Rhys didn’t have any words for my question. I drew my hands up to his face and lifted him from where he’d been buried in my neck. “Rhys? Are you okay? Did it hurt you, too?”
He trembled against me and I sucked in a breath when I realized he was still hard, possibly even more than he’d ever been any time we’d made love.
“What happened?” I asked again.
He struggled for breath. Instead of answering, he said, “Let me show you.”
My brows furrowed, and I opened my mouth to ask him what he meant when a vision blotted out the room. It was me, I realized after a stunned moment. Me, as Rhys saw me. I burned with embarrassment when I saw my face. Hair was plastered to my skin, my cheeks were ruddy with a blush, and I still hadn’t caught my breath completely. I was about to make a comment about my appearance when I caught the sight of the mark I’d received the night of the binding ceremony.
“Holy stars,” I breathed.
The mark had been snow white, even against my creamy skin. I’d grown used to seeing it in the mirror and hadn’t given it much thought since arriving at the castle. Now, it was burned into my throat with a black ink, a stark contrast to my pale skin.
“No,” I said without thinking. “No, we can’t. This can’t be.”
I struggled underneath him, wriggling and writhing, but only managing to make us both breathless as he was still poised over me and still very much aroused and inside of me.
“Let me go,” I said. A wildness was overtaking me. My only thought was that I needed to get away. Needed to flee as far and as fast as I could.
He bared his teeth, nearly snarling with intensity. “If you think I’m ever going to let you go, you are sorely mistaken.”
He began to move then, and it was like nothing I’d ever felt before. Pleasure so intense seared me from all directions. From the physical stimulation, from the mental link he’d opened somehow between us, and through the bond itself. It was an assault of the senses for which there was no defense.
“Please,” I begged. “I can’t. You have to let me go.”
“You’re not going anywhere.”
He thrust with an aching tenderness I didn’t even know he was capable of, like I was made of glass, fragile and delicate. His mouth coasted over my face, his lips and tongue caressing and tasting me as though he couldn’t get enough. He worked his arms underneath my shoulders, his hands turning palm up so he could use them as a counterpoint against his thrusts, which were still frustratingly slow.
“Rhys, you don’t want this. You don’t want me like this. Anything could happen! I could die. You could be killed. You don’t understand,” I said thoughtlessly.
His face didn’t darken, but shadows appeared in his eyes, like the ghosts of those things he had lost. “I do understand. Trust me, Elena, I understand more than you can imagine.”
“Then,why?” I cried. “Why would you risk losing everything again?”
“Because the true loss wouldn’t be losing you. It would be never having tried to keep you.”
I ached with such beauty that I wanted to cry. “I don’t know if I’m strong enough,” I confessed.
“I’ve never known anyone with more strength,” he said solemnly. “Fall with me.”
Before my eyes, I watched as he arched his own neck, baring to me as his own mark flashed in the moonlight, then solidified as mine had into a permanent brand. A claiming mark. The bond between us was complete. Absolute. His rhythm faltered, but the same couldn’t be said for the bond between us. I grasped his shoulders, as it seemed to explode, blotting out the light, the room, the world.
23
Rhysander
She was mine. Irrevocably.
We may go down in flames, but for now, we belonged to each other. The marks on our throats were visible to other shifters for a reason. In the days of old, the claiming marks were a show of strength between bonds, to let other clans know the connection between mates was strong and therefore the clan was strong. It was also rare. And powerful, I hoped.
Powerful enough to break a curse.
“I have a surprise for you,” I told her the next morning.
“What surprise?” she asked. “Can’t we stay in bed again?”
“I’d love nothing more than to stay in bed with you for the next century, but there is something I want to show you. I wouldn’t ask if it wasn’t important. You should probably get dressed,” I added reluctantly.
