Another wave hits and I cry out, burying my face in his neck, breathing in his scent desperately. My body recognizes him as the solution to this unbearable ache.
"Alpha," I whimper, the word falling from my lips unbidden. "Alpha, please..."
"That's it," he croons, carrying me toward his chambers. "Let go. Surrender to it. I'll give you everything you need."
Through the haze of mounting heat, I'm dimly aware of shadows coiling around us, of doors opening before us, of being brought somewhere dark and safe.
Sometime later he retrieves my torn clothing, offering it with gentleness. The bond pulses with his satisfaction, his possessive pride, his deep contentment at having finally claimed his mate.
"This still changes nothing about Julia," I say softly, touching the mating mark on my throat, feeling the raised edges of his bite through our new connection.
His expression closes slightly, but through the bond I can feel everything now—the old grief, the guilt, the love he still carries. "No," he admits quietly. "That pain remains mine. But you..." he touches my face with reverent fingers, "you are my present and my future, Seraphina . My mate. That is what matters now."
I nod, accepting this for now. The bond will give me time to understand, to unravel his secrets slowly.
"You still owe me a truth," I remind him after a long moment.
He studies me carefully. "Ask," he says simply.
I consider carefully, knowing this opportunity may not come again. Despite my father's mission, the reality of our completed mating bond changes everything. "Is there a way to break the bond between us? Can it be undone?"
His entire body goes still, genuine shock flickering across his features. "No," he answers, the single syllable falling between us with finality. "Never. The fated mate bond was already permanent—but now that it's complete, sealed with my bite and your blood? It's eternal. Until death and beyond. There is no magic, no ritual, no power in any realm that could sever what we've just created."
The certainty in his voice, in our bond, tells me he speaks absolute truth.
"I needed to know," I say quietly.
"And now you do," he replies, pulling me closer. "We are bound, Seraphina. For better or worse. In pleasure or pain. In life and beyond. You are mine, and I am yours, until the stars go dark."
As I settle into his embrace, our bond singing between us, I realize the full weight of what I've done.
My mission is over. There is no going back.
I am his, completely and forever.
And somehow, that doesn't terrify me the way it should.
CHAPTER 22
THE UNWELCOME GUEST
MALAKAI
Two days.
Two days of Seraphina's heat consuming us both—her desperate pleas, the excessive slick coating my sheets, her body demanding my knot every few hours until we were both raw and exhausted. Two days of her nest becoming our entire world, of feeding her between waves, of holding her through the fever, of knotting her so many times I lost count.
Two days of her calling me Alpha with such desperate need that it rewrote something fundamental in my chest.
The heat broke this morning, finally, leaving her sleeping deeply in our nest while I dealt with court matters I'd been ignoring. My bite mark on her throat is still fresh, still tender—a permanent brand that sends satisfaction through my Alpha every time I see it.
Now, sitting on my throne as petitioners drone about border disputes, my mind keeps wandering back to her. The way she surrendered completely. The way she trusted me with her most vulnerable state. The way our bond deepened with each knotting until I could feel her heartbeat as my own.
My fingertips drum an impatient rhythm against the obsidian armrest. I need to return to her soon. She'll wake disoriented, sore, possibly embarrassed by how thoroughly she submitted during her heat.
"My lord?" Emmett's voice cuts through my thoughts. "Your attention seems elsewhere."
I fix him with a withering glare, my Alpha scent flooding with irritation. "I'm listening intently to this fascinating dispute about whose sheep wandered into whose cabbage patch."
