Library
Search
Home / Romance / Thorned Desires: Claimed by the Enemy / Chapter Thirty: Claiming

Share

Chapter Thirty: Claiming

Author: Yva/ Yad ombretta
last update publish date: 2026-04-25 23:27:56

He came to her room that night.

Not his, hers. The east wing, the cloud-covered bed, the room she'd been inhabiting for fifty-eight days. Her books on the nightstand. The leather bookmark. His shirt folded on the chair because she'd kept it and had not yet found the right place for it, which was its own kind of information.

She heard the knock and said, "Come in," and he came in, and she understood from the way he stood in the doorway, jacket off, and something in his expression—she was still l
Continue to read this book for free
Scan code to download App
Previous Chapter Next Chapter
Locked Chapter

Latest chapter

  • Thorned Desires: Claimed by the Enemy   Chapter Ninety-Five: Home

    The sweet peas came back in June.She found them on a Tuesday morning. Not watching for them, simply there when she looked. The back left corner of the south bed, the third year, stronger than the second year, which had been stronger than the first. Mr. Osei had said that was the nature of them. He had been right, as he was right about most things involving what the garden could do when you gave it the right conditions and waited.She stood at the edge of the bed for a long time.The purple and white and the red that was almost not red. The smell of them reaching her from five feet away. The specific morning quality of June: full and warm and committed to itself, nothing tentative remaining, the season absolutely what it was.She cut three stems.She went inside.The two cups were already out.Of course.He was at the kitchen window. He turned when he heard her come in. He saw the sweet peas.The expression crossed his face. The full version. Both corners. The architecture completely

  • Thorned Desires: Claimed by the Enemy   Chapter Ninety-Four: Spring

    Mr. Osei planted the sweet peas on a Saturday in April.She watched from the library window. He was in the south bed with the specific, focused attention of someone doing something that mattered and knew it. The back left corner. The same corner. The same variety. The same patient work of establishing what would take until June to bloom and would come back stronger every year thereafter.She went outside.He was kneeling in the soil. He did not look up."Same variety?" she said."Yes," he said. "They'll be stronger again this year. Third year. They've found the right depth now."She stood at the edge of the bed and looked at the corner. Nothing visible yet. Just the soil. Just Mr. Osei's hands. Just the patient work of planting what would not be seen for two months."She planted them here originally," she said."1997," he said. "She chose the spot. She said, 'The back left corner gets the most afternoon light, and the wall holds warmth. 'She was right about both.""She usually was," S

  • Thorned Desires: Claimed by the Enemy   Chapter Ninety-Three: The Rest of the Fifteenth

    The Thai food place was on a street off Fifty-Third. It had been there since 1987 and had opinions about consistency that Isla shared and had communicated directly to the owner on three separate occasions over nine years.The owner knew them by order.He brought the spring rolls without being asked."You look the same," he said to Sera."Thank you," she said."Different," he said.He looked at her hand. At the ring. At Lucian beside her."Different and the same.""Yes," she said. "That's right."He brought the rest.The table was the corner one they always had. Herself and Isla and now Lucian, who had ordered with the focused consideration he brought to tasks that mattered and had chosen correctly.The March evening sat beyond the window. The city was doing what cities did: indifferent and enormous and paying no attention to what had happened in a south garden two hours north at eleven that morning.Isla looked at her across the table."Well," she said."Well," Sera said."Fourteen mo

  • Thorned Desires: Claimed by the Enemy   Chapter Ninety-Two: The Fifteenth

    She came downstairs at seven-thirty, and the two cups were out.Of course.He was at the kitchen window. The March morning was doing what Mr. Osei had said it would do. The oak showed green at the very tips. The south bed was beginning its slow assertion of color. The bench sat in the morning light exactly as it always had.She came into the kitchen, and he turned to look at her. The expression was fully his, fully open, the face she had been learning since October and now knew completely."Good morning," he said."Good morning," she said.She poured her coffee. He poured his.They stood at the window in the specific warmth of two people who had been standing at this window for fourteen months and were standing at it today because it was the fifteenth and the bench was ready and Mr. Osei had chosen correctly."Ready?" she said."Since approximately day three," he said.She looked at him.The full smile came.Both corners.The architecture of his face completely changed.The smile she

  • Thorned Desires: Claimed by the Enemy   Chapter Ninety-One: March

    Mr. Osei chose the fifteenth.He told Lucian on a Tuesday morning in the first week of March. He came to the kitchen door with the specific expression he had when he had assessed something, arrived at a conclusion, and come to deliver it."The fifteenth," he said. "The south bed will be ready. The hellebores will be past their peak but still holding. The oak is showing green at the tips. The bench will be right.""The fifteenth," Lucian said."Yes," Mr. Osei said.He looked at Sera."If that's satisfactory.""Yes," she said. "That's satisfactory."He nodded once and went back to the garden.She looked at Lucian across the kitchen table.March fifteenth.Nine days."Nine days," she said."Yes," he said."That's a very short engagement.""We've been engaged since July," he said. "The engagement has been adequate in duration. The ceremony is simply the legal and garden components completing what was already true."She held his gaze."Yes," she said. "That's right."She called Margaux.Ma

  • Thorned Desires: Claimed by the Enemy   Chapter Ninety: February Again

    The hellebores came in on a Thursday.She wasn't watching for them. That was the thing.In the first February she had watched for them, or rather, had had them pointed out to her. She had stood with Mr. Osei in the frost and looked at the small impossible purple things and understood what they were and what they meant.Stubborn.Early.Holding.This February she came downstairs on a Thursday morning and went to the kitchen window with her coffee, and they were simply there.Already arrived.She had not known they were coming on a Thursday, and yet there they were. The east bed. The familiar low purple. The impossible February insistence.She went outside in her coat, coffee still in hand.She stood at the edge of the east bed.They were, if anything, stronger than last year.Mr. Osei had divided them in spring, as he had said he would, and they had returned from the division with the specific vigor of things that had been given the right conditions and had used them correctly.She sto

  • Thorned Desires: Claimed by the Enemy   Chapter Seventy-Nine: Late September

    The garden was copper and gold by the third week of September, and Mr. Osei was pleased about it.She could tell from the specific way he moved through it—not the working pace, the appreciating pace, the one he had when the garden was doing exactly what he'd designed it to do and he was simply rece

  • Thorned Desires: Claimed by the Enemy   Chapter Seventy-Seven: Late Summer

    The days began shortening in August, and she noticed it on a specific morning—the quality of the light at seven was different from what it had been in June, the specific angle telling her the season was making its decision.Not ending.Deciding.She stood at the kitchen window with her coffee and l

  • Thorned Desires: Claimed by the Enemy   Chapter Seventy-Six: August

    August came in warm and stayed warm, and the house settled into it the way it settled into everything—without ceremony, simply present in the season.She noticed the change in Lucian first.Not a dramatic change—the specific kind that arrived gradually in a person who had been carrying something fo

  • Thorned Desires: Claimed by the Enemy   Chapter Seventy-Five: Assessment

    Niamh arrived on a Saturday with a measuring tape.Not metaphorically—an actual measuring tape, the good kind, the kind used on construction sites rather than for hemming curtains. She came through the door and shook Sera's hand and said, "Before anything else, I'd like to see the east wing." Damie

More Chapters

You may also like

Explore and read good novels for free
Free access to a vast number of good novels on GoodNovel app. Download the books you like and read anywhere & anytime.
Read books for free on the app
SCAN CODE TO READ ON APP
DMCA.com Protection Status