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My eyes snap up, and I see his eyes are no longer fully human.

The blue burns brighter, pupils stretched strange, jaw sharper, teeth longer. His fingers have gone clawed against the furs but not against me—never against me. The sight sends heat through me even though I’m already spent and sore, because I know what that means now. I know the difference between danger and devotion wearing teeth.

The markings on his body darken beneath my hand, and his back arches from the furs with a rough, primal sound that rolls through my bones. His hips thrust into my grip twice, then he catches himself with a snarl that sounds furious at his own lack of restraint.

Do not stop, he sends, the words ragged through the bond. Please, mate. Do not stop touching me.

The plea hits me harder than any command would have. I stroke him faster, watching his face instead of my hand now because I need to see him. Need to see this creature, my creature, lose himself safely. He has watched me come apart again and again, has held my fear and my pleasure and my tears without once making me feel too much. Now I watch him try to survive being cared for, and it ruins me in a completely different way.

I lower my mouth to his chest, right over one of the branching marks, and kiss it. I feel his release building with a violence I feel through the bond before his body gives in to it.

“Wildheart,” I whisper again. “Let go for me.”

The first pulse is a warning, a hot shudder that locks his spine and makes his fingers clamp on my thigh, but his claws never pierce my skin. I keep stroking him, thumb dragging over the head, palm tight around the shaft, and his mouth opens on a sound that shakes the roots above us. His hips jerk up hard into my grip as he comes, spilling over my hand, thick and hot, his body bowing beneath mine while blue light washes the den in a bright, impossible flare.

Lucas.

My name rips through the bond with the force of a vow.

I don’t pull away. I work him through it, slower when he shakes too hard, gentler when the last pulses leave him breathless and stunned beneath me. His markings fade back to their usual dark lines, his jaw softens, the light dims, but his hands remain on me, trembling, as if he forgot how to let go.

When he finally opens his eyes, the look on his face tightens my chest.

I wipe my hand on a nearby scrap of cloth with the same awkward practicality I use after repairing a trail sign, because if I think too hard about what just happened, I might combust. Then I lower myself carefully onto his chest, avoiding putting pressure on my ass, and tuck my face into his neck.

His arms come around me slowly after a stunned beat, then tighten.

You were beautiful, Wildheart, I send back through the mind-link this time, shy despite myself, letting him feel the shape of the name from my side. My Wildheart.

He turns his face into my hair, and the emotion that floods the bond is so intense I close my eyes against it. He loves it. I don’t need him to say that. I feel the name settle into him, the way it touches some place even older than Onyx.

He holds me like he is holding the word, too.

25

Onyx

Morning stretches thin and bright by the time I walk him back to his den.

He needs to go back; I know this. His human life has clocks, responsibilities, schedules, and pieces that make up his day. He has work, family, and other humans who will expect to see his face and hear his voice in certain places at certain times.

His life does not stop just because a forest creature claimed him as a mate. He belongs to me, yes, but he also belongs to his own life. If I am going to keep him at my side, I have to make room for those pieces instead of trying to swallow them whole.

Knowing that does not stop me from loathing it.

He is beside me now, dressed again in clothes I would rather he never needed, though I helped him find every piece and watched him cover skin I had only recently learned with my hands and mouth.

My mark sits hidden beneath his shirt collar, but I know exactly where it is. I feel it with each beat of his heart. It has changed his scent, not replacing Lucas, never that, but deepening him, threading him through with me in a way every creature in these woods will understand.

Guarded. Claimed. Chosen. Mine because he said yes.

He seems to feel some of it through the bond as we walk. He smells more like himself and more of me at once. It is an intoxicating scent.

“You’re doin’ it again,” he says, voice rough with amusement.

I lift my head slightly. Doing what?

“Glowerin’ at my job.”