His teeth stay buried in my neck for long moments, and I can feel him drawing something from me even as he gives. The bond forms between us like a bridge of ice and starlight, connecting our minds, our hearts, our very essences.
When he finally releases my throat, the wounds seal immediately, leaving behind a perfect scar in the shape of his bite. Two crescent marks that will brand me as his for all eternity.
Power floods through me—his power, cold and ancient and vast. I feel it changing me at the deepest level, rewriting my very blood to match his. The bond completes in a rush of shared sensation that leaves me gasping and shaking, our minds suddenly open to each other in ways I never imagined possible.
Through our new connection, I can feel his deep satisfaction, his overwhelming love, his fierce pride in claiming me. And he can feel my wonder, my acceptance, my growing understanding of what we've become together.
I am his. Completely, irrevocably, joyfully his.
"Mine," he growls against my throat, his knot locking us together one final time.
"Yours," I breathe back, and feel the truth of it settle into my bones. "Forever and always yours."
His final release is the most intense yet, filling me with seed and magic while our completed bond pulses between us. I can feel everything he feels, know everything he knows aboutour connection. We are mated now in ways that transcend the physical, joined at levels that can never be severed.
When his final knot goes down near midnight on Day 34, I'm transformed completely. Inside and out. Body and soul. When I catch my reflection in the mirrored walls, I barely recognize myself—silver hair, ice-blue eyes, skin that shimmers with inner light and frost patterns. I look like I belong here now. Like I belong with him.
We curl together in the nest, my heat finally sated after six complete claimings. For the first time in my life, I feel perfect. Whole. Exactly where I'm meant to be.
The spoiled princess who arrived at this palace weeks ago is gone. In her place is his omega, his mate, his perfect complement.
And as sleep takes me in his arms, I've never been happier.
CHAPTER 14
ARATUS
DAY 35
When her heat breaks,she doesn't wake up screaming.
She wakes up content. Perfectly satisfied, nested against my chest like she's found her home. Her transformed body fits against mine with mathematical precision—every curve molded to complement my angles, every breath synchronized with mine. The bond hums between us, warm and complete, carrying her deep satisfaction and my own overwhelming sense of triumph.
For one perfect moment, I think I've achieved something beautiful.
Her new appearance is stunning in the pale morning light filtering through the crystal walls. Silver hair spreads across my arm like spun starlight, catching the light with an inner radiance that speaks of magic settled deep in her bones. Ice-blue eyes remain closed beneath long lashes that have darkened to match her transformed state. Her skin shimmers like fresh snow, decorated with the intricate frost patterns that mark her as mine.
The claiming bite on her neck has healed into a perfect scar—two crescent moons that will brand her as taken for all eternity.The mark pulses with a faint blue light that matches the rhythm of her heartbeat, visible proof of our completed bond.
She's everything I wanted. Everything I've waited six centuries to find and claim.
Then her rational mind catches up to what her body accepted so eagerly.
I feel the exact moment it happens through our bond—the shift from contentment to confusion, confusion to dawning memory, memory to absolute horror. It ripples through our connection like ice cracking under pressure, sharp and devastating.
Her eyes snap open, and the first thing she sees is her own reflection in the mirrored wall across from our nest. The gasp that escapes her throat is small and broken, the sound of someone discovering their own grave.
"No," she whispers, lifting a trembling hand to stare at fingers that gleam with inner frost. At the silver hair falling over her shoulder like liquid moonlight. At eyes that have turned the same pale blue as winter sky. "No, no, no."
She scrambles away from me like I'm diseased, though my seed is still leaking from between her legs. The evidence of our six separate claimings coats her thighs—hours of thorough use that her body can't deny. The scent of our mating clings to her skin, marking her as a claimed omega to anyone with the senses to detect it.
"I begged you," she says, voice breaking with the horror of it. "I begged you to fuck me. I called you alpha. I thanked you for—" She can't finish the sentence, but I can feel the memories flooding back through our bond.
Her on her knees, presenting herself and sobbing with need. Her voice breaking as she pleaded for my cocks, for my knot, for the claiming bite that would make her mine forever. Her cries of gratitude when I gave her exactly what she needed.
"You did," I agree calmly, watching her process the full scope of what transpired. "You were perfect."
"That wasn't me!" The words explode out of her with desperate force. "That couldn't have been me. I felt perfect lying in your arms. I felt like I belonged there. I wanted to stay there forever. That's not—I would never?—"
