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But she doesn’t care what I’m ready for. She fights harder when I try to push her down. Ezra hasn’t stopped moving inside me either. His scent fills my nose, woodsmoke and sweat under the sharp tang of his release. Every breath I drag in makes her wilder. What the hell is happening? Why can’t I control this?

When he frees my wrists, I shove him onto his back and climb on top. He grabs my hips and grins up at me. The idiot thinks I want to ride him. Okay, I do, but my wolf wants more from him than his dick. He slides me down onto it and groans as I sink down to the base.

He hasn’t said a word since the shower. “That’s it,” he breathes. “Take what you need, baby.”

I roll my hips and grind down on him with his hands guiding me by the waist. I brace myself on his stomach and ride him hard. His abs jump under my fingers every time he bucks up to meet me with a grunt. The friction is perfect with his dick hitting my sweet spot again and again. Sweat runs down my back. All I can think about is biting him.

My wolf howls when I lean down over his neck. His vein beats against my lips. I’m practically drooling at the smell of his blood rushing hot under his skin.

“MINE.” I snarl the word and bite down.

His blood floods my mouth, and the bond snaps into place. His shock jolts down my arms before his joy makes my eyes sting. Against my lips, his dragon’s roar buzzes through his neck. His pride swamps all of it until I can’t sort what’s his from what’s mine anymore.

Ezra stiffens under me. He seizes my hips and slams me down onto him. When he thrusts up into me, I bite deeper. His blood runs warm down my chin. He’s talking, but his voice comes to me muffled through the pounding in my ears. “Yes, Aya. Yes, baby. Take it. Take everything. I love you, I love you so much, take what you need, I’m yours, I’ve always been yours…”

He’s shaking all over. His scent turns thick and sweet. I almost choke on it while my wolf gulps it down with his blood.

I keep riding him with my teeth buried in his neck and match each hard drive of his hips. When I come, I squeeze him between my thighs and grind down through it. I pull free and scream with my back bowed. He arches off the bed and fills me up as he follows me over the edge. I collapse on top of him and lick his wound closed.

My legs are gone, and the room won’t stop spinning. My wolf is pleased with herself, stretching out. Oh shit, I just claimed him without even asking.

I scramble off him and press my shaking, bloody hand to my mouth. “Oh my god. Ezra, I’m so sorry, I didn’t mean to, I wasn’t planning to, my wolf just…”

He catches my arms and rolls me onto my back. He climbs over me with his eyes glowing and wet. In all the years since he was a hatchling, I’ve never seen him smile like this.

“Shut up,” he says, and then he kisses me.

His mouth moves over mine with his tears dripping onto my cheeks. I’m crying too. I taste salt and his blood on my tongue.

The bond is warm and quiet inside me now. I listen to his heartbeat slow down until I’m breathing in time with him.

After another kiss, he wraps me up and squeezes the air out of my lungs. I don’t ask him to loosen his grip. I close my eyes with my nose pressed to the fresh mark on his neck.

24

EZRA

Ihaven’t really slept. I’ve drifted in and out with my dragon humming too loud for anything deeper. Every time I close my eyes, I open them again to make sure she hasn’t disappeared on me.

Aya is sprawled facedown in our bed with her arm dangling off the side and her hair wild across her shoulders. There’s still a smear of my dried blood on her lip. She hasn’t moved in hours. Her scent is tangled up with mine all over the sheets, and I can’t get enough of it. I wrecked her last night. The guilt should probably bother me more than it does, but my dragon is too full of himself for that.

She claimed me. I touch the mark on my neck. It’s tender under my fingers, with ridges where her teeth went in. It burns hot when I press on it. I have to grip the edge of the mattress to ride it out. I’m proud as hell that she’s mine now and I’m hers. My insufferable dragon stretches out and purrs. As far as he’s concerned, we earned this.

I try to distract myself with the planetarium plans and Amari’s structural adjustments to the dome. But I can’t concentrate on any of it. I keep going back to her teeth breaking my skin. She growled mine into my neck with my blood on her tongue.

I slap myself across the face. It stings, but I’m still grinning. I need to go get some work done, or I’m going to crawl on top of her again.

She doesn’t stir when I ease out from under the covers. Her snoring picks up into a low rumble, and my dragon quits pacing to listen. I stand over her too long with my hands fisted at my sides. If I touch her, I’m not leaving this room. I make myself go to the bathroom.

I wash my face. In the mirror, her mark stands out red and swollen on my neck. I tilt my chin up and admire her work. I pull on a T-shirt and sweatpants from the dresser. On my way out, I glance at Aya.

I could get back in bed and wake her up with my tongue between her thighs, have her screaming before she’s fully conscious. I consider it longer than I should with my hand on the doorframe and my body already turned toward the bed. My dragon shoves at me to climb back in. I go downstairs before he wins the argument.

I’m parched. I fill a pitcher of water at the kitchen tap and drink most of it at the counter. My stomach growls. I’m not eating without her. I top it off for her and put it in the fridge on my way to the office.

The floor plans are still spread across my desk, with Amari’s notes in his clean handwriting on the left and the architectural drawings on the right. I drop into the chair with a pencil and the notepad I keep beside them.

The dome curvature is off on the south-facing panel. Amari designed it for optimal acoustics, but he didn’t account for how the glass refracts starlight at that angle. I sketch a correction that adjusts the arc by three degrees and add a note about antireflective coating on the interior panes. The viewing platform he suggested runs along the east wall. It’s wide enough for foot traffic but too narrow for a dragon’s wingspan. If clan members are going to watch the shows partially shifted, I need to double the clearance. I write that down.