She shudders in my arms.
“I don’t know why that sounds so sexy right now, but it does. Mark me, forest daddy!” she slurs.
That does it.
A low sound breaks from my chest. My hands roam over her skin, dragging my scent across her collarbones, her throat, her belly.
Every kiss is a promise: Every breath, a brand.
“Kael’vesûn ael,” I murmur against her skin. (You are mine in breath and bond.)
I kiss the soulmark on her chest, right above her heart. “Right here,” I murmur. “Kaevorin ves thral. The gods wrote my name into you, Lumi. Before we ever met. Before we ever burned.” (Sacred heart, you are my everything.)
I scent the inside of her wrists, backs of her knees, the base of her spine. Every last inch of her flesh is drenched in me. No part of her belongs to the cold, to fear, or anything but the bond and me.
She exhales something soft and sweet, under her breath.
“You taste like cinnamon,” she mumbles, eyes already drifting closed.
I press one final kiss to the crown of her head.
“And now, my little glutton,” I chuckle, “so do you.”
I tuck her against my chest, arms wrapping around her completely, cocooning her in warmth. Her breath softly fogs over my chest.
“Andrik?” Her voice is sleepy.
“Yes, thal’morin?”
“I love you.”
Everything in me stops.
She said it once before, in the heat of the moment, when she was overwhelmed and lost in heat. But this?—
This one is real.
“Kai’morin ves thral,” I breathe into her hair. “Saelûn’kora ves’aleth.” (Soul of my soul, light of my life.)
I feel her smile against my chest.
“What does that mean?”
“It means that I love you too, more than I have words for. In any language.”
Her breathing evens out, and she lets out a little snore.
I should let her rest. She’s exhausted and finally sated in my arms, but my eyes drift lower, to where a bead of kaersin still clings to the head of my kaevûn, refusing to be wiped away.
The beast inside me stirs.
Mark her.
I try to ignore it, but another drop wells up, pearlescent and potent with my scent.
My hand moves before I can stop it.
I catch the drop on my finger, watching it shimmer in the dim light.
