She does. Amber meeting gold, fire meeting ice.
“My princess.” I slide into her as I say the words, watching her expression shift from anticipation to completion. “You’re mine, Tamsin.”
“All yours.” She pulls me down, wrapping herself around me—legs, arms, heat. “Only yours, Auren.”
We move.
Not gentle. Not slow. The claiming burns through us both, demanding surrender, demanding union, demanding everything we have. I thrust into her with six centuries of denied passion, and she meets me stroke for stroke, her nails raking down my back, her cries echoing off the stone walls.
The magic builds between us. I feel it gathering—not just physical pleasure but something deeper, ancient, a power I’ve only heard about in whispered legends. Claiming bonds. Mate marks. The moment when two souls choose each other and the magic makes it permanent.
“Yes.” Tamsin gasps the word against my throat. “Yes, I feel it?—”
I drive deeper. Harder. Chasing the crescendo I feel building, the moment when the bond will snap into place. Her fire flares—I feel the heat of it against my skin, see white light blazing behind my closed eyelids. My ice answers, cold wrapping around her warmth, control embracing passion.
We shatter at the same moment.
The claiming mark burns itself into my chest—over my heart, where her hand rested when she asked me to make her mine. I feel it form, feel the pattern searing into my skin: fire contained by ice, her flame wrapped in crystalline frost, warmth and cold coexisting in impossible harmony.
Tamsin screams my name. Her body bows against mine, her own mark appearing above her heart—frost patterns threaded with flame, my ice embracing her fire, delicate crystalline structures that pulse with inner heat.
The bond snaps into place.
It’s not words. Not thoughts. Just presence—her presence, filling spaces inside me I didn’t know were empty. I can feel her pleasure still rippling through her body. Feel her love, fierce and certain, wrapping around my heart. Feel everything she is, everything we are, settling into something permanent.
I collapse over her, barely catching myself on my elbows. She pulls me down anyway, her arms wrapping around me, her heartbeat pounding against mine.
For long moments, we just breathe. Just exist. Just feel the impossible reality of what we’ve become.
Mates. Claimed. Bound in ways that magic can only reflect.
FORTY-ONE
AUREN
Later—much later—we lie tangled in sheets that smell of smoke and winter.
Tamsin traces the claiming mark on my chest, her fingers mapping the pattern of fire contained by ice. The touch sends shivers through me—the mark is sensitive in ways I didn’t expect, responding to her specifically, as if it knows who made it.
“I thought you hated witches.”
The question should sting. Coming from anyone else, it would. But her voice holds no accusation—just curiosity, and perhaps a touch of wonder at the journey we’ve taken.
“I did.” I pull her closer, this woman who changed everything. Her head rests against my shoulder, her warmth seeping into my side. “Then I met one who made me realize hatred is just fear wearing armor.”
“And now?”
“Now I’m done being afraid.” I press a kiss to her hair. Her forehead. The corner of her mouth. “Now I have something worth protecting. Someone worth loving.”
She tilts her face up, and I kiss her properly—slow and deep, tasting the aftermath of passion and the promise of more. Whenwe part, her eyes are bright with emotion I can feel echoing in my own chest.
“What now?” she asks.
“Now?” I consider the question. Consider the future stretching before us—not just mine, but ours. Shared. Intertwined. “Now we rebuild. Valdoria needs a queen. And I hear the position of royal consort has recently opened up.”
Her laugh is the most beautiful sound I’ve ever heard. Bright and surprised and full of joy I helped put there.
“Royal consort?” She pushes up on one elbow, looking down at me with an expression I’m learning means trouble. “You’d leave the Brotherhood? Leave your brothers?”
