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His pleasure hits me like a struck match in dry brush. There. I find it, the place inside him that makes his body forget fear for a second. I touch it again, gentler, and his head falls back into the furs. His mouth opens around a silent cry, and the bond floods with astonished relief so sweet I almost bend over him and bite too soon.

I add another finger only when his body asks without words. Slow. Careful. Stretching him while my mouth returns to his cock—he needs the distraction, and I need the taste of him. He nearly climaxes the second I swallow him down again. I feel it rushing up, feel his body gather tight and bright around the edge, and I pull back before he falls.

He makes a wounded sound. “Why?”

Not yet.

“That’s cruel.”

Yes.

His head lifts enough for him to glare at me, ruined and flushed and furious in the furs. “You just admitted that way too easily.”

I lick him once, slow enough to make his glare collapse. I am honest.

“You’re an asshole for edging me.”

Also honest.

He laughs again, and this time it breaks into a moan when I work my fingers deeper, scissoring carefully, opening him for what comes next. The bond-sickness writhes under his skin, but less violently now. I feel it changing, the sharp fever becoming molten and bearable. His body knows mine is coming and makes itself ready with a grace that humbles me.

I crawl back up over him with my fingers still inside, watching his face as I stretch him. His eyes are wet, but not from pain. His lips part, and his breaths come in uneven pulls. He looks young in this moment, not in years, but in the terrible newness of being cared for by something that could destroy him and chooses devotion instead.

I kiss his mouth. Tell me yes, Lucas.

“Yes—God, yes, Onyx—!”

I curl my fingers, and his whole body locks, then melts. A sobbed exhale falls from parted lips. He rocks down instinctively each time I pull back, chasing the fullness already, and when I add a third finger he only moans, thighs falling wider, feet flexing against the furs.

I withdraw, removing my pants, slicking my palm along my own rigid length using my slick, and biting back the groan that spills when I press the head to his entrance. I pause, fist planted next to his shoulders, meeting his gaze because this moment matters more than any other.

Lucas lifts shaking hands and cups my cheeks, thumb smoothing a streak of sweat I did not realize had fallen. “I need you,” he whispers, and the bond roars triumphantly.

I push forward slowly, inch by careful inch, feeling him stretch, feeling his body welcome the breach with shuddering need. He breathes through parted lips, eyes locked on mine, fear swallowed by awe.

When I seat fully inside, he exhales hard, like the fever finally has space to leave. The heat in the bond cools into something immense and serene, ocean-deep, and for a heartbeat, the world quiets.

Just breathe, Little Ember. I am home.

22

Onyx

Hips roll beneath me, seeking friction, and I answer without restraint. My thrusts remain measured at first, letting him adapt, letting his body learn that I am not here to break him, but each slow withdrawal drags a choked sound from him until control becomes harder to hold.

I brace one hand beneath his knee and angle deeper; his eyes fly open, his mouth shaping silent curses, and slick pulses around us, easing every surge until the sound of skin meeting skin anchors all other noise in the den.

I capture his mouth in a kiss, raw and claiming, and in that moment the bond snaps tight around us like a clasp closing around bone. Lucas shudders once, full-bodied, and I feel it—the seal, the final lock—the heat dissolving inside him like a fever breaking under cold rain.

Ecstasy floods back through the link, doubles inside me, and for one dangerous second, my human shape flickers under the force of it.

My fingers dig into the furs beside his head and lengthen wrong for a heartbeat, tipped in dark claws before I force them blunt again. The ridges beneath my skin push up along my spine. Bone aches at my brow where antlers want to rise. My jaw strains around sharper teeth as I kiss him through it, swallowing his broken gasp before fear can find room between us.

Lucas feels the shift before he understands what it is. His body tightens around mine, not in refusal, but shock, and his hands fly to my shoulders as if he means to hold me inside in the shape I chose for him.

I drag myself back, piece by piece, breath rough against his mouth, my hair falling over his face as the old form claws beneath my skin. Not now. Now is too much. Not when he is soft and fevered and still learning that wanting me is not the same as being devoured by me.

Safe, I send hard through the bond, my voice inside him deeper than before, edged with the creature pressing too close to the surface. Safe with me. Still me.