He lost the rhythm for one breath.
Then he found it again, rougher now. His hand slid between us. I gasped, and his mouth found the sound, took it, gave it back.
“Again,” he said.
I knew what he meant.
I should have made him ask properly.
I couldn’t.
“Good boy.”
His control broke in pieces.
Not all the way, he wasn’t capable of that yet, but enough that I felt the truth of him: the boy raised to be a wall, the man shaking apart because I had called him good and meant it.
My Mark flared.
His answered.
For one impossible second, it felt as if the two Marks had found the same breath.
For one beautiful second, cold marble flooded everything.
Then green apple cut through it.
Then leather and warm skin.
My body went rigid.
Caspian stopped so quickly it must have hurt.
“Astra.”
I gripped his shoulders.
“Wait.”
He waited.
No argument.
No question.
Only his breath uneven against my cheek, his body held above mine with the kind of discipline that made me want to both thank him and ruin him for it.
The pain didn’t sharpen.
It opened.
Three directions inside me, all awake, all refusing to disappear because Caspian was here. My Mark didn’t seal. It did not choose him. It reached for him and kept the others.
Impossible thing.
Mine.
I laughed.
