“I don’t want this bond?” My voice is low and cold. “Is that what you think? Haven’t we been over this?”
My control shatters.
I rip her jacket in half. Buttons fly across her bedroom.
“What are you?—”
“No, Lumi.” I cut her off. “You’re done talking.” My grip tightens. “I’m going to talk. You’re going to listen.”
I shove her sweats down, breath ragged.
“I want this bond more than anything I have ever wanted— and I’ve been alive for a very—verylong time.”
She gasps as I lift her by the hips. Her legs wrap around my waist.
“You haven’t seen that part of me yet,” I growl. “The one I have to become for the bond to take. For it to mean what it’s supposed to mean.” I drag my claws up her thigh. “And the bond only snaps into place if we consummate it on my land. In the forest that created me.”
My hands shake from how badly I want her.
“When we do this...” I pause, tipping her chin so she’s looking straight into my eyes. “It will send you into a rhavari heat. That’s if it hasn’t already... which I suspect it has.” She pants against my neck and drops her head to my shoulder. I retract my claws and slip my fingers beneath the band of her lacevelisûn. (Panties.)
“You think ovulation is bad? My sweet human, you have no idea.”Thrahk, she’svaelis’kai. “You will need me constantly. Over and over. There won’t be room in your body for anything else but me.”
Kai'theln ves narh—veyl'kaevûn ves thrae'morin.(My mind is empty—all of my blood has gone to my cock.)
This was a stupid idea.
I stroke her once, and she jerks—fisting a handful of my fur.Thanlûn ves kai’narn.
“Do you understand now, Lumi?” My forehead drops to hers, fingers tracing small circles over her kaelinae. “You are mySaelûn.My mate. The other half of my soul. And if I let the bond snap into place now, I will lose myself—which means I might lose you too.”
Her nails rake through my fur, and she whimpers—a sound so desperate it almost breaks me.
I pull my hand away. My restraint is a thorn against my throat, but I hold it willingly, for her. For us.
“Oh, and Lumi.” I press a kiss to her neck. “Once we deal with thisveyrak’thar…” I nod at the bag. “You’ll never need that again.”
I lower my voice, leaning in until my mouth brushes the shell of her ear, breath cool against her heated skin.
My words drop like a vow:
“Velkâr’kai Saelûn. Thrak’ven ael’kai viral. Dûmarin star, kai’mor godsûn.”(I will mark you, soulbond. Thrust my name into your core so deep, you’ll never remember needing anything else.)
Lumi-
What in the actual fuck just happened?
He pulled his hand away and left me burning. There’s no other word for it. Every part of me is scorched, trembling—like my body has been pulled into orbit and left suspended, waiting for the gravity of him to come back and finish what he started.
He sets me on the ground, and I’m just standing here panting with a ripped jacket and twisted pants around my feet. My thighs are slick, and my nerve endings are rioting like live wires.
“ I will mark you, soulbond. Thrust my name into your core so deep.” Oh, I’ll tell you what you can thrust where, buddy.
I don’t know how I understood it. But something in me did, like a puzzle piece finally clicking into place.
His words echo in my blood.
“Hey! You overgrown snow monster,” I yell at his back.
