“I am angry. I am afraid.” She caught his face. “But I am not confused.”
He searched her face.
“This is more vulnerable. More intense. If you change your mind, even once, I stop.”
“I know.”
“If it hurts in a way you do not want, I stop.”
“I know.”
“If the bond pulls too hard, we stop.”
She touched his mouth with her fingers.
“Then listen to me. Not the bond.”
His breath left him slowly.
Then he nodded.
Not surrender.
Answer.
He kissed her again, and this time the heat between them changed. It did not rush blindly toward relief. It gathered. Deepened. Turned deliberate.
Sabine undressed herself first.
No ritual hands. No attendants. No temple witness.
Only her own fingers working loose the shift and letting it fall.
Lucien watched her as if the act cost him more restraint than any trial had demanded.
She reached for his shirt.
“Do not make caution another cage.”
That undid him.
He stripped quickly, then drew her down onto the bed.
For a while there was only kissing, touching, the slide of skin against skin, his mouth at her throat, her hands in his hair, the bond pulsing warm between them.
Not dragging.
Not commanding.
Listening.
When his hand reached for the vial of salve beside the bed, he looked at her again.
Sabine held his gaze.
“Yes.”
The word settled the room.
