I kneel in front of him. My knees hiss against the metal as I sink down. He doesn’t flinch. Doesn’t reach. Just watches me with those eyes like twin eclipses—blazing rings of red.
I place one hand on his chest. His armor’s gone. Just him now. Scaled, hot beneath my palm. Muscles tight, trembling. He’s holding himself back with the strength of a collapsing star.
“Do you want me?” I whisper.
The sound he makes—guttural, raw—reverberates through his chest and into my skin. He doesn’t answer with words. He doesn’t need to.
His claws lift, slow as reverence, and brush the sides of my jaw. Then tangle in my hair like he’s memorizing the weight of it.
“I’ve wanted you,” he breathes, “since the first moment the bond sparked. But now…”
His forehead presses to mine. His breath is hot, wild. “Now it’s not about the bond. It’syou, Ella. You, with your fire and fury and broken knuckles. You’re the only thing in this frozen hell worth dying for.”
My eyes sting. Stupid tears. I don’t want to cry. I want tofeel.
I shift forward, crawl into his lap like it’s where I’ve always belonged. He holds perfectly still, hands shaking as they slide down to anchor at my waist.
Our mouths hover a breath apart.
“Kiss me,” I say.
He does.
It’s not soft. It’s not hesitant. It’s heat and hunger and history slamming into the now. His mouth claims mine like it’s oxygen. Like it’swar. And I kiss him back like I’ve got nothing left to lose.
The tension breaks like a power coil overloaded with heat. One moment we’re sitting in quiet gravity, our bodies two orbiting masses with barely enough pull to touch. The next—I’m burning.
Takhiss shifts his weight beside me, and the heat he radiates brushes my hip. I don’t know if it’s the lack of oxygen, the fear, or the fucking bond humming through my marrow, but I can’t takeit anymore. I roll toward him, placing a hand against his chest. It’s like touching a furnace—hard, scaled, alive.
His breath catches. Not loud. Just a soft hitch, almost reverent.
“I remember,” I whisper.
His gaze flicks down to my mouth. “Remember what?”
“The kiss.” My hand trails lower, fingers grazing over the seam of his armor. “The one you said wasn’t real.”
He stays so still. As if the wrong move will crack the universe. “Ella…”
“I want another.”
His growl is low. Warning and surrender, wrapped in velvet threat. “You don’t know what you’re asking.”
“I know exactly what I’m asking.”
He stares for one heartbeat. Then another. And then he moves.
His mouth crashes into mine, all heat and hunger and restraint ripped away. His tongue is hot and smooth, tasting of ozone and tension. My back hits the thermal coil and he’s on me, bracing his weight on one arm while his claws curve beneath my thighs. I open for him without thought, fingers tangling in the ridges of his armor until they find skin—hot, rough, scaled and beautiful.
He pulls back just enough to look down at me. His red eyes are molten, pupils wide, voice ragged. “If I take you now, I won’t stop. Do you understand?”
“Then don’t stop.”
He lets out a sound—deep, guttural, like a dying star screaming—and then he’s everywhere.
My clothes vanish beneath his claws. Not ripped, not careless. Precise. Controlled. Reverent. As if every stitch is a barrier he needs gone, but not at the cost of hurting me. Whenthe last of my fabric hits the floor, his gaze rakes over me like a command.
“You’re perfect,” he murmurs.
