We’re so different. Fundamentally, elementally, impossibly different.
And yet the bond keeps insisting we’re the same. Two halves of one whole. Storm and sea. Lightning and depth.
Complete.
Torin cups my face and shares his breath with me, slow and steady, the way he always does when he thinks I might panic. The air slides into my lungs like warm silk, and the bond hums approval—a deep, satisfied thrum that makes my skin prickle.
Underwater, everything is amplified. Every brush of skin. Every pulse of magic. Every emotion that slips through the bond and lands in my chest as if it belongs there.
He keeps one hand at the back of my neck, anchoring me, and the other drifts down the curve of my side as if he’s mapping me by touch. His palm skims the base of my wing where feathers turn to skin.
I jolt hard, pleasure shooting up my spine like lightning finding a metal rod.
His eyes widen in the faint glow, then soften. Through the bond I feel his awe—reverent, hungry, careful.
Sensitive, I manage, the word more breath than sound in the water.
I know, he answers through the bond, and his fingers stroke again, gentler this time, as if he’s learning exactly how to touch without overwhelming me.
My body responds anyway, drifting and arching in ways it never could on land. Weightlessness turns me pliant. Boneless. Every small movement sends ripples through my nerves.
His scales glow faintly—bioluminescence threading through the darkness, blue-white and unreal. The light catches the strong line of his jaw, the curve of his mouth, the flared edges of his gills when he exhales.
I want him. Not just physically, though gods, yes, I want him. I want the claiming we keep orbiting. I want the completionthe bond has been whispering since the first moment his magic touched mine.
I find his mouth again, not waiting for him to offer breath. I take it. I claim it. I claim him.
Torin makes a sound that vibrates through the water and straight into my bones—half gasp, half groan. His body goes taut against mine. I feel every point of contact: his chest pressed to my breasts, his thighs bracketing mine, the unmistakable evidence of his desire hard and insistent against my stomach.
The bond surges, bright and greedy. Mutual want. Mutual need. Mutual recognition that if we keep holding back, it will tear us apart from the inside.
I pull back just enough to find his eyes in the glow. I know he feels it too—everything I’m feeling. Everything I want. Everything I’m ready to give.
Yes? he asks silently, the word a pressure in my mind, careful despite the hunger that flares with it.
Yes, I answer, and I push my emotions through the bond on purpose: trust. Want. Choice.
His relief hits me like a wave.
He turns us with effortless strength and presses me back against the stone wall of the Oubliette. The coral-rock is cold and slick beneath my shoulder blades. The current tugs at my hair, my wing, the loose ends of my clothes.
Torin’s body shields me from the worst of the pull. He braces himself, hands on either side of my head, and then his mouth finds mine again.
A kiss underwater is not a kiss. It’s a shared breath and a promise and a desperate, hungry exchange of air.
I gasp—and water rushes in. For a heartbeat, fear flashes sharp and bright.
He’s there instantly, sealing his mouth over mine, forcing air into me, steadying me with his hands. The panic dissolves beneath the bond, soothed by his certainty.
I’m here, he sends. I’ve got you.
His fingers find the fastening of what little clothing survived the swim. The knots come loose with a deftness that makes my cheeks heat even in the cold. Fabric floats away in the current, fluttering like drowned flags, leaving us bare in the dim glow.
I should be freezing. The water is frigid enough to numb. But everywhere Torin touches, I burn.
His hand slides down my stomach, between my thighs, and I arch instinctively. The movement is clumsy in the water—my body wants to drift away from him—but he holds me like an anchor.
Two fingers glide over me and I make a sound that turns into bubbles. Pleasure pulses hot and sharp, completely at odds with the cold pressing in around us.
