Exhaustion. Relief. And a profound sense of… belonging.
I look around the cavern. Humans and Drakav are mixing near the fires, passing bowls, sharing space. It’s messy and crowded, but it’s safe. It’s us.
Sarven’s arm tightens around me. He buries his face in the curve of my neck, inhaling deep, not caring who sees.
“Home,” he projects.
I think he’s talking about the cavern before I realize he’s talking aboutme.
It’s not a place. It’sme.
My chest squeezes. “Yeah. Home.”
“Rest,” he amends, but the thought doesn’t come with the image of rest. It comes with the image of a soft mat covered with furs inside a private alcove where the spoon he carved for me sits on a stone shelf.
Chapter 22
I PREPARED A NEST. IT WAS EFFECTIVE.
SARVEN
The walk to our alcove feels longer than the climb into the mountain.
Every step, I can feel the tiny shocks of pain in her body. The micro-stumbles when her knees almost buckle. Her eyelids droop, then jerk open again when she catches herself.
I want to lift her. I want to put her over my shoulder and carry her like a stolen prize, like something too precious to risk on her own unsteady legs.
But I know her now.
My fierce, stubborn dra-kir, who walked back to the edge of the spring that had tried to kill her and put her hand in that water anyway. She would rather crawl than be carried right now.
So, I shorten my stride instead, my arm a band around her waist. I take as much of her weight as she’ll give me, and pretend my own legs are the reason we are going slow.
The sounds of the main cavern fade, and the air grows cooler. Our footsteps and breathing are the only sounds.
My body should be unwinding with the quiet.
Instead, every step tightens something low in me.
The danger has passed. The clan is safe. My mate is alive, pressed against my side, smelling like heat and stone and…me.
I need to claim her. Hold her.Fillher.
My member has been half-hard since she took my hand in the cistern chamber. By the time we reach the side tunnel that leads to the alcove Kol granted, I am fully, heavily erect, my new member throbbing against the scale-tunic cover she tied around my hips.
I breathe in her scent, and it only makes the hardness worse.
Bond-scent, my instincts purr. Claimed. Chosen.
We reach the alcove and I straighten, absurd pride sparking in my chest.
The entrance is framed by smoothed stone. Inside, the nest is as I left it. Only better, because now she’s stepping into it.
Furs piled thick on the sleeping mat, layered to trap warmth. A low shelf carved from the wall, holding the bone spoon I made her and a small bowl of firebloom nectar. The firestone in the niche casts amber light over everything, softening the edges of the rock.
She stops on the threshold.
Her tired mind brushes mine, catching, pausing.
