The dismissal was clear. Impossible to ignore. She didn't want to talk about it, didn't want to examine what had happened, didn't want to acknowledge that anything had changed between us.
Fine.
I could be patient. I'd waited months already, forced myself to stay away from her, given her space she didn't even know she needed. I could wait a little longer.
But I was done restraining myself. Done pretending the bond didn't exist, that she wasn't mine, that what happened last night was just a convenient release of tension.
She moved past me, heading for the cave entrance where the desert waited. I caught her wrist, gentle but firm. She stopped, looked back at me with raised eyebrows.
"What?"
A thousand things I wanted to say crowded my throat. That she was my mate. That last night meant everything. That I'd chosen her name, and she needed to understand what that meant. That I would court her properly, make her see what she was to me, convince her that this was fate and not just circumstance.
I said none of them.
"Be careful out there," I said instead.
She pulled her wrist free, not unkindly. "I always am."
Then she was gone, stepping out into the brutal heat of Volcaryth's morning.
I stood in the cave for a moment longer, gathering the threads of my control.
This journey would end one of two ways.
Either she would accept the bond, understand what she was to me, choose to be mine as completely as I was hers.
Or I would lose my mind trying to convince her.
The certainty settled in my chest, heavy and immovable as the mountain above us. I'd spent months forcing myself to stay away, to give her space, to respect the boundaries I thought she needed. I'd stood silent in the Council chamber while she was dismissed and threatened, chosen duty over defending her because I thought that was the honorable path.
I'd been wrong.
Honor didn't mean abandoning your mate to face the world alone. Duty didn't require sacrificing the bond for politicalconvenience. I'd failed her in that chamber, failed her by staying silent, failed her by not claiming her properly when I'd had the chance.
I wouldn't fail her again.
We were heading into danger.
We could die out there. Probably would, if I was being honest about the odds. Two of us against an unknown enemy, in hostile territory, with limited supplies and no backup.
If we survived, she would be my mate. Properly claimed, fully aware of what that meant, accepting the bond that tied us together.
I would court her in the Drakarn way. Show her what it meant to be cherished by a warrior, protected and valued and desired beyond reason. I would give her my strength, my skill, my absolute devotion. I would prove that I was worthy of the fierce flame that burned in her chest.
And if we didn't survive, at least I would have had last night. The memory of her body against mine, her gasps in my ears, the way she'd taken me inside her like she was made for it.
It would never be enough.
10
LEXA
The flight was torture.
Not the heat, though Volcaryth's suns were already turning the air into something that burned with each breath. Not the endless expanse of crimson desert below, hostile and alien and utterly indifferent to whether I lived or died.
No, the torture was being pressed against Nyx's body for hours, feeling every shift of muscle as his wings beat in steady rhythm, drowning in his scent with nowhere to escape.
