His entire body went rigid. A choked sound punched from his lungs, and his hips thrust into my grip before he could stop himself. The runes along his shaft blazed beneath my palm—hot, pulsing, responsive in a way that fascinated me.
“That—” He swallowed. Tried again. “That feels—”
“I know.” I stroked him. Slow. Learning his shape, his heat, the places where those runes pulsed brightest. His eyes squeezed shut and his head fell back, tendons standing out in his neck, and the sound he made—
Stars, that sound.
Low and ruined and so honest it made my chest ache.
I released him before either of us could lose control.
“Ryzen.” I waited until his eyes opened. Glazed. Dark. “Tell me what I need to do. For the bonding.”
His voice came out wrecked. Barely a whisper. “Climb on.”
Every mate was different. Every bonding unique.
I positioned myself above him, one hand braced on his shoulder, the other guiding him to my entrance. He gripped my thighs—hard now, no more hesitation—and watched me with an intensity that made the air between us crackle.
I sank onto him slowly.
The stretch was different from what I knew. Shorter, but thick—achingly thick—and the texture of those runes inside me sent cascading shocks of sensation up my spine. Every ridge caught against nerve endings I didn’t know I had, and I gasped as my body adjusted, taking him in inch by measured inch.
Ryzen’s grip on my thighs turned bruising. His breath punched out in harsh, ragged bursts. His runes blazed so bright the room turned emerald—painting us both in green fire, casting sharp shadows against the walls.
“Selena—” My name broke apart in his mouth.
“I’ve got you.” I sank the rest of the way. Seated fully, filled completely, his stav buried deep and pulsing inside me in time with his spiritforce.
For a moment, neither of us moved.
The fullness was exquisite. Not just physical—the emerald thread between us blazed wide open, and I couldfeelhim. His awe. His overwhelmed, staggering pleasure. The way holding himself still was costing every shred of control he possessed.
I combed his long hair back from his face. Tucked the emerald-streaked strands behind his ears. Let myself look at him—really look—at this male who’d given me his soul before his body, who trembled beneath me not from weakness but from the devastating force of feeling everything for the first time.
“Open your mind.” I pressed my forehead to his. “Let me in.”
He did.
His mental walls fell like a held breath—and his spiritforce surged forward to meet mine.
Emerald slammed into gold.
I cried out. Couldn’t help it. The sensation was nothing like my other bonds—not a thread, not a window. This was amerging. His spiritforce wrapping around mine, braiding through my mental web, sinking into spaces I hadn’t known were empty until he filled them.
My hips rolled. Instinct. Need. The physical and spiritual tangled together until I couldn’t tell where pleasure ended and bonding began. His hands found my hips and moved with me—clumsy at first, then finding the rhythm, matching my pace.
I kissed his neck. Scraped my teeth against his pulse. Felt his spiritforce surge in response—a wave of emerald light that rushed through my veins and lit up every nerve in my body.
“More.” The word tore from me. Not a request. A demand.
His arms locked around me. He thrust up—hard, deep—and the world went green.
Emerald fire. Everywhere. Blazing behind my eyes, burning through my chest, consuming the space between us until there was no space left. His pleasure became mine. Mine became his. We were the same flame, the same breath, the same desperate, aching need spiraling toward something inevitable.
His runes sang against my skin. His stav pulsed inside me, hot and insistent, and I felt something shift—tendrils, delicate and pulsing with spiritforce, extending from his stav to press against my inner walls. Not painful.Anchoring.Locking us together in a way that was purely Verya, purely alien, purelyhim.
I shattered.
