Lumi gasps, her fingers tightening in mine. A strange tingling bursts up through our joined palms.
A chorus rises from the trees.
Distant howls echo across the forest. Crows scream from the canopy of trees, flapping into a frantic spiral—a sudden roar of antlers clashing in the glen, the tremble of paws. From every direction, the sounds rise.
They feel it.All of them.
One by one, her soboeûns return to bear witness, bowing in the frost around the mating circle.
Our palms separate reluctantly. I stare at her hand—at my blood mixing with hers. Something primal surges through me. I guide her bloodied palm to my chest and drag it slowly over the white of my fur.
A hiss escapes me.
The contact sears straight to my bone until I feel the bond’s magic thrum against my own. She lives inside me now. Marked into the muscle. Woven through the ribs she’ll sleep against for the rest of our lives.
“I wear you now,” I murmur. “Your blood...” I slide her hand across my collarbone. “It’s a part of me now.” I drag her hand over my throat, then down the center of my chest, tracing the hollow of my chest where the gods once carved her name into my heart.
“Everything I am belongs to you.”
Her head tilts curiously as I bring her hand to my mouth. I lick across the thin wound I carved.
“Veyr’thalin etra’saev,” I whisper against her skin.
She gasps.
“Andrik—”
I lick again, tasting the copper and salt of her on my tongue.
“Kaemorin, to heal.”
Another long, reverent stroke.
“To claim.”
Lick.
“To worship.”
The wound has already begun to close from the thraevûn leaking from my fangs, but I can’t stop.
Her breath catches as I shift forward, pressing my hand to her belly—leaving a smear that stains her pale skin.
“I’ll mark you in every way,” I rasp. “Inside and out.”
I drop to my knees and lick the blood trail off her skin. Her thighs shiver as my hands splay across the back of them.
“Kaemorin.”
The residue of what he stole from her still lingers beneath her sweetness. My instincts revolt.
My hands twitch where they hold her. Rhûven claws at my bones, snarling to destroy. She let him near because she thought it was me, I remind myself.
So I’ll show her the difference.
“Guide me,” I rasp, dragging her hand over her chest. “Thrav’elûn, lumina’ka. Nai’ven marûk ves thrae.” (Show me, little light. I’ll undo him with every breath I take from your skin.)
Her breath hitches. I thread her fingers between mine and slowly drag our joined hands lower. Over the swell of her stomach, down the trembling rise of her pelvis. Her heat bleeds into my skin.
