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“Love me like I survived, Wildheart,” he whispers.

I kiss him with a sound that is almost pain. My mouth finds his with no gentleness left to spare for hiding. Not rough enough yet to answer the demand fully, but no longer only careful. He moans into me, and the sound loosens the last cold grip around my ribs.

His body knows mine when I line myself up. No preparation is needed, but I still pause at his entrance because I will always honor thresholds. Wetness gathers thick around the head of my cock, his altered body opening, eager in a way that makes my true form press under my skin.

His hands slide to my hips, and I enter him slowly.

The first push steals both our breath, and his body takes me with a heat that feels both familiar and new; slick enough that the stretch comes easier, but not less intense.

He is changed inside too, softer where he once had to fight tension, warmer, responsive in small pulses that grip me as if his body remembers the bond’s shape and wants to draw me deep. I stop when only the head is inside, shaking so hard my arms tremble.

Lucas lifts his hips and another inch slides in.

My eyes close, tears spilling faster now. Pleasure hits, yes, deep and heavy, but grief rides inside it. I remember the weight of him in my arms when there was no answer. I remember begging roots and stone. I remember the Varkhyn’s blood on my claws and my brother’s death-scent in the air. I remember killing the threat and feeling no triumph because Lucas was too still for victory to mean anything.

I sob.

There is no dignity in it. The sound tears free as I sink deeper into him, and I have to bury my face against his neck because the feeling is too large.

Lucas wraps himself around me at once, arms hard around my shoulders, legs tight at my hips, holding me inside and holding me together in the same breath. His warmth takes more of me, his body easing open with each trembling inch, and he kisses the side of my head while I cry into his skin.

“I’ve got you,” he whispers, voice breaking. “I’ve got you, Onyx.”

I push the last of the way inside. His body accepts me fully, wet and tight and hot around every inch, and the bond floods so brightly I lose sense of the den for a moment. There is only Lucas surrounding me—breathing, heart pounding against my chest, alive enough to take me to the root.

He waits until my breathing steadies, then his hips roll beneath mine. A low growl breaks through the remains of my sob. Lucas feels it and trembles.

“There,” he whispers, and his voice is no longer only gentle. “That’s my beast.”

I lift my head.

He is looking up at me with wet eyes, flushed cheeks, and a hunger that has stopped asking to be hidden. The green-white light in his gaze pulses once, answering the gold in the bond, and I feel the half-Cervari part of him stir around me.

His body grips mine harder, making the slide obscene and effortless when I move without meaning to.

I cup his face with one hand and press my forehead to his. “Alive,” I say, the word cracking. “Mine alive.”

His breath catches. “Yours alive.”

The pace deepens by degrees, the sound of each thrust growing wetter, more intimate, filling the den with proof that he does not need to be coaxed through pain to take me now.

He takes because his body chooses. Because the forest remade him with a path to meet mine.

My true form strains closer for a heartbeat before I pull back. Lucas sees, and desire flashes through him instantly, bright and reckless. His nails drag down my back, not enough to hurt but enough to summon the beast under my skin.

“Don’t hide,” he whispers and reaches between us, gripping my hip, and urging me deeper when I thrust. The motion pulls a rough cry from his own throat, but the bond gives me the truth before worry can stop me.

Good. More. Harder than this. Let me feel the living parts answer. Let me feel strong enough to take you.

My breath leaves me in a harsh rush. “Lucas.”

“I don’t want only gentle,” he says, each word low and shaking. “I want gentle because you love me. Then I want rough because you know I can take it.”

A growl gathers low in my chest, and his body clenches around me in answer.

I pull almost all the way out, then thrust back in harder. Lucas cries out, head pressing into the furs, his whole body arching beneath me. The bond flares with pleasure so immediate and clean that my fear loses its footing. I do it again, harder than before, but not uncontrolled. The sound he makes is torn and beautiful, his body taking me with a hungry pulse that drags a snarl from my throat.

There is my mate.