“I choose you.”
The hidden magic beneath her skin stirred.
Silver glyphs flashed briefly around her wrists before sinking out of sight, but neither of them looked away from the other long enough to notice.
Rhen bent toward her, stopping with barely an inch between their mouths.
“Say it again.”
“I choose you, Rhen.”
Something inside the room seemed to inhale.
He kissed her.
The first contact was controlled, almost cautious, but restraint lasted only until her fingers closed around the back of his neck and pulled him nearer. The connection surged between them, carrying heat through blood and bone until her body arched instinctively toward his.
Rhen caught her waist before the movement could strain what remained of her strength.
“Slowly.”
“I have spent hours being torn apart,” she whispered against his mouth. “I am finished with slowly.”
A rough sound gathered in his chest.
“You are going to be a problem.”
“You decided that before I spoke.”
He kissed her again, harder this time.
Her mouth opened beneath his, and whatever control he had intended to maintain began eroding beneath the taste of her. She was still warm from the transition, carrying the faint wildness of storm magic beneath her skin, yet underneath it existed something else—something achingly familiar that remained hidden each time he tried to identify it.
Her hands moved over his shoulders, exploring scars and hard muscle with growing confidence. Rhen allowed it until her fingertips crossed an old mark near his ribs and an inexplicable memory moved through him: gentler fingers touching the same place, accompanied by a voice telling him that surviving was not the same as living.
The image vanished before he could seize it.
He drew back sharply.
“What?”
“Nothing.”
“That was not nothing.”
Rhen looked at her, anger tightening around the unease inside him.
“You feel familiar.”
Her expression shifted.
“So do you.”
The bond pulsed once between them, almost satisfied.
Rhen refused to give the sensation time to become thought. He kissed her again, and this time she met him with an urgency that erased every remaining space between them.
He loosened the shift Mary had dressed her in, but he did not remove it until she lifted her arms and allowed him to draw the fabric over her head. Candlelight moved across her skin, revealing the silver glyphwork that occasionally flickered beneath the surface before disappearing.
