“I’ll take guard duty outside,” Alic muttered, already turning for the door.
Lucus moved toward the back room, stiff and silent. His shoulders were locked tight, but his eyes… those were drowning in pain.
Yeah. I knew that feeling.
Maso, meanwhile, was already half-asleep on the couch, shoes off, shirt off, arms behind his head like he owned the damn place.
Guess that left the blow-up mattress for me.Great.
Sleep wasa fleeting thing these days.Staring up at the ceiling, I couldn’t stop replaying Calix and Rasmus’ words.Mate. Fear. Strength.They echoed louder in the silence than I wanted to admit.
I knew Calix only told me that so I would follow his command, but all I could do was compare his conviction to the ache in my chest, the slow burn of loving someone who didn’t feel the same.
From the moment I met Aniyah at a bar in the meatpacking district, I was drawn to her. Not in some casual, passing way. No, it was immediate. Consuming. She was a fucking knockout, an eleven out of ten by any standard. Hair that shimmered like moonlit diamonds, rose-jewel eyes that hinted at spring and secrets, and a body that made you want to spend days learning her curves. At first, I thought it was lust. Simple attraction. Something anyone would feel for a female like that.
Then Emily was taken.
When my little sister was stolen by foreign supernatural slavers, I unraveled. As her big brother, I was supposed to protect her, but I had failed. Every lead dried up. Days blurred. My thoughts spiraled into a place darker than I’d ever known. The night I nearly gave up, when I didn’t want to be here anymore,sheshowed up.
Aniyah, with Emily beside her, dragged me back from the edge like some fierce angel.
She’d just taken over the territory, just started building the Winged Palace. One of her girls had been taken by the same slave ring. Those bastards were targeting small groups, moving under the radar, and selling them overseas to beings too scared to deal in the States because of the Syndicate.
I didn't know she was the new Syndicate leader until it was too late, but I should’ve. The way she didn’t hesitate. Didn’t delegate. How she went after them by herself. By morning, whispers flooded the streets, spreading rumors of blood-soaked walls and a boat bereft of anything but torn hearts and screams long gone quiet. I couldn’t imagine someone who looked like her being capable of that level of destruction, but she was, and I owed her everything.
I begged her to let me work for her, needing to repay her for all she had done for me and my family. She told me no, saying she didn’t have time to train anyone, but I wouldn’t back down. As one of the only non-contracted high-level earth mages in Manhattan, I knew she’d need structural support when building the Winged Palace. Once she finally learned that, she gave in, and that was the beginning of everything.
I dedicated myself to her. Day by day, job by job, I earned her trust, and somewhere in that climb, admiration bled into devotion. Devotion moved into something… hungrier.
I craved her. The way she looked at me when I nailed a job. The rare laugh she let slip when she was too tired to hide it. Her sweet, musky scent. Her voice.Her. I wanted every piece, every scrap I could get.
When she asked me to be her right hand, I didn’t hesitate. Of course, I said yes.
That was also the night we first fucked.
It was the night we finished the thirteenth floor. Drunk off supe-grade alcohol, celebrating the completion of the building, we sprawled out in the center of the undecorated room, tossing around ideas for a theme. I couldn’t stop watching her mouth as she talked, the way her lips curled when she teased me. When she caught me staring, I expected her to laugh it off.
She didn’t.
She stood up, walked over, and straddled my lap like she’d done it a thousand times. Bottle still in hand, she laid down the rules with a drunken kind of seriousness.This stays between us. It doesn’t leave this room. I’m still your boss, no matter what. No kissing.
No kissing. That rule stuck in my head. I’d asked how we were supposed to start something with that rule in place, and she grinned down at me, wild and wicked, like a demon about to claim her sacrifice. Then, without a word, she unzipped me with one hand, pushed her panties aside with the other, and rode me right there on the floor.
I could still feel it. Her breath against my throat, the rhythm of her hips, the way she said my name like it meant something.
That night was carved into me. Permanent.
At one point, I drunkenly tried to stir the iron in her blood with my magic, wanting to make her pulse race, to feel her come undone in a way only I could trigger, but nothing happened. My magic didn’t work on her, and that was the first hint.
She was my flame.
I tried to put the thought away, to tell myself it was impossible—a woman like her didn't end up with a man like me. But the thoughts kept circling, so I tested it a few more times. Quiet little experiments, moments she’d never notice, and each time, I got nothing. No effect on her.
I tried to bring it up, tried to tell her, but every time I got close, the words disappeared under the weight of our day-to-day activities. I kept pushing it off, telling myself I had all the time in the world, but something inside of me told menot yet.
Growing tired of my own silence, I once joked that she could use her powers to find her mate instantly. The way her face dropped, becoming serious in a way I’d never seen before, killed whatever laughter I’d meant. She told me it was impossible. That I needed to get that thought out of my head.
So, I did.
