The tendrils emerged from his stav—an autonomic response his people rarely spoke of, the physical manifestation of spiritforce seeking permanence. Thin, pulsing with emerald light, they extended to press against her inner walls. Not invading.Anchoring. Tying his spiritforce to her body the way the bond was tying his soul to her mind.
Selena gasped. Her walls clenched, and the sensation ricocheted through both of them—her pleasure slamming into his, his spiritforce surging in response, the tendrils pulsing deeper.
“Ryzen—” His name left her mouth like a broken prayer.
He kissed her. Couldn’t speak. Couldn’t form words. His mind was too full of her—her taste, her heat, her golden spiritforce threaded through his emerald until the colors blurred into something new. Something that had never existed before this moment.
His arms wrapped around her. Forehead to forehead. Chest to chest. Her hips moved against his in a rhythm that hadnothing to do with technique and everything to do with need—raw, devastating, shared through the bond so completely that he felt it from both sides simultaneously.
The pleasure built.
Not gradually. Not in stages. It built the way a spiritforce surge built—logarithmic, exponential, each wave larger than the last until the pressure behind his eyes whited out everything except sensation.
Her walls clenched.
His tendrils pulsed.
The bondblazed.
Orgasm ripped through her and into him—a shared detonation that obliterated every boundary between their minds. Her cry and his groan merged into a single sound. Her pleasure and his pleasure became one undifferentiated wave that crashed and rebuilt and crashed again, spiritforce arcing between them in emerald-gold lightning that lit the room like a dying star.
Wave after wave. Not taking turns. Experiencingtogether.
Her body shuddered against his. His shuddered against hers. The tendrils pulsed with his release—hot, consuming—and her walls gripped him through every cascading aftershock as their spiritforces completed the merge. Emerald and gold braided together into something permanent. Something unbreakable.
Two flames. One hearth.
We were the same flame now. Burning together. I would carry her light in me forever. And she would carry mine.
The emerald fire dimmed.
Slowly. By degrees. Like coals banking after a blaze that had consumed everything in its path and left only warmth behind. The runes across his skin guttered from blazing to a steady pulse, and the room faded from green-white back to the muted grey of ship’s quarters.
Selena collapsed against his chest.
Her breath came in ragged, broken pulls against his throat. Her fingers still twisted in his hair, her body still trembling with the aftershocks of something neither of them had been prepared for. Her glowing spots flickered—pink, purple, pink—pulsing with her heartbeat as it slowly, reluctantly, steadied.
Ryzen held her.
The word felt inadequate. Heclutchedher—arms locked, face buried in her hair, hands spread across her back as if letting go would undo everything they’d just done. Her spiritforce hummed inside his mind—golden, warm, so impossiblypresentthat the absence of Xenak’s twin bond ached a fraction less.
Not replaced. Never that. But the emptiness had company now.
His stav softened inside her, the tendrils slowly retracting as his spiritforce settled into its new configuration. The bond between them throbbed—raw, bright, newborn. Wider than the threads she shared with her mates. Brighter. More present. His emerald woven so deeply through her golden web that pulling it free would destroy them both.
Entangled. Forever.
He’d warned her. She’d chosen it anyway.
Her consciousness flickered against his—already dimming, exhaustion pulling her under. Pregnant. Emotionally spent. Running on fumes and willpower for days, and the bonding had drained whatever reserves she’d been hoarding.
He should lay her down. Should find a blanket. Should alert her mates that she was safe, that the bonding had worked, that she was—
Her fingers curled against his chest. A small, unconscious motion. Holding on even as sleep claimed her.
His throat tightened.
Centuries. He’d spent centuries following rules carved into Verya culture before he was born. Don’t bond. Don’t merge. Don’t share your spiritforce with anyone—not with the forced bonds, not since his people learned what happened when souls were weapons.
