, filling the room with a warm glow.