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“Drink?” someone asked him, and Daven took the glass and tipped it slowly to Ryneth’s lips, watching his throat work as he swallowed.

Amber liquid dripped at the corner of his mouth.

Daven leaned in without breaking eye contact and dragged his tongue over the droplet, tasting stubbornness and heat and him.

When Ryneth finished, Daven summoned his wind and flung the empty glass toward the door. It shattered beside Vandor’s boots. Daven smirked.

The material began to cool.

“Done.” Helianth removed the machine and unwound the lace. “I’d be careful, Daven. He may feel a little… unstable.”

That was an understatement.

The moment the lace released, Ryneth sagged. Daven caught him and lifted him into his arms. “We’re cutting this short.” He glanced down at Ryneth. “Aren’t we, baby?”

Ryneth mumbled something that sounded awfully close to ‘asshole’.

Everyone laughed. Daven did too, chest warm with the weight of the man in his arms. Even half out of it, Ryneth was still fierce, still trying to argue, still beautiful.

“He’s done for tonight,” Daven said, already lifting him higher in his arms. “No one else gets the rest of this.”

Refusing the offered transport, he drove them himself. Zephyr’s glass towers cut into the night sky, their upper levels lit like suspended constellations. Traffic streamed in quiet lines of white and gold beneath them, the city gleaming as if it never truly slept.

Barely half an hour later, Daven carried a barely conscious Ryneth to their bedroom.

He could have taken him then. Good Light, every instinct in him wanted to. The bond was fresh, the mark still hot beneath Ryneth’s skin, and his body was soft and open in Daven’s arms.

But not like this. Not while the opium still had him half-dreaming. Not while the ceremony still shook through his system hard enough to make his lashes tremble in his sleep.

The world had seen Daven claim him. His family had witnessed the bond. What came next would belong to no one but them.

He undressed Ryneth slowly, peeling the fabric away with more care than he’d shown all night, exposing inch after inch until he lay bare against the sheets, warm and loose with exhaustion. Daven let himself look. He took in every line of him as if his body might somehow change by morning.

His gaze dropped to Ryneth’s palm, where luminous code still flickered beneath the skin, settling deeper with every slow breath. By dawn, the heat would ease, but the bond would stay. Anyone who knew Helion’s old rites would understand exactly what had been done here.

Ryneth didn’t stir when Daven pulled the sheets over him. He only shifted slightly into the mattress, breathing deeper, his face finally slack with sleep. For now, that was enough.

His Ryneth.

Daven stood there for a moment longer, looking at him in the dark. He had saved him the moment he set foot on Helion. Tonight, he had made sure no one else would ever mistake what he was.

Smoothing Ryneth’s blond hair back, Daven pressed a fingertip to his forehead, tracing the line of silver brows and the thick, shadowing lashes. They fluttered delicately.

“Dream of me,” he whispered at his temple. “And of what I’ll make of you tomorrow.”

20

RYNETH

The gray morning light cut across the bed. Ryneth stayed still and stared at the faint imprint of the planets that hung in the sky above. Fingers softly brushed his hair, teasing his nape and shoulder blades. It made the muscle in his shoulder twitch. It was still early, and he didn’t know what had woken him, but with a sigh, he leaned into the touch, groggy with sleep and something else.

Opium still lingered in his bloodstream.

“Don’t stop,” he mumbled.

“No?” came a husky drawl.

“No.”