“You were made for war,” she whispered.
“I was made toruleit. Tosurviveit,” he corrected, voice low, his hand firm at her back as he drew her nearer. His lips brushed her temple, breath warm against her skin.
“And to protect what I was given.”
Another kiss, this one softer.
“You.”
A shiver rippled through her—not from the cold. From the gravity of beingseenlike this.Heldlike this. Revered like something sacred. Like somethinghis. And still, she wanted more.
Resh sensed the shift. The pulse of need in her body sparked in his own chest, sharp and undeniable. Her hands moved, and when her fingertips slid down his side and curved inward toward his hip, he stilled.
Her touch settled there.
And then she found it.
Drengr.
The rune for virility.
He tensed, muscle flexing beneath her hand as her thumb traced the sharp-edged strokes cut into his flesh. Darker than the others. Alive now, pulsing beneath her skin like a second heartbeat.
“Auryn…” His voice thickened, roughened, restraint buckling at the edges.
Her cheeks flushed, her words a fragile confession. “I can’t stop thinking of you. About your hands. About your touch. About what you would do to me if I asked.”
His fingers curved at her waist, chest rising hard and heavy.
“Would you?” she whispered, silver eyes wide. “If I asked you to touch me—would you?”
Every sinew in his arms strained. He drew breath like a drowning man. And then—so soft it nearly broke—“I’d give youanything.”
A beat. A heartbeat.
“Please,” she said.
That one word undid him.
Her gaze flicked lower, to where his desire stood stark and evident. Color flushed from her collarbones to the delicate points of her ears.
“Is this…meant to meld with a woman’s body?” she asked.
The sight of her looking—of her knowing she’d done this to him—lit fire through his veins. He caught her palm. Enveloped it. Pressed it to his lips.
“It is,” he murmured, “but only when she yearns. When her body opens, swollen, ready, aching for me. When it fits not by force…” He turned her trembling fingers, kissed them one by one. “…but by reverence.”
Guiding her hand lower again, he let her cup him fully. His eyes locked with hers, a vow and a shackle in one.
“Yours,” he breathed, voice shaking with the weight of it. “Every part. At your mercy.”
And though every muscle in him strained with need, he held himself utterly still. Letting her explore. Letting her choose. If she asked—he would give her everything. But not before she understood what it meant to be worshipped. Savored.
Auryn’s breath snagged, her hand stroking him—hesitant at first, then bold. Heat pulsed through his aura with every touch, alive as a brand, ancient as the runes carved into him. Yet it wasn’t the magic that made her pulse race.
It was him.
Her Kailorien.
