“Because of the bond?”
“Because of yours,” he said. “Because of mine.” His voice stayed level. “And because the only way Martin Solberg’s order becomes irrelevant before the world wakes up is if every person who walks past your door at oh-six-fifteen sees an Ashenmere enforcer in the corridor, awake, armed, and refusing entry.”
I looked at him, and for a moment I could not make my throat work around everything he had just given me. “Thank you,” I said.
Dominic nodded once, then looked past me. “Solberg.”
Rhain straightened. “Graves.”
The room held its breath around them.
“Take care of her.”
Rhain’s answer came without performance. “I will.”
Dominic accepted that with another nod, as if a contract had been offered and witnessed.
We walked the corridor back to my quarters with Dominic behind us and to my left, the placement deliberate. Rhain stayed at my other side, close enough that the new claim at the right of my throat seemed to ache toward him with every step.
The same impossible language as Dominic’s claim.
At my door, Dominic stopped. He turned his back to the corridor and took his post as if the stone beneath his feet had been waiting for him.
I went inside with Rhain, and the lock engaged behind us. For a second, neither of us moved.
The room was too quiet after the council chamber. Too private after all that formality. My throat pulsed beneath Rhain’s claim, and the bite I had left at the curve of his shoulder still bled faintly under the open collar of his shirt.
The new channel between us ran wide and bright, a fresh nerve learning the shape of air.
Rhain turned to me slowly. His eyes went to his claim on the right of my throat. To the thin red line at the edge of it. “You’re bleeding.”
“Yes, well.” My voice came out rougher than intended. “You bit me.”
His eyes lifted to mine. The corner of his mouth lifted in satisfaction. “I did.”
The possession in those two words put heat under my skin.
His thumb settled beneath my jaw and tipped my face higher. “Does it hurt?”
“No.”
“Good.” The word was soft and pleased as his gaze dropped back to the mark. “I like seeing it on you.”
My breath caught before I could stop it. “That seems to behappening to both of us.”
His hands settled at my waist. “We should go slow,” he said.
“Should we?”
His eyes dropped to my mouth, and the hunger in him sharpened, almost reverent.
“Yes.” His thumbs moved once against my waist, barely enough to count as touch. “I want to remember this.”
His mouth lowered slowly, lips brushing the skin beside the bite first, almost gentle enough to pretend it was only a test.
Then he found the mark.
The flat of his tongue dragged over the wound once, slow and deliberate, and the bond answered so violently I felt it everywhere at once. Heat rang down through me, bright and deep, turning my breath useless and my knees unreliable.
