❤Claiming Jade❤

“Fenrir!” Jade’s voice rang through the chamber above and echoed down into the darkness below. She leaned over the broken opening in the floor, gripping the edge hard enough that her knuckles whitened, as though she might physically drag him back up with sheer will alone. “Fenrir!”

The void answered with nothing.

Her breath tightened in her chest. She called again, sharper this time, panic beginning to edge into the single word. “Fen!”
At last, from somewhere below the broken floor, came his voice.

“I am alive,” Fenrir called back, a faint note of strained amusement cutting through the darkness. “Though I suspect I am going to feel that one tomorrow.”

Relief hit her so suddenly that Jade had to close her eyes for a heartbeat and swallow the sharpness in her throat. “I cannot see you,” she answered, leaning farther over the opening. “It is far too dark from here.”

“Give me a moment,” he said. A small ember of blue light flared below, followed by the warm, familiar glow of fire as Fenrir conjured a palm-sized pyre in his hand. The chamber beneath the floor began to take shape in the wavering illumination, and with it, the outline of him. Standing and dusting himself off, alive and very much intact.

“There you are,” Jade said, the tension in her shoulders easing only once she could see his face. Even now, all she could think to ask was the same thing that had driven the panic from her lungs. “Are you hurt?”

Fenrir glanced down at himself, then back up toward her. “Nothing I have not survived before,” he replied dryly. “And I think this is a hidden chamber of some sort.”

Jade frowned, still on her knees at the edge of the hole. “A chamber?”

He angled the small flame toward the room around him, and what little he had been able to see already seemed to have changed his tone. “Yes. Hold the rope ready. I think you will want to see this for yourself.”

She did not waste another moment. Jade reached into the pack beside her, pulled out the coiled rope they had carried since their departure, and secured it to one of the stronger stone anchors near the broken floor. “I am coming down,” she said. “Can you give me a little more light?”

“I am on it.”

Below her, Fenrir moved with brisk purpose. The glow of his spell swept across the chamber as he crossed to the walls and found a pair of old torches set into iron brackets, hidden beneath years of dust. One by one, he lit them. Their flames flickered awake in the stale air, and the chamber slowly emerged from darkness as though it had been waiting centuries for the right hands to wake it.

What the light revealed made Jade pause halfway through her descent.

The room was not empty. Nor was it ruined in the same way the rest of the temple had been. Its walls were carved with elegant celestial patterns, their lines ancient but not faded, still reverent. Delicate reliefs of stars and branching vines circled the chamber’s upper reaches. The stone floor had been carefully maintained, not just preserved. Even the air in the room felt different, less dry and neglected. It was the sort of place one did not simply hide by accident.

This hidden sanctuary had been protected, deliberately. By someone who had not wanted it found.

Jade descended the final stretch and landed lightly beside him. Her eyes moved immediately to the far end of the chamber, where the light from torches illuminated something pale and luminous enough to make her inhale sharply.
It took her only a second to recognise it.

Her expression changed from confusion to stunned wonder in the same breath. “It cannot be…” Then a smile, bright and unguarded, broke across her face. “The Delian.”

Fenrir said nothing at first. For once, he seemed genuinely struck silent.

The tree stood at the heart of the chamber like a relic of another age, or perhaps a miracle that had refused to die. Its trunk was made of white wood so pure it almost seemed to glow from within. Veined roots, threaded with light-blue brilliance, spread across the floor and crawled partway up the chamber walls, glowing softly like rivers of moonlight trapped beneath the stone. The branches rose upward in long, graceful arcs, and from them hung leaves of pale red that seemed to catch the torchlight and return it in a gentler hue. Around the tree, the air carried a faint shimmer, as though the room itself were breathing. It was a sight to behold in reverence. Not in a polished, courtly way, but in the old sacred sense of the word. In the kind of beauty that made silence feel like the proper response.

“How did it end up here?” Fenrir asked at last, his voice low, reverent despite himself.

Jade approached the tree slowly, as though afraid a careless movement might disturb its sleep. “I do not know,” she admitted. “Perhaps the temple was built around it. Perhaps Delia hid it here herself, far from Shao Kahn's reach.”
Fenrir crouched by one of the roots, studying the pale veins of light moving beneath the surface. “I do not think it was hidden here after the fact.”

Jade looked over at him. He gestured for her to join him, and she lowered herself beside him, her fingers hovering over the root before he touched. The moment her palm met the living wood, a faint pulse passed through the chamber.
Fenrir watched the roots with narrowed eyes. “Feel that,” he murmured. “They are old. Older than they should be. Much older. I think this tree was born here.”

Jade’s eyes widened. “Then the sap…”

“Are Delia’s tears,” he said, and there was no doubt in his tone. “Whatever power is in them is not ordinary magic. It feels like celestial energy. Like Raiden’s, but quieter." He rose slowly, looking from the roots to the trunk and then back to Jade. “That would explain why it never died. And why Delia guarded it so carefully.”

“Argus was a god,” Jade said softly, almost to herself. “Perhaps he helped her shape it. Perhaps the two of them gave it form so it could survive what came after.”

Fenrir allowed himself a brief, lopsided smile. “That part is your territory, gorgeous. I don't think I have the answers you are looking for."

He turned back to the tree, and for a moment the Delian seemed to answer him. Its pale glow deepened. The roots shone a little brighter. The chamber filled with a warmth that did not come from the torches. It was not heat exactly, but something gentler. Welcoming in nature.

Fenrir let out a slow breath, and the tension in his shoulders seemed to ease in one long, reluctant release. “It feels…” He searched for the word, then gave a quiet, almost disbelieving laugh.

“Peaceful,” Jade said, her tone softening in recognition.

He glanced at her, and she was already smiling, eyes half-closed as if she were letting the feeling wash through her without resistance. There was wonder on her face, but also something deeper. A kind of gratitude that seemed to settle into her soul rather than her thoughts. Jade stood and took a few slow steps toward the Delian's trunk, placing her hand upon it with a careful reverence.

“When the Delian chooses someone,” she said, still looking at the tree, “this is what it does. Not everyone feels it. Only those it trusts. Only those whose hearts it finds…” She looked back at him then, and her smile turned tender. “In the right place.”

The roots brightened beneath her hand.

Something in Jade’s expression changed then, subtle but unmistakable. It was not simply joy. It was confirmation. As though the Delian itself had reached into the deepest part of her and answered a question she had carried for years. An answer she could only hear and understand.

Fenrir saw it at once. He did not need her to say it. The chamber had already said it for her. The tree had accepted her as one of them. An Edenian. Not only in blood, but in spirit.

The weight she had carried for so long seemed to loosen all at once. Jade closed her eyes for a heartbeat, and when she opened them again, there was a softness there that Fenrir had rarely seen in her before. A rejuvenating release, her fears cleansed.

Then she turned fully toward him. The warmth in her gaze made his breath catch.

A few moments ago she had looked as though grief might pull her apart. Now there was still fragility in her, but it had changed shape. It had become something steadier, something quieter. He could see at once what the Delian had given her: not just validation, but permission to stop questioning whether she belonged to the memory of her own people.
And beneath that, something even more personal. She did not need to say it out loud for Fenrir to understand that his words had mattered.

What he had told her in the priestess’s chamber, what he would have given her even if the Delian had been nothing but a myth, had landed in her heart in a way she had not expected. He didn't try to fix her nor offer empty promises or political solutions. He had simply stayed.

Jade had known companionship before. Loyalty. Respect. Desire, even. But not this. Not the sort of love that sat with grief instead of hiding from it.

She stepped toward him with a slow, deliberate sway, the kind of movement that made him lift a brow in curiosity before she even spoke. The shift was subtle, but unmistakably Jade: grace sharpened by intent.

“There was a time,” she said, stopping close enough that he could feel the warmth of her breath, “when I lived in fear, Fen.”

He started to answer, but she lifted one finger and pressed it lightly to his lips, silencing him with a gentleness that carried more authority than command.

“For as long as I can remember, I fought for everything,” she continued. Her voice had lowered, not because it lacked strength, but because it no longer needed to be loud. “I battled in the arena as a slave. I persisted while serving Shao Kahn as his assassin. I fought while standing at Kitana’s side, and every step of the way I told myself I had to remain balanced. Controlled and Unshaken.” Her fingers rested lightly against his chest now, over the steady beat beneath his ribs. “But beneath all that, I was afraid.”

Fenrir did not move. Instead, he listened silently and tenderly.

“I was afraid that one day I would not return from battle, and that no one would remember me.” Her eyes dropped for a heartbeat, then lifted again. “That no one would remember that there was an Edenian still breathing, still fighting, still trying to become something in a world determined to make her a memory.”

The chamber was quiet except for the faint hum of the Delian roots. “That fear never truly left,” she admitted. “Even after meeting Kitana and Mileena. I told myself I had found something that would last, and in time I knew both of them would grow into their own paths, their own duties. Then what would remain of me? So I came back here, to this desert, because solitude felt safer than being forgotten.” Her hand moved to his cheek. The touch was tender, grounding. “It was not a permanent peace,” she said. “Only a borrowed one.”

Fenrir's gaze remained fixed on hers, but there was a softness to it now that made her voice falter for the briefest moment.

“And then that day in the arena changed everything.” A slow breath moved through her before she went on. “My life changed forever, for the better. I was still afraid of my duty as queen. I still am. Some fears do not vanish simply because one is crowned.” Her mouth curved slightly, an echo of the old Jade returning through the seriousness. “But I was no longer alone in it.”

Her hand drifted from his cheek to the centre of his chest, where her palm settled over his heart. “I found that much at least,” she whispered. “I found him.” Her eyes met his, steady and clear. “I found you, Fen.”

Fenrir had no quick reply for that. For once, the man who could speak with his blade and wit alike was held utterly still.

Jade’s words reached deeper than the chamber and the tree, deeper than the legends themselves. He could feel the force of them in the way his own chest tightened, the way the air around them seemed suddenly too small for all that had been admitted between them. He saw her as she truly was in that moment: not only a queen, the assassin, not only as the woman whom he had fallen for. She was the one who had chosen him with her whole heart, despite all she had lost.

“I do not know what the future will bring,” she said, her voice growing quieter, more intimate. “I do not know if this war will leave us standing when it ends. But I know this.” Her eyes sharpened with a passion that did not dim her tenderness, only deepened it. “I want every day and every night. Every hour. Every minute. I want all of it with you. I do not want anyone else.” She reached for his hand and drew it to her chest, over her heart this time, as if to make the declaration there and not only in words.

“I love you.”

The chamber felt as though it had gone still around them.

Fenrir remembered then the old warning Kronika had once spoken, the cryptic truth that had made little sense at the time and now seemed to settle into place with a dreadful, beautiful inevitability. Destiny. Fate. A soul divided and drawn toward its missing pieces, toward the women whose lives had crossed his own in ways he still did not fully understand. Kitana. Mileena. Even Skarlet, though that truth remained hidden from Jade.

Yet none of that mattered in this room. Not in this moment.

Because whatever else bound him to the world, whatever ancient force had threaded its way through his blood and existence, the one thing he knew without doubt was the thing standing before him now.

Love.

Jade stepped closer, rising just enough to bring her mouth near his ear. Her voice, when she spoke again, was velvet and fire at once, intimate in a way that made his pulse jump. “You do not have to say it back,” she murmured. “I know you love me just as deeply.”

Her breath stirred the side of his face.

“Under the Delian,” she said softly, “and before the elder gods, I choose you.” Then she leaned in a fraction more, every line of her posture elegant despite the vulnerability in her voice, and gave him one final look that seemed to hold both devotion and challenge in equal measure.

“I am ready,” she whispered. “Make me yours.”

What followed did not feel like a decision; it felt inevitable.

The moment Jade’s whisper faded into the sacred hush of the hidden sanctuary, Fenrir's restraint gave way at last. He drew her into him with a hunger born not merely from desire, but from everything they had endured together. Fear, grief, longing, and the fierce certainty that had just been spoken beneath the Delian’s light. Their lips met in a fervent kiss, deep and consuming, yet threaded through with unmistakable tenderness.

Jade’s hands slid up his shoulders and into his hair, holding him close as though she feared the world might steal him away if she loosened her grip for even a heartbeat. Fenrir answered by wrapping his arms around her waist and pulling her fully against him, feeling the warmth of her body through the remaining layers between them. The kiss deepened, slow at first, then desperate, as though both of them were trying to memorise the other through touch alone.
Cloth loosened beneath searching fingers. A sash slipped free. A clasp gave way.

One piece at a time, the barriers between them disappeared, not with hurried urgency, but with the reverence of two souls who understood that this moment was more than passion. Their hands wandered across newly bared skin with wonder and familiarity all at once, tracing scars, muscle, and curves as though each touch were a vow renewed.

The pale blue glow of the Delian roots painted their bodies in soft celestial light, turning the hidden chamber into something that felt less like a forgotten ruin and more like a sacred sanctuary prepared for them alone.

Jade stepped backwards until the smooth white trunk of the Delian rested against her palms. The luminous roots curled around the stone at her feet like living veins of moonlight. She arched slightly, not in submission, but in invitation, her emerald eyes never leaving his. A playful, knowing smile touched her lips as she beckoned him closer with a single crooked finger.

“I know you enjoy staring at me, handsome,” she murmured, her voice warm with affection and challenge alike. “But I would much rather have your hands on me than your eyes.”

Fenrir laughed softly, the sound low and rough with desire. "That sounds dangerous.”

“You chose this, deal with it,” she reminded him with a loving smile.

He crossed the remaining distance between them, his hands settling against her hips before sliding slowly along the curves of her body. Jade shivered beneath his touch, leaning back against the Delian as his mouth found her neck, then her jaw, kissing her with a devotion that made her breath catch. There was nothing careless in the way he touched her. Even wrapped in desire, he treated her as something precious. He caressed her backside, teasing her entrance with his hard-on. Preparing her for him, though that much wasn’t needed. She was more than ready for this moment. Once ready, he entered her.

When he finally joined himself to her, the movement drew a sharp gasp from Jade’s lips. She clutched the Delian’s trunk for a moment, eyes closing as she adjusted to the fullness of him. The first sensation was overwhelming, intense enough to steal the breath from her lungs, but the discomfort lasted only a heartbeat before warmth flooded through her. She melted back against him with a trembling exhale.

“Gods…” she whispered, her voice breaking into a soft moan as he began to move. “Fen…”

Fenrir's forehead rested briefly against her shoulder as he found a steady rhythm, holding her close, giving her time, listening to every breath and every sound she made. The chamber filled with the quiet music emanating from them: ragged breathing, whispered names, the clash of skin against skin, and the faint crystalline hum of the Delian surrounding it all like a blessing.

Jade turned her head enough to catch his mouth in another kiss, her fingers tightening around his as the rhythm between them deepened. “Do not stop,” she breathed against his lips. “Please…Claim me, my love. Make me yours.” As the act progressed, it became more and more passionate; Tender whispers melted into raw, uninhibited demands as their skin grew slick with sweat. “Gods!” She said in ragged breaths, “You are fucking me so good, babe. Don’t stop!

He answered by drawing her even closer, one arm wrapped securely around her waist while the other slid upward to cradle her cheek. The tenderness of that touch undid her almost as much as the passion itself. Jade had expected hunger. She had expected intensity. What she had not expected was how profoundly loved he could make her feel in the middle of it.

What followed was as expected. After a few more powerful and deep thrusts from her lover, Jade came undone. Her walls tightened hard around his shaft. A guttural moan escaped her lips; her wet juices dripped down from her entrance towards her thighs. She didn’t want him to stop, nor would she forgive him if he did.

Fenrir understood that, and what followed was more passionate and primal in nature.

The pace between them quickened naturally, carried forward by growing desire and the unspoken understanding that neither of them wished to hold anything back anymore. Jade’s composure began to unravel beneath the combined assault of his body, his kisses, and the rough, affectionate praise he murmured against her skin.

“Look at you,” Fenrir whispered near her ear, his voice thick with awe as much as want. “You are beautiful beyond reason.”

Jade laughed softly through a moan, breathless and flushed. “Flattery will not save you now, my emperor.”
“It is not flattery if it is true.”

The words, spoken with complete sincerity, made her heart clench. Desire surged through her with renewed force. She pressed back against him with a desperate little sound that tore another groan from his throat.

Fenrir kissed her neck with passion, speaking just the right words to make her weak. “I love your body so much, my love. This fucking ass is perfection itself. I’m going to make sure it’s treated as it deserves every day.”

Jade moaned harder. His raspy and hungry voice made her a wet mess below. She adored when he took control like this, especially in this moment. “You better. I want this cock inside of me every day from now on. The gods bless you with it. You better put it to good use, Fen.” She said in between moans, approaching her second climax from the rough lovemaking. “Fuck! Right there. RIGHT THERE!” she screamed; the sounds of her ass being ravaged echoing louder than ever in the room.

The tension that had been building inside her finally broke. Jade cried out his name as pleasure washed through her in a trembling wave. Fenrirheld her through it, steady and protective, never loosening his embrace as she shook against him.
For a moment they simply breathed together, foreheads touching, bodies still joined. Jade opened her eyes and looked at him with a dazed, radiant smile that could have undone armies.

Then her expression shifted. A spark of mischief returned to those emerald eyes.
Fenrir pulled out of her, but before he could fully recover his composure, Jade turned around and pushed him backwards with surprising force. He let out a startled laugh as she guided him down onto the stone floor beside the glowing roots, the Delian’s pale light spilling across his bare skin.

Jade settled astride him, her dark hair cascading around her shoulders like silk touched by moonlight. She leaned down close enough that her lips brushed his when she spoke.

“Did you truly think,” she whispered, amusement dancing through her voice, “that I would let you be the only one doing the claiming tonight?”

Fenrir's answering grin was helplessly devoted. “I was hoping you would prove me wrong.”

She kissed him again, slower this time, savouring the sound he made when she moved against him. Her hands guided his to her waist, then higher, encouraging his touch with a confidence that was unmistakably Jade. Graceful, assured and utterly intoxicating. Fenrirfollowed her lead eagerly, worshipping her body with wandering hands and lingering kisses that drew soft, pleased moans from her lips.

The Delian’s glow pulsed gently around them, its roots brightening and dimming like the slow rhythm of a heartbeat. The chamber no longer felt ancient or abandoned. It felt alive, as though the last living relic of Edenia itself bore silent witness to the love unfolding beneath its branches.

She leaned in, her hand grabbing his hard-on and drawing it near to her wet folds “Wise answer.” She said, lowering herself on his cock.

With that, she began to ride him hard, full of passion and love. Jade moved with increasing urgency, her earlier tenderness giving way to passionate determination. Every kiss, every touch, every breathless laugh carried the same unspoken message: you are mine as surely as I am yours. Fenrir met that intensity gladly, holding her close whenever she trembled, answering every hungry movement with one of his own.

She grabbed his hands, placing them on her hard breasts; Fenrir followed her lead with the same conviction. Squeezing and kissing them full of love, making her moan at his possessive touch and kisses all over her body.

Jade could only move faster, bouncing hard on his back with one objective. To leave him dry. Once she felt him twitch and his pre-cum began to leak, it was all over. “Hmm, I can feel it, Fen. Do it. Fill me up. I don’t care. I want everything with you. I want to feel you claim me fully, paint my pussy.”

The words, the moment, her…everything was just too much for him in that moment. At last the mounting tension became too much for either of them to contain. Jade buried her face briefly against his shoulder as another powerful climax overtook her, and Fenrir followed moments later with a broken groan, pulling her tightly against him as the final wave of pleasure crashed through them both.

When it was over, they remained tangled together on the floor beside the Delian, breathless and trembling, the blue glow of the roots washing over their entwined bodies. The fierce urgency of their passion faded gradually into something softer, warmer and infinitely more intimate.

Jade curled against his chest, listening to the steady thunder of his heartbeat beneath her ear. Fenrir's arms wrapped around her instinctively, holding her as though there were nowhere else in any realm he would rather be. For a long while neither of them spoke. They simply existed together in the quiet afterglow, exchanging lazy kisses and gentle caresses while the sacred chamber hummed softly around them.

Jade eventually lifted her head just enough to look at him. Her fingers brushed through his hair, then traced the line of his cheek with unmistakable affection. The love in her eyes was so open, so utterly unguarded, that it made his chest ache.

“I love you, idiot,” she murmured, smiling softly despite the exhaustion pulling at her. “Do not, ever, forget that.”
Fenrir's hand slid to the back of her head, cradling her with the same tenderness she had shown him from the beginning.
He drew her closer until their foreheads rested together beneath the pale red leaves of the Delian.

“Never,” he whispered. The promise felt less like a word and more like fate itself.

PD: Forgot to mention here since I posted it on AO3, but I'm doing a Q&A soon. I want you all(guest or user) to leave your questions regarding the story in general or for the future, and from there I'm going to post a chapter answering the questions in detail.

The link to the chapter is this one: https://archiveofourown.org/works/81209546/chapters/236838956