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It floods through me instantly, not pain but something far more overwhelming, a burning rush that spreads from the bite down through my body, lighting every nerve, every vein, every hidden place inside me until I can’t breathe, can’t think, can’t do anything but feel.

My hands clutch at him, my body arching into his, and as the heat consumes everything, the bond snaps tight in a way that is no longer subtle thrumming, but absolute.

His head lifts slowly, his gaze locking onto mine, and whatever he sees there makes his expression shift into something darker, something far more dangerous.

“You feel that?” he asks quietly.

I nod, my breath unsteady.

His hand slides to my jaw, tilting my face toward his, his eyes dark and blazing as his thumb presses against my lips before he leans in.

The kiss is different now.

Everything is different now.

I can feel it in the way his mouth moves against mine, slower than before, deeper, like he is no longer holding anything back, like whatever carefulness he has been applying to every moment between us has ceased to exist.

My fingers curl into the back of his neck, into his hair, anchoring myself to him as the venom continues its slow, devastating spread through my blood. I realize distantly that the ache I have been carrying for weeks, the hollow feeling that lived in my chest and refused to leave, is gone. Filled so completely that I can’t remember what the emptiness felt like.

Now, all I feel is warmth in every point where his skin meets mine. Everything feels amplified, heightened. I can feel his heartbeat. Not just the rise and fall of his chest but the actual rhythm of it, steady and slower than mine, unhurried in the way that only immortality can produce, and the bond between us pulses in perfect time with it, like it has always known that frequency.

I pull back just enough to breathe, my forehead dropping to his shoulder, my fingers pressed flat against his chest where I can feel the steady drumming of his heart beneath my palm.

“I can feel it,” I breathe against his skin, not sure if I mean the venom or the bond or purely him. “I can feel everything.”

His hand strokes slowly down my spine, tracing the length of it, and I shiver despite the warmth flooding through me.

“It will settle,” he murmurs as his hands move to my hips again, and I realize I have gone still against him, suspended somewhere between the sensation of his venom and the weight of what I’ve just allowed, what I’ve just asked for.

He rocks me forward gently, a slow, deliberate motion that pulls a soft sound from my throat and drags me back to the present, back to his heat, back to the impossible fullness of being exactly where I am.

The sound I make is soft and broken, barely a sound at all, my hips rolling forward instinctively to meet the motion he sets, his lips finding my jaw, my cheek, the corner of my mouth.

The rhythm builds slowly, his hands guiding me, shaping the motion until it becomes something I own, and I stop thinking about what I don’t know and let my body find what it does.

Pleasure crests inside me, sharp and bright, and I let go, falling apart in his arms. My body trembles, breath shattering into a thousand pieces as I come, and for a moment, everything is heat and light and the taste of his name on my lips.

But even as the last wave fades, another need rises—stronger, deeper, and hungry. My mouth tingles, my jaw aching with unfamiliar pressure. Confusion swirls through me, quickly overtaken by a sharp, urgent longing that makes my throat burn.

I try to pull away, but Kylian’s arms are gentle, holding me steady. His eyes flick to my lips, and he smiles. His thumb brushes over my lower lip, lingering on the edge. “The bond won’t be complete until you feed from me. You won’t hurt me. It will just be like when I feed from you.”

I shake my head, panic fluttering in my chest. The idea horrifies me. “I can’t.”

He sighs, his voice the gentlest it’s ever been. “You don’t have to do this,” he says, even now, even here. “You can still walk away.”

My throat tightens. I search for fear and find only longing. “I can’t,” I whisper. “Because I don’t want to.”

“Then why are . . . It’s the idea of biting me, isn’t it?” he chuckles. “Eventually, that will be the best part.”

His hand moves to his neck, and he rakes his nail down the skin, tearing flesh easily. The sight of his blood spilling down onto his chest and the scent of him—thick, dark, intoxicating—becomes overwhelming. All conscious thought slips away, and I lurch forward, gripped by instinct, and my mouth finds his wound.

The moment his blood touches my tongue, everything changes.

The fire settles, and I moan against his throat, mind blank but for the taste of him. My teeth sink into his flesh without thought, and he groans, his fingers tangling hard in my hair.

He rolls me beneath him, and my lips slip from his neck. With one final thrust into me, I feel his release warm my insides. My body aches, every sense flooded with him, his scent, his heat, the pulse of the bond now roaring between us.

He slows, hands gentle as they travel over my skin, drawing me back up, dragging me on top of him with effortless strength. My hair falls around our faces, and I brace myself against his chest, breathless, trembling in his lap.