He brought his body lower, unconcerned with her blade. “I belong to no planet or clan. I have no bruvya. I am only yours, Vessa. I’ve been yours. I’ve come to claim you and be claimed in return. To lay my blades at your feet—freely give you my mask and any honor I have left.”
He lowered his head to her throat. She flattened the sharp edge of her raze sword against him, allowing it. Then his hot breath was fanning across her collarbone, and his fangs scraped against the thin flesh over her jugular
She shivered against him. It felt so damn right. Like her body had been asleep this entire time, but now every nerve was lit up. Her heart had been a black and dead thing, and it was suddenly alive.
“Otherwise,” he rasped, “there is still the challenge you agreed to.”
His death. He would have her kill him.
Even though he’d trained for all that time, he wouldn’t hurt her now. She wasn’t certain he could have finished the kill before on that icy planet. Not if beneath the helmet and his rough exterior, he’d been looking at her like this all along.
But was it enough? Weretheyenough?
“The challenge,” she muttered as her free hand moved to his side and she fisted the material against his ribs.
He trailed his tongue over her throat, tasting her sweat, before locking eyes with her. “If you do not accept me as clan and mate, then the challenge must be completed. I’m so tired of living without you.”
“Mate?” she breathed. The word was a wish she had long ago buried, set free.
He’d spent seven years hunting her down merely because she hadn’t killed him, and another because she’d once more left the debt unpaid. He expected her to deny him again. After all, she’d done it so easily before.
Something dark filled his eyes at her silence.Defeat.“You owe me a death, then.”
Vessa rolled them efficiently, a move she’d learned how to do long ago with this very Xaal. She brought her blade’s point directly over his throat. Kedar wetted his lips, swallowed hard, but he never took his eyes off hers. He gripped her hips as if there was nowhere he’d rather be than here, beneath her blade. At her mercy.
“You say I owe you a death,” she said.
He nodded slightly.
She retracted the blade. “What about a life instead?”
“Vessa,” he rasped, agony dripping from each syllable. “Don’t say this. No tricks. No half-truths.”
“I have no idea how we will do it,” she confessed. “All I know is I’m so tired of losing everything I want. And I want you, Kedar. My heart broke the moment I left you in that cave.”
“Truth?” he asked, searching her eyes for any sign of doubt. “You want me?”
“Gods, I do.”
His smile was wicked—all fang and triumph.
And the most beautiful thing she’d ever seen. She’d destroy entire star systems for that damn smile.
Kedar rolled them back over and buried his face in her neck, in her hair. He groaned after sniffing her loudly. “Stars, I missed you, Ves. Missed your attitude, your scent.”
“I’m sweating,” she murmured. But gods, he smelled good, too. Her heart chanted the truth with each beat. Home. Home.Home.
“I know,” he rumbled. “My favorite.” He sounded drunk off her scent alone.
“Do you understand how gross that is?”
Kedar hiked one of her legs up higher on his waist to settle more fully between her legs. Heat tore through her. “I do not care. Your scent has always pleased me, in all its forms.”
She wrinkled her nose but couldn’t find the energy to be truly disgusted. She was too focused on his huge hand grasping her hip. On the heat of him between her legs.
“I want your mouth on mine again,” he demanded.
Vessa laughed. “It's called a kiss. Kissing.”
