I nodded, trying to focus on his words instead of the way afternoon light caught in his silver hair.
"We'll meet in the council chamber—neutral ground, properly warded. You'll need to show them the mark so they understand the urgency. Sereis has access to ice magic that can slow corruption. Davoren knows fire purification rituals that might—"
He reached across the desk for a scroll, and our hands brushed. The contact lasted maybe a heartbeat, but electricity arced between us sharp enough that I gasped. Through the bond, his desire slammed into me like a physical blow, and I felt the exact moment his careful control wavered.
"Sorry," he muttered, pulling back like I'd burned him. "I should have—we need to be more careful."
But being careful was becoming impossible. The study felt too warm despite the mountain air flowing through open windows. Every breath brought his scent to me. I watched his hands as he gestured, explaining logistics I wasn't processing, remembering how those hands had felt holding my wrists, pinning me gently, keeping me safe from my own desperation.
The bond hummed between us like a plucked string. He's yours, it whispered in a voice made of instinct older than thought. Right there. Take him. Complete this. Be whole.
I shifted in the chair, trying to find a position that didn't make me hyperaware of my body, of the ache that had never fully disappeared. The movement made my tunic slide against my skin, and even that whisper of fabric felt charged with possibility.
"Wren?" Caelus had stopped talking, was watching me with those storm-colored eyes. "Are you listening?"
"Sorry. I just—" What could I say? That I was too busy imagining what his mouth would taste like to focus on practical planning? "It's hard to concentrate."
Understanding flickered across his face, followed by resignation. "The bond's still pushing. The bath only bought us a few hours."
"I can feel it building again." The admission made me flush. "Not as bad as before, but it's there. Like pressure before a storm."
"That's exactly what it is." He moved to the window, putting more distance between us. Outside, clouds were gathering despite the clear morning forecast. "The bond is manifesting in my element. Your emotions are affecting wind patterns for miles around."
I joined him at the window, drawn despite my better judgment, and watched clouds spiral in patterns that had nothing to do with natural weather. They pulsed in time with my heartbeat, darkening when fresh desire spiked through me, lightening when I managed to push it down.
"I'm making storms," I said, half-awed, half-horrified.
"We're making storms." He didn't move away when I stopped beside him, though tension radiated from every line of his body."Together. The bond is trying to force completion through any means necessary."
We stood there watching impossible weather for a long moment. The silence should have been comfortable, but it wasn't. It thrummed with potential, with the weight of everything we weren't saying, weren't doing.
I could feel the heat of his body from inches away. Could hear his breathing, slightly too fast to be calm. Through the bond, his want was a constant hum underneath his iron control.
The bond whispered its seductive logic: He needs this too. You'd both feel better. Just touch him. Just close the distance. Just—
I turned before I could talk myself out of it. Crossed the three steps between us with that inhuman speed the bond had gifted me. His eyes widened in surprise as I pressed against him, as my hands found his chest, as I looked up at him with every bit of desperate need painted across my face.
"Wren, we can't—"
I kissed him before he could finish the sentence.
For a few perfect heartbeats, he kissed me back. His hands found my hips with bruising pressure, his mouth opened to mine with a groan that rumbled through his chest. He tasted like storm and wind and belonging, and the bond sang its victory in harmonies that made my toes curl.
Then he was lifting me away with careful but firm hands, setting me back from him, and the loss of contact felt like tearing.
"No." His voice was shattered glass and broken thunder. "Wren, no. We can't."
I could see the evidence of his arousal straining against his trousers, could see the storm colors swirling in his eyes that said he wanted this just as desperately as I did. Through the bond, I felt how much this refusal cost him—every instinct screaming toclaim his mate, to complete the bond, to give us both the relief we were begging for.
"Please." The word came out broken, and I hated how small I sounded. Hated the tears pricking at my eyes. "Please, Caelus. It hurts. The bond hurts. I need—"
"I know what you need." His hands were shaking where they held my shoulders, keeping me at arm's length. "And I will give it to you. Every bit of it. But not now. Not like this. Not while that mark is using our bond against us."
"You want it too." I was pleading now, too far gone for dignity. "I can feel it. You want me."
"Of course I want you." The words came out raw, stripped of any artifice. "I've wanted you for an eternity. But wanting isn't enough. You deserve better than a hasty coupling driven by corruption and compulsion." His grip tightened, and through the bond his determination was absolute. "When I take you—and I will take you, make no mistake about that—it will be because we both choose it freely. Because you trust me enough to surrender, and I'm worthy of that trust. Not because some parasitic void is pushing us toward something that will destroy everything we could be."
The rightness of his words cut through my desperation like cold water. He was protecting me. From the mark, yes, but also from my own inability to see past immediate need to future consequences. He was being the Daddy he'd promised to be—making hard decisions I couldn't make, holding boundaries I couldn't hold, caring for me even when I fought against it.
