Page 125 of The Pakhan’s Debt by Leona White

“Yes, Pakhan.”

His hand lowers slightly, and his voice drops just enough that everyone has to lean into it.

“She stands with me.”

The answer comes quieter.

“Yes, Pakhan.”

His thumb moves once against my wrist.

“And what stands with me is not touched.”

The final response comes as one.

“Yes, Pakhan.”

Silence follows, and Maksim turns back to me. Everyone stays where they are, held by what was just said.

His hand comes back to mine, closes around it, and pulls me one step closer until there’s no space between us. His other hand lifts and comes to my jaw, fingers set there, firm, leaving no question. He looks at me, and everyone in the hall waits.

His mouth meets mine, and the control he held breaks open. The kiss is deep and wanting, his grip tightening at my jaw as he pulls me in. I close my eyes for a second, then open them again because I want to see him when I kiss him.

He shifts his hand to my back and draws me closer, and I feel the strength in him, the restraint still there but failing under his hands. His mouth presses harder, then slows, then deepens again, and the hall drops away until there’s only him and the heat between us.

When he pulls back, his forehead touches mine, and his breath stays warm against my mouth. Neither of us moves. Then the hall comes back. Applause starts from the left, one pair of hands, then two, then it spreads through the hall. Men bring their hands together in acknowledgment.

Maksim doesn’t look away from me. His hand closes around mine again. This time, when he turns, he keeps hold of me. I walk with him. We pass the table, the witnesses, the men who watched and understood.

The hall opens ahead, and the private doors wait. My hand slips from his just long enough to take the handle. Then I open it and step through.

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The private doors close behind us, and Maksim has me against the wall before the latch finishes settling.

His mouth finds mine again, harder now because no registrar is watching and no old man in the back can pretend not to understand what he just did. His hand slides to the side of my neck, careful and possessive, while his other arm braces beside my head.

I catch his jacket in both fists and kiss him back until he makes a rough sound against my mouth. Then he stops because he remembers the bandage on his ribs, the cut on my forearm, and the child between every choice we make now.

“Don’t stop because you’re being sensible,” I joke.

His eyes darken. “I’m rarely accused of that.”

His voice is gravel caught in silk. It strokes straight down my spine. He cups my face and slides his thumb over the new ring, the red stone smoldering against my skin. “My wife,” he breathes before he kisses me again.

The words pour through me like warm honey, thick and sweet, and for a second I forget he has a gun under his jacket and blood hidden by gauze, that I have a healing cut on my forearm, that we have a child inside me measuring every decision before we make it.

Then a knock comes and drags us back into reality—the one with councils, shifting alliances, and men asking for favors in the hour meant for our pleasure. I admire them for living this long.

Maksim opens the door, lets the crisis into our sanctuary, and for a while I sit at the head of a polished table in my gown, issuing orders and watching men much older than me field instructions without daring to blink at how a girl from the wrong line took the chair.

But power is a fickle intoxicant when your husband is at your back smelling like gunpowder and aftershave, his hand resting on the carved wood behind your shoulders, his voice calm and lethal as he trades directives. It feeds my mind. It doesn’t soothe the hunger in my body.

If anything, the mix of responsibility and desire only sharpens, until I’m acutely aware of the press of his wedding band on my skin whenever he steadies my elbow, the rasp of shadow on his jaw when he leans down to read a line I’m pointing at, the way he answers to Pakhan for them but husband for me alone.

We work until the house falls back into relative order. The minute the last subordinate clears the threshold, he locks the door, turns, and looks at me like he’s about to devour every inch of me and call it communion.