He drags his mouth from my flesh.
“Tessa.” His exhale coats my jaw in heat. “You feel it?”
Fire veins through my blood like captured lightning. Something writhes beneath my skin—alive and hungry. My fingers flutter against his cheek. I don’t need his hesitating whisper to know:
He saw it roaring in red cascades: her death-blood spilling between his claws, replaced by this impossible blaze.
“Darius Crane.” I press my forehead to his as the silver trails pulse brighter across the room’s stone walls. “What did youdo?” His pupils reflect fractured galaxies—anger and awe jagged in them. One hand firms at the small of my back, possessively urgent. The other palms my throat where the mark throbs in time with his pulse—stark pressure sealing us together wind-up-tight. This woman he broke his own laws to bite.
The stone tub swallows us in steam. Darius sinks first, pulling me back against his chest, the scalding water a shock that melts into relief against sore muscles. He wraps his arms around my waist, his chin resting on the crown of my wet hair. The barest tremor runs through him. Mine, or his? It’s tangled together now.
“Still alive, I see,” I murmur, tilting my head to rest against his jaw, the rasp of stubble familiar against my temple.
His arms tighten fractionally. “Barely.” His voice is gravel, worn smooth. “Collecting bruises?”
I flex an arm, noting the faint imprint of finger-shapes near my bicep where he pinned me. The ones on my hips are hidden beneath the suds. “Oh, just fashionable accessories. You?”
He shifts slightly, water lapping at our chests. “Worth it.” He lifts a hand before me, tracing the jagged silver lines swirling lazily beneath my skin where his teeth sank moments – or was it lifetimes? – ago. The glow pulses faintly, reacting to his touch like embers stirred.
My own fingers find his forearm resting beside my breast. The corded muscle feels denser, humming with a contained energy I’d never perceived before. It thrums under my touch, echoing the new warmth blooming behind my ribs – something coiled and potent. Not justseeingthe power on his skin, butfeelingit resonate inside me. Mine? Ours?
"I'm something different now, aren't I?"
He releases a slow breath, his chest expanding against my back. He touches the mark again, this time with his knuckles, a rough, possessive caress. "Nothing should have happened like that. Nothing safe." His lips brush the damp hair at the nape of my neck, sending a different kind of shiver entirely. "But this fire beneath your skin now... Tessa, it tastes... immense."
"Immense?" I push wet hair back over my shoulder, watching the way droplets catch the low light, refracting tiny rainbows against the steam. The movement sends ripples across the water, shimmering over the silver tracery on my collarbone. Strength hums, not aggressive, but deep and unwavering, an anchor in a harbor that was always storm-tossed before. "Is that billionaire speak for 'terrifyingly powerful'?"
"Billionaire speak," he grunts, a rumble vibrating through my bones, "is usually 'leverage' or 'acquisition'." One large hand cups water, letting it cascade down my shoulder, over the glowing mark. "This feels like... possessing the sun."
The absurdity catches me, breaking into a low laugh. "Possessing the sun? Now who's being dramatic?"
His teeth graze my shoulder, not biting, just marking the spot. A low growl, quieter now, less beast, more claim.
The heat of the water, the solidity of him at my back, the impossible power humming a low note somewhere deep within my marrow – it’s a concoction headier than any champagne. His arms are iron-clad yet infinitely gentle now. As his lips move to the base of my neck, tracing the pulse point above the vibrantlyshimmering mark, his other hand drifts idly through the water, palm skimming over my legs. The touch is healing, grounding.
"I didn't break," he murmurs against my damp skin, the words a raw confession muffled by my hair and the steam. "You held me to the core."
I press back into him, closing my eyes. "Feels more like you held me..." My hand finds his thigh under the water, squeezing. A spark leaps from my fingertips, lighting the water around his leg with a brief, contained silver flash before vanishing, like a vial of trapped lightning pouring out. "...and somethingelse. Something potent." The surprise is in my voice, but no fear. Just wonder. Just heat.
His answering growl vibrates against my spine. "Potent." His free hand brushes warm water down my back in slow, deliberate strokes.
24
DARIUS
The house feels different now, like the walls themselves are holding their breath, waiting for whatever comes next.
It’s not just the silence. The kind of deep, thick quiet that settles in after violence has torn through a place—it’s the weight of the air, the way it’s warmer now, thicker with the layered scents of what happened, of who I am, and of her.
Tessa’s scent is threaded through everything—sweet, grounding, mine—and that truth has settled into the bones of this house like it was always meant to be here. Even the fire in the hearth downstairs carries her warmth now, though the embers are banked low.
I’m standing at the wide window in my study, the one that faces north toward the endless tree line. The night has that sharp bite in it, the kind that whispers of winter pressing close, and I can feel the wind even through the glass. It comes from the dark spaces between the pines, carrying scents too faint for a human to notice but far too telling for me to ignore. Wild fox musk, faint and old but purposeful, laid there like a warning or a signature.
Roman has been here.
Not tonight, but recently enough that my skin prickles and my instincts coil tight in my chest. He’s watching, waiting, and I’d wager my life he already knows about the bond between me and Tessa. That kind of connection doesn’t hide. To men, or creatures like him, it’s a flare in the dark, calling them in closer.
The floorboard behind me creaks, soft and deliberate, and I don’t have to turn to know who it is. Mary’s never heavy on her feet, but I know the rhythm of her steps like I know my own heartbeat.
