They glided into the center of the floor as the few remaining nobles paused to watch. The bond shimmered between them like an invisible thread pulling them tighter with every step. His arm wrapped around her waist, firm and possessive. Her hand trembled slightly in his — he noticed.
“Nervous?” he asked, lips brushing her ear.
“I don’t think it’s the dancing I’m nervous about.”
A low chuckle rumbled in his chest.
They moved like shadow and flame — Kael guiding her effortlessly, Maris catching the rhythm like she’d been born to match his steps. When he spun her out and back in, the crowd around them faded to nothing.
Just him. Just her. Just the hum of something ancient vibrating between their joined hands.
The music crescendoed, and he dipped her low, his face barely inches from hers. “You belong here,” he whispered. “With me. Let them see it.”
Maris couldn’t speak. Could only nod, her chest bursting with too many emotions, too much wanting, too much everything.
They finished the dance locked in each other’s arms.
And when the music died, Kael kissed her knuckles like a knight of some old, forgotten realm.
In those final moments in the hall, the bond was no longer a thread, it was a living thing.
He didn’t speak as he led her from the ballroom, the orchestra playing one final, fading note behind them. His hand remained wrapped around hers like a tether.
She felt his anticipation in her chest as if it were her own.
In the quiet corridor of their chambers, she turned to him—but he was already watching her, eyes lit silver with that storm she knew so well now.
“You feel it,” he said simply.
She nodded, breathless. “Yes.”
They didn’t make it to the bed right away.
Maris straddled him in a bath of silver-sheeted moonlight, his back pressed against the towering headboard, her fingers gripping the edge of his shoulder as if it were all that held her to this realm.
Kael’s voice dropped to a velvet growl in her mind:
“Feel that?”
She gasped.
He smirked up at her.
“The bond lets me know how close you are,” he murmured again, in her thoughts, deeper and more intimate than any kiss. “It’s maddening.”
Her body responded to that voice more than his hands. Heat seared through her. It was like being touched from the inside out.
“I could stay in your mind,” he whispered again, brushing her temple with his lips, “but I won’t. You have power too, little star.”
He took her wrist and guided it to his chest.
“Close the wall in your mind” he said aloud this time. “Think of sealing a gate. A lock. And the voice will dim.”
She tried it—visualized a door swinging shut—and his presence eased like mist dissipating.
But the moment she relaxed, he pushed back in.
“Unless I want in.”
