Arthur held his out. She hesitated, barely, then placed her palm in his.
Heat shot up his arm. Not her magic. Deeper. Older. Lunarion-old. His wolf surged, a growl ofminevibrating through every bone.
Her fingers were cold. Her pulse raced. She didn’t squeeze, didn’t soften. She simply endured his touch.
The priest wrapped their wrists with a narrow band of white cloth, murmuring the old prayers. Arthur barely heard them. He was too aware of her breath, her scent, the memory of her mouth beneath his ten years ago when he’d been too young and too stupid to see.
“In Lunarion’s sight,” the priest continued, “do you swear to stand for each other, to bleed for each other?”
“I swear,” Arthur said, the words pulled from his chest.
“I swear,” Dani echoed, voice high and thin. Her cheeks were flushed now, her eyes narrowed in concentration. Suddenly, he scented it.
Her. But not just her. Something wilder, headier, something he’d scented before, butneverhad it had it sparked the stampede of pure instinct like it did now.
She wasaroused.
Her face might not betray it, lips pressed thin, anger weighing her down, but her body could not lie to him. Through the thin shift, he saw the sudden peaking of her swollen nipples, jutting out from trembling breasts. His eyes tracked the curves of her waist, the swell of her hips, the tremble of her thighs. Her blood raced in her veins, violent as a storm, and his skin prickled as his wolf sensed the waiting warmth between her legs.
In return, his own skin began to heat, his muscles twitching with the urge to stride forward, to take her in his arms, priest be damned.
But he didn’t. With a soft growl, he held himself back, fists clenching. He could not scare her. Especially not with what was to come.
“It is time,” the priest said. “Seal the bond.”
Arthur’s shoulders tensed as Dani fixed him with a wide-eyed stare. The anger was melting away now, and he could read her wide green eyes clearly. Fear and hunger. Fire and challenge. And something else. Something he couldn’t quite catch, and was therefore all the more desperate to chase.
He lifted a hand to her shoulder, right at the base of her neck. Her skin prickled beneath his touch, so faintly he mighthave imagined it. She knew the Nordan way. The old way. His thumb brushed the line where her mark would sit.
“This will hurt,” he warned.
“Good,” she said, “we’ll be even.”
He had no defense against that, so instead he let instinct take over. He bent his head, breath hot against her skin. She was just there, her trembling body brushing his lips. Something in him changed, snapped into place, like a broken bone being set.
She shivered beneath him, and his wolf roiled and thrashed. He was sinking into himself, the wildness taking over.
He lunged forward, teeth sinking into her neck.
Her blood hit his tongue.
The bond hit him like a tidal wave.
It felt like the mountain itself reared up inside him, like the wolf had been unchained after ten years of pacing. Her emotions bled through fear, fury, something warm that vanished the second she felt it.
He pulled back before he lost himself.
“Your turn,” he murmured.
She stepped into his space without hesitation, hand gripping his shoulder hard enough to bruise. Her body brushed his. His breath caught.
Then she bit him.
Pain flared hot. The bond snapped tight. The world shuddered.
For a heartbeat, he saw them the way Lunarion did: two small figures in an ancient clearing, threads of fate tangled too deeply to separate.
Then it was done.
