“Vesryn,” Serenna gasped. She pushed him back just far enough to draw air. “Stop baiting the lightning.”
“But you’ll catch it,” he murmured against her jaw, voice frayed with heat.
“Stars scorch—”
He extinguished his power and claimed her mouth again. Rougher this time, his tongue devouring the curse. The kiss stole the air from her lungs until nothing remained but his weight on top of her, the rasp of breath filling the space of every thought.
Serenna’s magic writhed to meet his, more insistent to flee her skin with every heartbeat. She arched, hips catching his in a graceless collision that wrenched a snarl from his throat. Vesryn’s hands slid downward, sealing around her waist as he ground forward with the urgency of starvation.
Serenna sank into him. Into the heat, the hunger, the bond blazing beneath her skin like wildfire. The ruined tower faded, the lightning above dimming to a distant blur.
Desire and magic pooled low and restless, begging for more. More contact. More friction. More proof that she wasn’t the only one being torn apart by this bond.
Craving the warmth of his skin, Serenna clawed at the fastenings on Vesryn’s leathers, restraint disintegrating as she ripped through the barriers between them.
Vesryn chuckled into her mouth, fingers just as impatient, already waging war against the buckles of her armor. One caught. He cursed against her lips, drew back just enough to glare at the strap, then tore it free with a savage jerk.
Breathless, Serenna laughed as she dragged his trousers down. She freed the hard line of his desire, proof that he was breaking with her, each kiss exhaling the same wreckage intoher lungs. She stripped him bare in the next motion, hauling his tunic over his head and exposing him to the storm-lit ruin.
Lean muscle carved every inch, lines honed to lethal perfection. A body shaped for flight and war.
But it was the scar on his chest that severed her breath, the wound she’d once stitched closed with frantic power. She pressed her palm to the mangled flesh, feeling the pulse beneath—evidence that her touch had saved him, however imperfectly.
Serenna lifted her eyes to his, but before she could speak, Vesryn caught her mouth again, his hands mapping the curves of her body like it was the only terrain he’d ever need to memorize. He stripped the last scraps of her clothing and flung them aside, sending loose stones skittering across the cracked floor. Only her Starshard remained, glittering at her throat.
The stone pressed cool against her back as he laid her down, his need straining hard between them. No more barriers. Only the slide of skin as the bond coiled tighter, sinking its teeth in.
When he rolled his hips, the thick ridge of him slid between the heat of her thighs—a torturous promise, all friction and no fulfillment, leaving Serenna gasping into his mouth.
Vesryn’s palms curved around her hips, grip tightening as he rocked forward again, gliding through the molten ache he stoked with every pass.
Serenna arched into him, a fractured moan clawing free as her hips chased his. Clinging to his ferocity, she dragged her fingers down his back and lunged to meet his mouth again, devouring with equal hunger.
Breathless and trembling, she reached for the bond. The silver thread coiled in her Well, tugging at her magic.
A promise. A risk. A surrender.
She’d wanted this—wantedhim—for longer than she dared admit. Yet silence and distance after everything they’d survived had kept her suspended in doubt. But guarded walls had becomea prison she could no longer endure. She needed him to feel her choice—accepting this bond, this wild, impossible magic between them.
Serenna’s power erupted in a constellation of silver streaks. The curtain of light arced high above them before falling like a meteor shower, draping Vesryn’s skin in liquid starlight.
She braced for the storm’s retaliation. Above them, the sky detonated. Another bolt broke loose from the clouds. But Serenna barely spared it a thought.
She flung out her will, halting the strike midair. Instead of casting it back, she molded it. Stretching the charge, she slammed the current across the tower’s shattered spire. Lightning wove between the stones, a net of crackling sparks.
In those heartbeats, Vesryn stilled, eyes widening with disbelief. As if he couldn’t quite trust what he was seeing.
“Serenna—” His voice broke, hands tensing on her hips. “Is this… Is this what you want?”
Throat tightening, she nodded fiercely. Through the bond, she felt him splinter with the staggering relief of being chosen back.
Vesryn pressed his forehead to hers, breath shattering against her lips. His magic erupted at the same instant as he drove his length into her—one consuming plunge that claimed her completely without a word.
Starlight howled between their bodies as he fused her to him with every binding inch. Their Wells collided, Essence tearing through muscle and bone until pleasure and power were no longer separate things but the same relentless current.
Air fled Serenna’s lungs, stolen by the rush of his presence flooding her mind, her body, her soul.
The ruins rumbled beneath them as their auras braided together until there was no beginning and no end—onlythem.No longer a thread, the bond snapped taut, a bridge of living steel shining like dawn.
