Page 25 of Monster Queen Rising

He closes the bedroom door behind him. The room is small and the lamp is low. He stops at the foot of the bed and looks at me like he’s starving. Like he's afraid if he reaches for me, I'll disappear.

The shift is still riding close to the surface. Dark lines climb his throat. His canines are down, his eyes nearly black. His hands aren't quite steady.

He doesn't come any closer. He won't until I ask.

I get up off the bed. I cross to him. Three steps, and the patch on my sternum goes hot. My canines drop. Slate creeps over my wrists.

I stop close enough to feel the heat coming off him. He smells like cold air and something that's only Fen. His breath catches, but he doesn't move.

"You can touch me," I say.

The tremor in his hands gets worse, then quits. He lifts one and sets it flat on my sternum, over the patch, through the thermal. His eyes fall shut. The breath goes out of him all at once.

"Jen."

His voice is rough. He hasn't used it much today.

"Yes."

"I need—" The word doesn't come.

"I know."

"Months." A breath. "Nothing." His throat works. The next one barely makes it out. "You."

I cover his hand with mine and hold it there.

"Open your eyes," I tell him.

He does. The black is full, the gold moving in it, and he's looking at me through every month of the cell and a bond that's been hauling on him I claimed him.

"I'm here. I'm not going anywhere. Tonight is yours. How ever you need me."

"Slow."

"As slow as you need."

His hand trembles once on my sternum. He brings the other up to my hip, fingers spread, light, like he doesn't trust the weight of his own hand.

I lift my arms. He understands. He strips the thermal up over my head in one motion and it drops to the floor. I'm bare to the waist and the lamp catches the patch on my sternum — dark.

He looks at it. His mouth pulls, and the years come up behind his eyes. He brings a hand near it, not touching, just close, the way you hold a palm to a fire to feel what it throws.

"There," he says.

"That's the one place no one's marked. It's been waiting for you."

His jaw works. "Both."

"Both. You go first."

He moves his hand to the back of my neck and brings me in slow. Forehead to mine first. He drags my scent in through his teeth, and the shift climbs his arms, and he holds his eyes shut and works it back down before he goes any further.

Then he kisses me.

His mouth is hot and open and there are canines in it, and how careful he is with them takes the floor out from under me. It starts slow and stops being slow, his hand fisting in my hair, my hands flat on the bare heat of his chest. He kisses me and holds me to him. I whimper.

He pulls back, breathing hard. "Jen."