Page 153 of Given to the Black King

“If I feel you want something, I still ask. If you feel my body respond, you still listen to me.”

“Always.”

“And we practice sending one sensation at a time.”

His mouth moves against my hair. “You intend to make rules for everything.”

“I am a diplomat.”

“You are naked.”

“Still a diplomat.”

“Slowly,” I say. “I want to learn it.”

“What?”

“Us. Without blood, armies, or the furniture becoming evidence.”

His gaze moves to the bedframe.

“This one remains intact.”

“For now.”

His mouth almost smiles.

I brush my hair away from the bite and expose it.

“Come here.”

The words no longer form the rite. The bond is already set.

His body still answers them.

The old hunger crosses his face. His claws ease out one by one against my waist.

He waits.

I touch one black point with the pad of my finger, then guide his hand lower.

“Slow.”

“Yes.”

He bends over the mark.

The punctures sealed by the third day. A week after the bite, the skin has closed into two bruised, tender crescents. The fangs cannot disappear. He turns his jaw until the points lie on either side of them and closes his lips over the bite.

Pleasure enters me in two directions.

The pressure of his mouth against my throat.

The hot surge of pride through the bond when he tastes his venom in my blood.

I grip his shoulder.

His tongue traces one crescent.