Yearning.
Home.
“Dagan,” I whisper, tugging at the fastenings of his vest. “I need you.”
The words are bare and simple and terrifying.
His hands still.
For half a heartbeat, I think I pushed too far.
Then he exhales, a sound that’s half growl, half prayer.
“You have me,” he says. “All of me, Oona. For as long as the earth remembers my name.”
That shouldn’t make my eyes burn, but it does.
He helps me shed my clothes, fingers surprisingly gentle for a man who can crack mountains with his bare hands.
Every brush of his knuckles against my skin feels reverent, like he’s mapping fault lines and finding them beautiful.
When I tug at his shirt in turn, he lets me explore.
Pale, hard planes of chest and abdomen, scattered with faint scars that feel like history under my fingertips.
His skin isn’t smooth as it looks. It is etched with patterns—like whorls of sheer, iridescent markings are there, tracing paths right over his heart, echoing the patterns in the stone outside.
The powerful sweep of his shoulders, the flex of his arms as he braces himself above me when we tumble backward onto the bed.
The linens are cool silk over something soft and springy underneath, like moss laid on packed earth.
The whole bed cradles me, adjusting as I shift, supporting my back, my hips, my legs.
Of course it does.
This castle ships us hard.
“You are thinking loudly again,” Dagan rumbles, pressing a line of kisses down my throat. “Something about castles and… shipping?”
“Later,” I breathe, arching as his mouth finds the sensitive place just below my ear. “Much later.”
He smiles against my skin.
His hands move slowly, reverently, learning me all over again. Every curve, every scar, every place that makes my breath catch or my muscles tense.
The bond hums brighter with each stroke, each kiss, until it’s like we’re wrapped in a cocoon of awareness—his and mine twined together.
The world outside shrinks to the warmth of his body over mine, the rasp of his voice as he murmurs my name, the way the stone under the bed thrums in time with my pulse.
“Look at me,” he commands gently.
I do.
Green-gold eyes meet mine, burning with so much emotion it steals my breath.
“You are not a bargain anymore,” he murmurs. “Not a duty. Not a tool. You are my heart, Alina Fawcett. My center. My true viyella. Do you understand?”
My throat closes.
