“Careful,” I warn, my voice strained as I fight for control. “The bond is stronger now. I don’t want to hurt you.”
“You won’t,” she says with absolute confidence, her hands sliding up my arms to tangle in my hair. “I trust you.”
Those three words undo me completely. I claim her mouth with desperate hunger, pouring all my love and need into the kiss. Her body arches beneath me, soft and yielding, and I can feel the heat building between us like a living thing.
My hands slide under her shirt, mapping the silken skin of her ribs, the gentle curve of her breasts. She gasps into my mouth when my thumbs brush over her nipples, her back arching as she presses into my touch.
“Please,” she breathes against my lips, and the desperate need in her voice makes my cock throb where it’s pressed against her thigh.
“Not yet,” I force myself to say, even though every instinct screams at me to claim her completely. “The bond isn’t ready. If we—if I take you now, it could hurt you.”
She pulls back to look at me, her eyes dark with desire and frustration. “Then what can we do?”
“This,” I murmur, trailing my lips down her throat to the sensitive spot where her pulse flutters. “Let me worship you. Let me show you how much you mean to me.”
My mouth finds the mark on her shoulder, glowing softly through her shirt, and I press reverent kisses to the spot. She shudders beneath me, her hands fisting in my hair as pleasure radiates through the bond.
“Aelin,” she gasps, her body writhing beneath mine as I lavish attention on every inch of exposed skin. “I need?—”
“I know,” I whisper against her collarbone, my hand sliding down to cup her through her jeans. Even through the fabric, I can feel her heat, her need. “Let me take care of you.”
The night passes in a haze of desperate kisses and reverent touches. We explore each other with hands and mouths, learning the taste and texture of skin, the sounds of pleasure and need. I bring her to the edge again and again with my fingers and tongue, swallowing her cries as she comes apart in my arms.
When exhaustion finally claims us, we’re tangled together on the furs, her head pillowed on my chest and my arms wrappedprotectively around her. The bond hums contentedly between us, satisfied for now with this intimacy, this connection.
When dawn breaks over the winter realm, I wake to find her still in my arms, her head on my chest and her hand resting over my heart. The mark on her shoulder glows softly through her shirt, matching the one that’s appeared on my skin—twin spirals of silver light that mark us as bonded, as fated, as utterly and completely each other’s.
Nineteen days until the Solstice. Nineteen days until I have to choose between duty and love, between the kingdom I’ve served faithfully and the woman who’s become my entire world.
But looking down at her sleeping face, feeling the steady beat of her heart against my ribs, I realize the choice has already been made.
I am hers, and she is mine.
Everything else is just details.
CHAPTER 9
JESSA
I wake surroundedby winter and starlight, wrapped in sheets that smell like pine forests and something indefinably wild. For a moment, I’m disoriented—this isn’t my bed, isn’t my cabin—and then memory floods back in a rush that makes heat pool low in my belly.
Aelin. The forest. His magnificent antlers gleaming in the moonlight as I knelt before him without fear. The way he’d shifted back to humanoid form, naked and perfect and utterly mine. The taste of his mouth, the feeling of his hands on my skin, the desperate way he’d worshipped my body until I came apart in his arms again and again.
I sit up slowly, and his shirt—soft wool that hangs to my thighs—slides off one shoulder. When did he dress me? Some time during the night, probably, after I’d fallen asleep boneless and sated in his arms. The gesture is tender, protective, and it makes something warm unfurl in my chest.
But he’s not here now. The bed beside me is empty, though the sheets still hold the impression of his body, still carry his scent. I press my face into his pillow and breathe deep, and the simpleact sends a shiver of need through me that’s stronger than anything I’ve ever felt.
Something’s different.Changed.
I can feel it in the way my skin seems hypersensitive to everything—the brush of fabric, the whisper of air from the fireplace, even the quality of light filtering through the windows. My hearing is sharper too; I can pick out individual sounds from the forest outside, distinguish between the different calls of winter birds.
And beneath it all, threading through every sensation, is an awareness of him. Even though he’s not in the room, I can feel his presence like a warm pulse in my chest. The bond. It’s stronger now, more solid, as if our intimacy last night forged it into something unbreakable.
I slide out of bed and pad to the window, my bare feet silent on the wooden floor. The world outside is a winter wonderland, pristine snow sparkling like diamonds in the morning sun. But what catches my attention is the figure moving through the trees—tall, broad-shouldered, unmistakably him even at this distance.
He’s chopping wood with fluid, powerful strokes that make the muscles in his back flex and ripple. He’s shirtless despite the cold, steam rising from his skin in the crisp air, and watching him work sends liquid heat straight to my core.
God, he’s beautiful. My beautiful, wild king.
