His name echoed in my mind like a command. I pictured him behind me, chest to my back, one big hand covering mine, forcing my fingers deeper while his cock nudged against my ass. The image was so vivid I felt the heat of his skin, the scrape of his scar-roughened palm, the low growl in my ear: Mine.
My thighs shook. My clit throbbed under my fingers. I was right there—right on the edge—when the bond surged again, showing me the moment he would finally push inside me, stretching me open, claiming every inch while I screamed his name.
I almost came.
My back arched, a desperate moan tore from my throat?—
I slammed my palm against the wall so hard the stone vibrated. “Stop!”
The shower obeyed instantly, the mist cooled to icy needles. The glowing particles winked out. Cold water crashed over me like a slap.
I stood there gasping, water streaming down my face, my body still trembling on the razor’s edge of release. My pussy ached, empty and throbbing. My nipples were so tight they hurt. And worst of all, the bond was still there, humming under my skin like a live wire, promising that if I just gave in, he would make it feel so much better than my own fingers ever could.
Rage flooded me, hot and sharp.
I was a Prime Luminae. I had spent five years burning the temple’s chains, refusing to spread my legs for their sacred bloodline, refusing to be bred. And now this golden god—this executioner—had only to look at me, and my body betrayed me faster than any priest ever had.
“He’s not your salvation,” I snarled at my reflection in the wet black stone. My voice cracked. “He’s just another cage with golden edges.”
I pressed my forehead to the cool wall, breathing hard. The pull behind my ribs hadn’t faded. If anything, denying it had made it sharper, a golden thread yanked tight, dragging me toward the male currently somewhere else on this ship.
I hated how much I wanted him.
I hated even more that my body was already imagining what those large, scarred hands would feel like sliding over my wet skin instead of the mist.
I stayed under the freezing spray until my skin felt raw and my pulse finally slowed. It didn’t help. The bond was still there. Stronger now. Giving me the terrible feeling that fighting it was only going to make me want him more.
The bond hitme like a weapon. I braced one hand against the wall outside my quarters as heat slammed through my body hard enough to momentarily blur my vision. Naeris.
Her soft skin, her sharp little gasps. Her need.
Mine.
The word tore through me so violently, the darkness beneath my skin surged instinctively in response. I snarled softly and shoved it back.Stars above. The bond did not care about restraint. Every flicker of emotion rolling through her hit me in brutal flashes: her frustration, her arousal, her fury, and most of all, her resistance to me and the bond. But underneath it all, one thing had shimmered that made it almost impossible for me to stop—her want.
Raw enough to nearly unravel me.
I dragged a hand through my hair and forced myself to keep walking instead of turning around and marching directly back to where the guards would take her, like some primitive beast answering to instinct alone.
The Harrowed One stirred faintly inside me.Take her.
It surprised me with its nearness and vehemence. He shouldn't even be here, so far from the Abyss. Whenever I went to Auris Prime, he had never followed. Never.
The whisper slid through my skull like black oil.
Claim what is yours.
“No!”
The word came out rough and strangled. A passing Pandraxian guard wisely pretended not to hear me. Good choice. Because right now, I felt one bad decision away from tearing through steel walls just to get back to her.
The worst part?
She was fighting the bond as hard as I was. Neither one of us wanted it. Yet neither one of us could resist.
Stars, I noticed everything. I noticed the way her pulse quickened every time I moved too close. The way her breath caught when I looked at her mouth. The stubborn anger every time her body betrayed her.
And by the Dark Abyss, the scent of her arousal flooding the holding chamber earlier had nearly destroyed what little self-control I still possessed.
