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“But I don’t wanna stop. I wanna learn you,” I say, leaning down again, letting my lips brush the place where slate skin meets the dark rise of his markings. “And I want you to let me.”

The sound that moves through him is almost a surrender.

Yes, Little Ember.

His body settles beneath mine, not calm, never calm, but open in a way I recognize in myself. Trusting. Wanting. Ready to be undone carefully.

I smile against his chest.

“Good,” I whisper. “Then hold still for me.”

The bond goes silent for half a heartbeat. Then Onyx, ancient guardian of the earth, terror of old stories, my impossible beast, obeys.

It does something strange to me. Not because I think I’ve overpowered him. I haven’t. I know that down to my bones. Onyx could roll me under him with one hand, and could pin me without effort. He could decide this moment ends with me spread beneath him instead of hovering over his body with a mouth gone brave and a pulse gone stupid.

The power here isn’t that he can’t stop me. The power is that he can.

And he doesn’t.

The bond is open enough that I know holding still hurts in its own way. Not pain, exactly. Strain. Hunger turned into a tight leash. Want forced to kneel and wait.

For me.

Onyx’s whole body gives one hard pulse under my mouth when I flick my tongue over one of his nipples. His claws flex in the furs, but nothing else moves. The bond floods with dark heat, and under it, something almost bewildered.

He doesn’t know what to do with this. With being touched like he is the one being chosen. With my mouth moving over a body humans taught themselves to fear. With me not only staying, but also looking.

I drag my lips lower, following one of the branching black lines down his sternum and over the hard plane of his stomach. His skin changes under my mouth in small ways as I go.

Onyx’s breathing turns ragged when I pause near the lower part of his stomach, where slate skin disappears beneath the thicker dark fur at his waist. This is where his body stops pretending any human comparison will help me. From here down, his true shape belongs fully to the forest.

His hips are broader than they look in human form, his thighs furred and strong on either side of me, joints bent in that almost-stag, almost-nightmare way that once made my brain go blank with fear. The fur brushes the inside of my knees. It’s coarse at the top, softer where my fingers slide through it, and warm enough to make my palms tingle.

I look up at him. His eyes burn through the skull, fixed on me with an intensity that makes my stomach dip.

“You okay, Wildheart?” I ask, my voice lower than I mean it to be.

His answer comes through the bond in a rough pulse. Mate learning first body. I am not okay.

Onyx gasps when I move my hands lower, my fingertips resting just above the fur-thick dip between his hips. There’s no obvious human anatomy waiting between his thighs, and the absence stops me in a different way than fear.

I’ve had him heavy in my hand, and inside me. I know the lines down his stomach and the bark-like patterning that continues over his shaft. But this body is older than that one. More guarded. More hidden.

My fingers move slowly through the fur, and I find the seam by accident.

Hidden by the dark fur is a warm vertical slit framed by thicker skin and softer hair. Protected. Closed, but not flat. I brush my fingers over it, and Onyx makes a sound so deep the furs beneath me tremble. The bond flashes pleasure and a sharp edge of alarm, not directed at me, but at himself.

I look up at him. “Is this okay?” I ask.

The answer comes rough enough to scrape through me. Yes.

I swallow and let my fingers drift closer.

His body reacts before I even part the fur around the slit. The seam twitches, slick gathering faintly at the opening, and my mouth goes dry in a completely useless way. Heat rises up my neck. I know my face is red; there’s no chance it isn’t. But I don’t stop.

I stroke carefully around the edge, learning the shape by touch first, gentle pressure over warm, sensitive skin. The reaction that tears through him is enormous. Pleasure pours from him in a dark wave, thick and stunned, and it rolls straight through me until my body responds helplessly.

“Oh,” I whisper, staring down at my hand. “That’s really sensitive.”