Page 57

Onyx’s eyes darken. Easy, Little Ember.

I let out a shaky laugh that isn’t really a laugh. “That’s not helping.”

I know.

The honesty would be funny if I wasn’t two seconds from climbing him out of sheer desperation.

I force myself to focus on the part that still feels impossible. “I’ve never done… anything with another man,” I murmur, my cheeks on fire for a different reason now. “I don’t know how—I don’t even know if I can—”

It is not simple, he says, and there’s no mockery in it, just calm certainty. But your body already knows.

“What do you mean, my body knows?”

The answer comes through the bond before he even speaks it, not as words at first but as instinct, ancient and certain, carried in the same place the dreams came from.

The bond changes mate-body to receive. To fit. To take what it needs and not break. A tiny smile touches his mouth, rueful and awed. I feel it every time I touch you.

Every part of me understands what he’s saying, but my brain still wants to reject it on principle. Because it sounds impossible and insane. There are only so many life-changing truths a person can absorb in a week before they start to resent the universe for piling on.

“You’re saying my body is…” I stop, not even sure I can finish the sentence.

Making room for me, Onyx says gently.

I stare at him, hand still on his chest. Under my fingers, his body is solid and hot and impossible, more real than the rest of the room. My head is full of white noise and dream fragments and the memory of my own body giving way to him over and over in sleep.

It will stop hurting when the bond seals.

“How?” I ask, though I’m not sure if I’m asking about the seal, the mating, the way he’ll handle me, or the way he can stand there looking at me like this and not be shaking apart too.

His eyes go darker, the blue sharpening into something that makes every nerve in me pull tight.

I will guide you, he promises. We go slow until slow isn’t enough. My fingers, my tongue, whatever you need, until your body draws me in on its own. Afterward, the fever will fade. You will feel sated, grounded, right in a way nothing else can give.

The bluntness of his words should shock me, yet arousal sparks instead, quick and embarrassing. My hips press forward of their own accord, and his breath hitches in response—a tiny victory that makes pride bloom where fear once sat. Still, doubt clings like thorns. “And if I change my mind? If it hurts too much?”

He lifts my chin, meeting my eyes with a steadiness that borders on reverence. Then we stop, he says firmly. Bond or no bond, consent remains sovereign. You set the pace; I follow.

I nod, swallowing the knot in my throat, but the heat inside me pulses, greedy and relentless. I can feel a slick liquid beginning to gather between my ass cheeks—God, am I imagining that?—a strange humidity low in my belly as though my body already believes his promise. Shivers crawl beneath my hoodie, though the room feels tropical.

His thumb moves once more, and I jerk under it, proving the point so thoroughly that embarrassment flashes hot even through the fever. I drag in a shaking breath and stare at him. “And if we don’t seal it?”

Sickness grows. Your sleep will worsen, your body will call to me harder, and your mind will fray. Not death, but suffering. The bond wants completion because you opened all thresholds.

All thresholds.

My cabin. My dreams. My mind. My touch. My body, apparently, whether I was ready to name it or not.

Panic rises, but Onyx feels it and immediately takes his hand away. The loss is awful. I reach for him before I can stop myself, fingers catching his wrist. I stare at my own hand on him, then up at his face. “Don’t leave.”

Never, he sends, so fast the word nearly cracks through me. Not unless you ask.

“I’m scared,” I admit, and it costs me less than pretending.

I don’t know what I’m ready for. I don’t know what this makes me. I don’t know how much of this is biology, magic, fate, choice, or the forest deciding my life wasn’t complicated enough.

But I know this: when Onyx holds my hand, the world stops splintering.

I lean toward him before I can lose my nerve, pressing my forehead to his. His skin is warm, and his scent fills my lungs. My whole body aches with the need for more, but under it, finally, is something steadier.