He pushed deeper, inch by inch, his breathing turning harsh as her body adjusted to accommodate him. When he was fully seated, both of them went still.
The mark on Sabine’s palm flared hot.
Lucien’s eyes closed briefly, his jaw tight, and she realized he was fighting himself. Fighting the need to move. Fighting whatever the bond was doing to him.
“Lucien,” she said quietly.
His eyes opened.
“I am not going to break.”
Something in his expression cracked.
He pulled back and thrust forward, and Sabine’s breath punched out because the sensation was overwhelming. Not painful. Just impossible to process as anything other than fullness and heat and the fact that he was inside her and they had crossed a line the palace would never forgive.
He set a rhythm, slow at first, giving her time to adjust. But when she lifted her hips to meet him, when her nails dug into his back, his restraint began to fracture.
His thrusts turned harder. Faster. His breathing roughened into something close to desperation. And Sabine felt her own control slipping, felt her body tightening around him, felt pleasure building low in her belly with enough force that she knew when it broke it would take her with it.
Lucien’s hand slid between them, fingers finding where they were joined, and when he pressed just right Sabine’s vision whited out.
Pleasure flooded through her in waves, her body clenching around him, and she heard herself cry out his name before she could stop it.
Lucien thrust twice more, then buried himself deep and went rigid, his release spilling hot inside her while he cursed low and rough against her throat.
For a long moment neither of them moved.
Then he pulled out carefully and rolled onto his back beside her, one arm thrown over his eyes, his chest still heaving.
Sabine lay still, her body still trembling, her mind struggling to reassemble itself into something coherent.
A bell tolled in the distance.
Evening prayer. Or trial summons. Or something else the palace used to mark time and control movement.
Lucien lowered his arm and turned his head to look at her.
“That was a mistake,” he said quietly.
“I know.”
“The palace will find out.”
Sabine sat up, wincing slightly at the soreness between her thighs. “They already know. They have been watching me closely enough to steal my notes. They will know I came here. They will know what we did.”
She looked down at her marked palm.
The lines had spread. Not dramatically. Just enough to be visible. Dark tracery extending past her wrist now, climbing her forearm in delicate branches like roots seeking purchase.
“Lucien,” she said quietly.
He sat up and took her hand, his expression going still when he saw the mark.
“It is progressing faster than it should,” he said. “The bond is responding to” He stopped.
“To what.”
“To consummation. To choice. To the fact that we just confirmed the bond is real in a way the rite can measure.” His hand tightened on hers. “The palace will see this. And they will know exactly what it means.”
