Lumi gasps softly. “Andrik... this one feels different than the others. My heart feels tingly.”
Saevel lifts his head, and in one fluid motion, he steps forward and presses his forehead to Lumi’s chest, right over her heart.
The air shifts. The forest hums.
Pearl light erupts from where they touch, spiraling outward in delicate threads that weave through the trees like veins of starlight, the same light that bloomed with the Serynthil flowers, the same ancient magic that marked her ankle.
But this is different. This is us.
Lumi’s eyes go wide, her breath stuttering. “Andrik, what’s happening?”
I can’t answer. I can barely stand.
I feel it. Every emotion she’s feeling right now—wonder, confusion, warmth, safety; it floods through me like a river breaking through a dam.
I don’t only feel her through our mating bond, I feel her through Saevel. Through the piece of my soul that just chose her.
She’s not just bonded to him. She’s bonded to me. Deeper than before. Truer. Saevel pulls back slowly, his amber eyes glowing brighter. He circles her once, tail brushing against her legs, and then—because he’s nothing if not dramatic—he vanishes into the shadows between two trees.
Gone. But not really. I can still feel him. Hovering just out of sight, he’ll never truly leave her again.
She turns to me, her face flushed, eyes shining. “That was...”
“A Vairûnsae,” I rasp. “His name is Saevel. He’s... complicated.”
“Complicated how?”
I take a step toward her, and then another, until there's barely a breath between us. My hand lifts on its own, trembling, and cups her cheek.
“He’s a piece of my soul, Lumi. When the Gods made me, they split off a part of my essence that would guard my future mate. A creature that could walk where I couldn’t, see what I couldn’t, feel what I was too broken to feel.”
Her lips part. “He’s... you?”
“Part of me,” I correct softly. “The part that never stopped hoping.”
Tears well in her eyes, and it takes everything in me not to kiss them away.
“He chose you,” I whisper. “Which means there’s no going back for me. Not that there ever was. Without you, Saevel & I will both perish.”
She surges forward, closing the distance, and kisses me desperately.
Her hands fist in my fur, pulling me down, and I go willingly. Gods, I’d fall to my knees if she asked. My arms wrap around her waist, lifting her slightly off the ground as I kiss her back with everything I’ve been holding in.
Her scent surrounds me.
She tastes like frost and forever.
Her legs wrap around my waist, and I press her back against the nearest tree, my body caging hers. She gasps into my mouth, and that sound nearly undoes me.
“Andrik—” Her voice is breathless, needy. “Please.”
“Lumi, we can’t—” But even as I say it, my hands slide up her sides, my claws catching on fabric.
“Why not?” She arches into me, and I feel every curve, every breath, every frantic beat of her heart. “You want this. I want this. What are we still waiting for?”
Everything. I want to say. I’m waiting for you to be safe. For him to be gone. For the forest to stop screaming warnings, I can’t hear.
But all that comes out is a broken groan as she rolls her hips against me.
