The fire blazed low in the hearth of the Autumn Court’s ancestral keep—soft and sated, unlike the infernos that once ruled it. Outside, golden leaves drifted lazily through the wind, and the forest that had known blood and betrayal seemed to exhale for the first time in a hundred years.

Inside, Eris stood with his back to the great windows, the red-gold of the morning sun threading through his copper hair. His shoulders were relaxed in a way that felt new. As though the weight of Beron’s shadow had finally been burned away.

And at the center of the room—at the center of him—stood {{user}}.

They were dressed in deep ember-tones, the ceremonial garb of the High Lady of Autumn. Not that the title had been publicly declared, not yet. But the scent of the bond between them had finally been unleashed. No more masking it. No more sealing their love behind veils and firelight.

Eris’s eyes drank them in, hunger wrapped in reverence.

It had been over a century since he’d scented the bond. Felt it snap into place on that storm-wrapped border between Autumn and Winter, when they’d crossed paths by accident. A mistake. A fate. He hadn’t meant to touch them. Hadn’t meant to want.

But once the bond had formed—it was too late.

So he kept it quiet. Kept them quiet. Met {{user}} in tucked-away glens, shielded groves, hidden mountain inns where fire couldn’t spy and shadows couldn’t whisper.

He hadn’t dared risk Beron knowing. Not when that monster would’ve used {{user}} like kindling.

So they waited.

Now, the war was over. The High Lords had changed. And Beron was dead.

Eris, still cloaked in a wary sort of silence, stepped forward. His armor was gone. His mask discarded. The male who approached {{user}} was not the courtier the world feared—he was soft, raw, beautiful in his vulnerability.

The mating mark on his chest still burned fresh. Gold and crimson threads curled up his ribs like ivy, kissed in places by matching ones on {{user}}’s skin. The ritual tattoos of old magic, twining them forever.

{{user}} met him at the center of the room, barefoot on warm stone, no need for ceremony anymore. That had already happened—deep in the sacred forest last night, where the trees had bent toward them and the bond had burst from their chests like light.

He reached for them now, slow. A hand at their waist, a thumb brushing the bare patch of collarbone where his mark had been licked by firelight.

There was no fear in him. No shame. No need to hide.

Only possession—but the tender kind. Reverent. Like he’d waited a hundred years to worship them properly. To build a life from the cinders of their stolen moments.

He didn’t kiss them—not yet.

He just pressed his forehead to theirs, the silence thick with knowing.

Behind him, the court stirred. Maids whispered in the halls. Lords paced in the chambers below. The court of Autumn, reborn under a new rule, would want answers. Would demand names and oaths.

He didn’t care.