"I wanted that." I pull back just enough to look at him, needing him to see the truth in my face. "I wanted forever with you. I still want that."
Something shifts in his expression—hope maybe, or disbelief, or desperate need to believe what I'm saying is real. His eyes search mine with intensity that makes it hard to breathe.
"Len," he whispers, and my entire body aches with that soft word. "I love you."
"I know." The tears are streaming down my face freely now. "I love you too. I never stopped either, even when I didn't remember why there was this hole in my chest where you should have been."
He kisses me.
It's desperate and gentle and perfect and right in ways that make everything else fall away. His mouth moves against mine with complete familiarity, relearning contours he knows better than his own. I kiss him back, all the lost time and confusion and grief finally finding resolution, pouring everything I feel into the connection between us.
20
LENNA
When we finally break apart, we're both breathing hard. His forehead rests against mine, eyes closed, fingers still tangled in my hair.
"I need you." My voice comes out rougher than I expect, thick with want and deprivation I didn't know I was suffering. "Please. I need?—"
I don't finish the sentence. Instead I kiss him again, harder this time, with none of the tentative exploration from before. This is claiming. This is desperation. This is making up for lost time, for mornings I woke up alone without understanding why it felt wrong, for nights I dreamed of ember-gold eyes and heat without knowing they belonged to him.
My hands find the fastenings of his shirt, pulling at them with clumsy urgency. I need skin. Need contact. Need him closer than physics should allow.
He makes a sound low in his throat—half growl, half groan—and suddenly his hands are on my thighs, lifting me with easy strength that makes my stomach flip. My legs wrap around his waist automatically, muscle memory kicking in even though conscious recollection of this exact position only returnedminutes ago. My body remembers him. Has been remembering him this entire time, waiting for my mind to catch up.
"Nothing has ever felt this right," I gasp against his mouth, and it's true in ways that hurt. Before, when we were in the pasture three days ago, everything felt perfect but incomplete. Like I was experiencing something profound through frosted glass. This though—this is clarity. This is coming home. This is being exactly where I'm supposed to be, with exactly who I'm supposed to be with, after being lost for so long I forgot I was missing.
Malrec's lips trail from my mouth to my jaw, down the column of my throat with deliberate attention that makes me shudder. His teeth scrape lightly against the sensitive skin just below my ear and I dig my fingers into his shoulders, holding on.
"Mine," he breathes against my neck. "You're mine."
"Always was." The words come out broken, punctuated by gasps as he continues his path downward. "Even when I didn't remember. Still yours."
He starts moving, carrying me across the feeding pasture toward the estate entrance. He doesn't put me down. Doesn't stop kissing whatever part of me he can reach—neck, shoulder, collarbone. His grip on my thighs is possessive and secure, like he's afraid if he releases me I'll vanish again.
The volcanic ground gives way to stone corridors. The temperature shifts, cooler here but still warm from residual heat embedded in the architecture. I barely register the change in environment. All my focus has narrowed to him—the way his muscles shift beneath my hands, the heat radiating off his skin, the increasingly desperate quality of his breathing.
We pass through a transitional corridor, and Malrec finally pulls back from my neck long enough to glance sideways. Another demon is approaching from an intersecting hallway—someone I vaguely recognize from the stables but whose name I don't know.
"Handle the tharivex in pasture three." Malrec's voice is rough, commanding, brooking no questions. "Containment field is active. Return it to the lower enclosures."
The other demon's eyes widen slightly as he takes in our current position—me wrapped around Malrec, both of us disheveled and breathing hard, the intensity radiating off us probably visible from across the corridor. But he just nods sharply and continues past us without comment.
The moment the demon disappears around the corner, Malrec's mouth is back on mine. He kisses me with focused intensity as he navigates through the estate, somehow managing to walk and completely devastate me at the same time. His tongue slides against mine, claiming, relearning, and I make an embarrassing sound into his mouth that just makes him hold me tighter.
The corridors blur together. Upper levels now, I think, based on the subtle shift in architecture—taller ceilings, narrower passages, rune-light that casts deeper shadows. This part of the estate feels more private, more controlled.
More his.
He shoulders through a door and suddenly we're in a space that makes my chest constrict with recognition so powerful it borders on pain. His quarters. His private rooms. I know this place. The dark stone walls, the sparse but deliberate furnishing, the wide bed that dominates the far side of the chamber. The scent of him everywhere—mineral and heat and something uniquely Malrec that I've been craving without realizing it.
The last time I was in this room, I was planning my future. Our future. Falling asleep in his arms with absolute certainty about where my life was heading.
And then I lost everything.
He finally sets me down, but only long enough to pull back and look at me. His eyes are blazing, pupils blown wide, and the raw emotion in his face makes it hard to breathe. "If you need me to slow down?—"
"Don't." I grab the front of his shirt, pulling him back against me. "Don't slow down. Don't stop. I've waited months for this even if I didn't know I was waiting. I need you. Now."
