He gave her more. Harder. Faster. The bed frame creaked. The headboard hit the wall. Dahlia didn’t care—couldn’t care about anything except the man above her, inside her, driving her toward an edge she was desperate to fall over.
His hips rolled against hers, changing the angle, and she cried out as sensation sparked through her body. He did it again, watching her face, learning exactly what made her fall apart.
She felt the shift in him—his control fraying, the primal rising to the surface. His canines had lengthened, sharp against his lower lip. His hands, braced on either side of her head, were tipped with claws that hadn’t been there a moment ago. The bear bleeding through, demanding to claim what was his.
“Now,” she breathed. “Claim me. I want it—I want your marks?—”
Cal’s hand moved to her hip. She felt the press of his claws against her skin—controlled, deliberate. He met her eyes, a question in his gaze even now.
“Yes. Yes, yes, yes?—”
He raked his claws across her hip.
Pain and pleasure exploded through her simultaneously. The claiming marks burned—four parallel lines scored into her flesh, deliberate and precise—but the burn transformed almost instantly into a flood of magic. Pure, raw magic flooding through her veins, binding her to him in ways that went beyond physical. Beyond emotional. Beyond anything she’d ever experienced.
She felt him. Truly felt him—not his thoughts, but his essence. The steady pulse of his presence anchoring into her consciousness like a heartbeat she’d been missing her whole life.
She came crying his name. Wave after wave of release, her body clenching around him, drawing him over the edge with her. He buried his face in her neck and broke apart, a growl tearing from his throat as he pulsed inside her.
For a long moment, neither of them moved. Breathing. Feeling. The mate bond clicking into place with a rightness that made her want to weep.
Dahlia could sense him now—a GPS-like awareness of where he was, how he was. Not telepathy, nothing so dramatic.Knowing. Feeling him there at the edge of her consciousness like a presence she could reach for whenever she needed.
And underneath it all, a calm she felt all the way through—the kind she hadn’t known she was missing. The anxiety that had driven her for years—the need to be needed, the fear of being useless—had quieted. In its place: rest. Peace. Home.
“I can feel you.” The words barely carried. “Like you’re part of me now.”
Cal lifted his head, his features soft in a way she’d rarely seen. “You’ve been part of me since that first day. This makes it official.”
FIFTY-FIVE
CAL
Later—much later—they lay tangled in the sheets, firelight dancing across bare skin.
Cal watched Dahlia trace the claiming marks on her hip. Four parallel lines, still pink and raw, that would scar silver in time. His marks. His mate.
His bear purred with satisfaction.Ours. Forever ours now.
“They’re beautiful.” Her voice dropped low.
“They’re proof.” He covered her hand with his own. “Proof that you chose me. That you wanted this. Wanted us.”
She turned to face him, tucking herself against him. He pulled her close instinctively, wrapping himself around her like the protective bear he was.
“I want to talk about something.” Her voice was soft against his skin.
“Anything.”
“Paris.” She pulled back slightly to meet his eyes.
After she was done, she gave him a questioning look. “Is it selfish?”
He knew this story. But hearing her say it, hearing the longing and the guilt in her voice, made his heart ache.
“It’s not selfish.” Cal cupped her face, tilting it up to his. “It was never selfish. It’s your dream, Dahlia. You’re allowed to have dreams. You spent your whole life telling everyone else that—it’s time you believed it for yourself.”
“The letter—the offer—it’s still valid. They’ve given me until the end of the month to accept.” She bit her lip. “Paris. Learning from the best. Becoming the baker my grandmother believed I could be.”
