Rhazek does not look away from me. “Leave.”
“Gladly,” Corin says. “Nobody die while I’m in the yard.”
The door opens and shuts.
Silence folds around us, but it is not empty. It is full of breath, heat, wardlight, and the pounding truth that I am alive because Rhazek put part of forever into my heart. I slide my hands from his collar to his chest, feeling the markings stir beneath his clothing, brighter beneath my touch.
“You don’t own me,” I say.
“No.”
“You don’t get to make me your saved thing.”
“No.”
“If this is going to exist, it goes both ways.”
His hands flex at my waist. “It already does.”
I feel it then, fully.
Power does not flow from me to him alone anymore, and it does not flow from him to me as rescue. It moves in both directions, equal and terrifying, a shared current that neither of us commands alone. The realization should frighten me. And it does.
I kiss him again anyway, slower this time, letting the fury melt into something deeper and no less dangerous. His hand rises to the back of my neck, and I lean into him.
When we finally separate, my pulse is steady.
So is his.
Rhazek rests his forehead against mine. “You are altered.”
“So are you.”
“Yes.”
“Good,” I whisper. “Then we both have something to be angry about.”
His mouth almost curves. “You are impossible.”
“I was dead this morning. Impossible is an improvement.”
Outside, Corin shouts through the door, “Still denying everything out here.”
I close my eyes and laugh, shaky and alive, while the bond settles around my heart like a crown I never asked for and may yet learn to wield.
Corin’s footsteps retreat, and I hear the main door slam. Rhazek seems to take that as a cue, ripping the blankets away and exposing me to his gaze.
“Sable,” he rumbles my name like a revelation. A gasp escapes my wide open mouth as he climbs onto the bed, movingon all fours like a horned beast. His hands grip my ankles, and then he throws them apart.
I cry out, squirming with my need already. Rhazek caresses my leg, trailing kisses up my calf to my inner thigh. I squeeze my eyes shut as he lights little fires in my skin. Rhazek’s hot mouth is mere inches from my wide open pussy.
“Mmm,” he mutters like a gourmet contemplating a feast. His fingers dip into the valley between my swollen labia and come away wet. He suckles the wetness, eyes locked onto mine.
The his horned head dives down, face burying itself in my soft folds. A deep groan erupts from my lips as his tongue tastes me. My hands fly to his horns, and the juxtaposition of his hard bone and slippery soft tongue drives me wilder.
His mouth envelops my pussy lips, one at a time, suckling my juices clean while filling the air with lusty grunts and growls. Rhazek draws his horned head backward, still latched onto my labia, stretching my flesh out like taffy.
Rhazek uses his thick, wide tongue to lap at my clitoris, mound and all. I suck in a ragged gasp of air and let it out as a piercing wail.
