He forced his breath into its disciplined rhythm.
One inhale.
One pause.
One controlled exhale.
His internal shielding adjusted automatically, dispersing the faint residue of venom he had released, a moment of instinct he had not allowed himself in decades.
He had not meant to do it.
A trace of venom was harmless to her—her physiology had already begun responding in the expected pattern—but it was meant to be offered only after attunement began. When trust had formed. When her body could accept it without the overwhelming rush that had taken hold of her.
The tremor in her limbs.
The heat rising beneath her skin.
The way her pupils widened as her breath stilled.
And he had nearly reached for her again.
The desire had come swiftly, dangerously, pushed by something far deeper than physical instinct. Her resistance, raw and trembling, had stirred him more violently than her fear. She had whispered “why” with a fragility that struck him square in the chest—and then she had looked him in the eyes and told him to leave.
Her words had not angered him.
They should have.
Every other being on this world feared him more than storms, more than nightfall, more than death itself. To be commanded so boldly, so unexpectedly, by someone so soft—so breakable—should have roused his temper.
Instead it had grounded him.
He obeyed her not because the command carried authority, but because the venom hit her too quickly. Because her body trembled with a mixture of sensations she could not yet name. Because if he had stayed a moment longer, instinct might have overridden discipline.
Her scent clung to him still, warm and disorienting.
He flexed his hand, the one that had touched her jaw. The armor creaked quietly, metal shifting over metal.
He had not expected her to feel like that beneath his grip.
So fragile in appearance.
So fierce underneath.
Her mind was sharp, her spirit volatile. Her defiance did not repel him—it tightened something inside him like a coil being drawn.
He had waited centuries without a claim.
Centuries without a compatible mind or scent or rhythm.
And then she looked at him as if the universe had broken open at her feet.
The Marak had chosen her.
Kyrax was no longer certain it had been chance.
Not in a very long time had he felt this unsettled. But now, with distance between them and his breath back under control, he felt the tremor inside himself—the realization that she affected him far more than anticipated.
He would need caution.
