I’m close, I gasp, and bubbles race past my face.
Torin feels it through the bond and changes the angle, shifting his hips so the next thrust hits something inside me that makes stars explode behind my eyes.
There—there -
His mouth crashes to mine, forcing a breath into me as if he’s feeding me the last thing I need.
I shatter.
Orgasm rips through me in waves so strong my legs lock around him. Lightning detonates from my body, turning thewater incandescent for a heartbeat. The shock should hurt. It should burn.
It doesn’t.
Torin’s water magic surges to meet it, threading through the electricity, turning it into pure sensation. The bond carries my climax into him like a tidal wave, and his control breaks with a sound that is almost a roar.
He follows me over the edge, thrusting deep, coming hard inside me as the bond flares and locks into place with a final, inevitable click.
The claiming is not a metaphor. It’s his body filling mine and his magic tangling with my lightning until separation feels impossible.
Permanently. Irrevocably.
We are claimed. We are changed. We are complete.
And the power that releases—gods, the power -
It explodes from us like a supernova. Hydro-electric energy, compressed and starving, unleashed with all the force of a storm that’s been building since the moment we met.
The stone door of the Oubliette doesn’t just break. It disintegrates.
Three feet of enchanted coral stone, sealed with centuries of magic, turns to dust and liquid lightning. The explosion creates a shockwave that throws us backward, ripping us free of the wall in a tumbling, chaotic current.
Torin wraps himself around me instinctively, shielding me, sharing breath even as we’re spun like debris in a whirlpool.
We slam through the shattered opening into the corridor beyond and finally surge upward, bursting into air.
We surface gasping and coughing, tangled in each other, changed.
I can breathe.
Not just Torin’s shared breath. Real breathing. I pull air into my lungs, and it feels different—easier, deeper, like my capacity has doubled. And when I accidentally inhale water while coughing, I don’t choke. My lungs process it, extract oxygen, reject what doesn’t serve me.
I can breathe water. Actually breathe it on my own.
“Zara.” Torin’s voice is rough with wonder. He’s staring at me like I’m a miracle. “Your feathers.”
I look down. My wing—the one that was broken, that’s been healing slowly—is completely whole. Stronger than before. And the feathers have changed. What was tawny gold is now deep storm-gray, shot through with iridescent blue that catches the corridor’s bioluminescence.
“Your scales,” I breathe.
His entire body is marked now. The golden lightning veins that started as subtle traces have spread, creating intricate patterns across his skin. When he moves, electricity dances along the pathways, visible proof of what I’ve given him. What we’ve become together.
He touches my face, and sparks crackle between us—gentle now, controlled, beautiful. “What are we?”
I test my wing, stretching it fully. No pain. No weakness. Just strength and the deep certainty that I could fly right now if I wanted to. Better than before. Stronger.
“We’re the storm,” I say.
Understanding dawns in his eyes. Not Storm Eagle. Not Deep Runner. The storm that happens when sky meets sea.The impossible union that creates something greater than either element alone.
