Annoyance flared hot and fast. He wouldn’t let me touch him, yet here he was staking a claim like I belonged to him. A marriage in name only—his words, not mine. I turned to Nate, heat creeping up my neck, shame and something far more dangerous twisting together in my gut.
“He’s my husband in name only. Just ignore him.” I turned away from Abram completely, pretending my heart wasn’t hammering against my ribs.
Nate smiled at me, and the tension eased just a fraction.
“If you needed a husband,” he said lightly, “you could’ve come to me. I wouldn’t have had to fake anything.” His eyes flicked to Abram, a smirk playing at his mouth.
The air thickened instantly. Abram’s power pressed in around us, heavy and suffocating, raising the fine hairs along my arms.
“Elowyn.” His voice was sharp. Possessive.
I stilled, every instinct screaming to be careful. I froze for a moment, aware of how carefully I needed to hold myself. “Do you want to tell him that you don’t have to fake anything with me?”
I turned to him slowly, schooling my expression into something calm, almost curious, like I wasn’t standing in the middle of a storm.
“Maybe I should’ve explored all my options before marrying—”
The world shifted.
Abram was suddenly in front of me, fury blazing in his eyes, the distance between us gone in a blink. I sucked in a breath, my pulse slamming as his presence swallowed everything else.
“Be very careful with your next words,” he said quietly. “You are my wife. We’re leaving.”
“I’m buying pastries first.” I rolled my eyes and picked a few, deliberately unhurried despite the chaos in my chest. I reached for my coin, painfully aware of how close he was behind me.
Abram didn’t wait. He pressed money into Nate’s hand and pulled me back against him.
Star mist wrapped around us, disorienting and hot, and then the world snapped back into place. Home.
He set me down and stared at me like I’d struck something raw.
“What?” I asked, sharper than I meant to.
“You know what,” he said, stepping closer, voice tight. Our chests touched. I didn’t retreat.
“You’re my wife.”
I rolled my eyes, attempting to mask how much his presence unsettled me.
“In name only, that is what you said.” His jaw clenched tightly, and I forced myself to keep speaking. “I don’t see the problem here if we are only married in name only. You can be my husband, and I can find someone who won’t flinch away from me when I try to touch them.”
My voice broke slightly, revealing the conflict inside me—wanting to push him away, yet wishing he would notice just how much he mattered in that moment.
Abe’s eyes burned bright red at my words. The fury in them should have scared me, but all I could feel was the ache of how much I wished that anger meant something deeper. Did I want to sleep with someone else? No. But he was being ridiculousacting like he actually cared that Nate had flirted with me, when he’d made it clear I wasn’t his to want.
“You are waiting for your mate, which is fine, but that doesn’t mean I have to be a celibate woman if I don’t want to. After all, you are the one who made it clear this was not a real marriage.”
“Yeah, I fucking dare you to go and try to sleep with another male. I will gut him before he can lay his eyes on you.” He stepped closer. “I. Will. End. Any. Man. That. Thinks. You. Are. Interested. In. Him.”
His voice was rough, dangerous and heartbreakingly possessive.
“Bold of you to thinkIwouldn’t be interested in someone. We aren’t actually married, or did you forget that?”
“Oh, little weaver, we are married. You are my wife. I am your husband. This is our home. These eyes stay on me. That mouth only flirts with me. And these hands only touch yourself to images of me. Any man who thinks you’re his to want is making a fatal mistake.”
My breath caught. The words hit something deep inside of me. Nyxthra began whispering how this was proof that Abram was ours to keep.
“I’ll touch myself to whoever I please,” I argued weakly.
