"Then what was it?"
"Something siakars do," he says, "to the one they have claimed." He holds my eyes. "You are not siakar. I should have explained it before I did it." A pause. "I was lost in the moment." Something quieter moves through his expression. "I am trying to be open with you. Fully myself. And the truth is, I am a siakar. There are urges. To mark. To bite. To be aggressive. I can channel them into other things when I need to. Training. Other outlets." His jaw shifts slightly. "But I need to know if you want that from me.”
I think about it honestly. The bite, the blood, the overwhelming rush of all of it at once.
"I liked it," I say. "That, and every other time you have done something like it."
Then he exhales. "We did not get long," he says. "To simply be married. Before everything else came in around us."
"No," I say. "We did not."
"I want to fix that." His hand finds mine. "I want to learn everything you like. Everything you do not." He looks at me. "I do not want you to feel shy about any of it. Whatever you want to try. Whatever you want to ask for."
"There is nothing you have done that I did not like," I say.
Something moves through his expression. He starts to say something and then stops.
"What?" I say.
"I know," he says. "But Asha—" He stops again.
"Say it."
"Sometimes knowing what you like," he says carefully, "comes from being with more than one person. Learning by comparison. Understanding what works and what does not."
I understand what he is saying. I also understand what comes next.
"You never will," he says, and the lightness is entirely gone from his voice now, something darker and very certain taking its place. "You will only ever have me."
It does not feel like a threat. It feels like a fact he has already decided.
"I know that," I say. Then, "But how will I know what I want to try? I have nothing to compare it to. No frame for it."
He looks at me. "Do what you feel," he says. "And I will do the same."
"That simple?"
"That simple."
I am quiet, turning that over.
"I am not inexperienced," he says. "But I have always been rigid. Even with my own desires. Controlled. Efficient." A pause. "Tonight showed me there is an entire level of pleasure I did not know existed."
I raise an eyebrow slightly. He catches it.
"I mean that," he says. "And now that I am Fyrekin—" He stops briefly. "I have noticed the beast in me is bolder than it was. More insatiable." His eyes find mine. "I will only ever come to you. That will not change. But it is all right to tell me no. I need you to know that."
"And if I do not want to say no?"
"Then you will not have to."
“I know I like to yield to you. It does not matter what I am queen of, that will never change. Whenever we are undressed, I’m yours to do with as you please,” I murmur.
He stills. “I know, Asha. Fuck, I know.” His voice is low, hoarse. “And I promise…we will do more of it in the future. But you never have to worry about me faltering. We are compatible in that dynamic.”
I look at him, at the glyphs across his shoulders and down his arms, at the breadth of him, at everything he is now that he was not when I first met him.
"I have heard," I say, keeping my voice even, "that women who marry Fyrekins tend to find their husbands rather difficult to keep up with." I pause. "Something about the glyphs. The broad shoulders." I look at him. "General insatiability."
