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Bronze lifted Clara off him and, palming the ass he loved so much, dragged her up his body until she was seated right where he needed her, with those powerful thighs hugging his hips and his cock sliding closer to her welcoming entrance.
“Baby,” he whispered into her mouth as they exchanged desperate breaths in quick pulses, “I’m going to finally—finally—kiss my mate as I’ve longed to. Rightfully. Wholly.”
Were there words after that? Maybe. In his mind, definitely, though they were mostly limited to the onomatopoeia variety, and all were lost to the welcoming shift of her hips that saw her hot core sheath him with such swift efficiency. Mouths came next, moving in a hurried rhythm that chased away any worries that had hunted him the past few weeks. Hell, his whole goddamn life. There was only the feel of Clara, in his arms, around his cock, expanding throughout his mind like a majestic starburst, searching out nooks and crannies that had only known darkness and illuminating the fuck out of them until they had no choice but to open themselves up to her beautiful brilliance.
The water had washed away all the debris and blood of the day—the nick from Raff’s claw scraping his chest, the bits of shorn hair that had managed to cling to Clara’s skin. But it couldn’t chase away the heat. Never that. Instead, as her hips and breasts swung toward him in a syncopated rhythm that would play on repeat in his mind for as long as he’d remember, a burning ball of embers deep within his core churned as well. Hotter than the relic’s smooth moonstone, which seemed to warm between them. Hotter than the approaching orgasm, which curled his hips tighter and made his muscles tense beneath the now-tepid shower spray.
Hotter than Clara’s faith in him, which had never once wavered.
Bronze broke from her mouth as a wave of heat punched through him, lighting his limbs on fire and pulling a cry from his soul that made the very water around them quiver. His release was painful in its pleasure, erupting in wave after glorious wave that only strengthened the heat around him.
Heat that spread and spread and spread some more, until it wrapped around Clara and cradled her as it guided her through her own pleasure.
Bronze . . . Bronze, hear me . . .
Beneath the heat and flame and fucking perfection of it all, an ethereal feminine voice urged his eyes open. His lids were only peeled wide for a second, but it was enough for the whole of his existence to bloom with eternal clarity.
The relic, nestled safely between Clara’s breasts, glowing with pristine opulence. Blue flame cocooning their bare bodies. Cleansing water dancing around them, misting into steam upon contact with the fire.
His angel fire.
The voice spoke again in his mind, through the shock, through the stinging tears that threatened to draw him away from the female in his arms. Bronze held Clara tightly to his body, tucking her head against his chest as they both rode out the spark that joined them in ways nothing else could. All the while, he kept his mind open, receptive to what the voice told him. All it revealed. All it granted.
All it pardoned.
And then it was gone, along with his fire, leaving behind nothing save for the soul-absolving clarity that Clara was unapologetically, undoubtedly meant to be his.
Bronze breathed through the shock of what he’d just learned and reached for the knob to turn off the shower. He grinned into Clara’s hair at the serendipity of it all. “Are you all right? Are you harmed? Burned?”
“Burned?” She pulled back, though her thighs still rested comfortably on top of his and her stomach draped across his own. “In a shower?”
“Let me dry and dress you. There’s something I need to talk to you about.”
A stark calm froze her features, and a look of concern flashed behind eyes far too knowing, but eventually, she smiled softly, nodded, and, thank fuck, let him tend to her.
Once they were dry and he saw her nestled comfortably within his arms under a mountain of bed covers, he let himself inch toward the one thing he couldn’t believe was waiting for him.
“What’s this all about?” Clara asked, proffering a sweet kiss to the center of his chest, right over the scratch where Raff’s claw had found its mark. “You seem troubled.”
Before he could lose his nerve, Bronze grabbed up her right hand and turned it over . . .
And breathed through the gut punch of his life.
“By the mages, it’s true.”
“What’s true?” Then she saw what he saw, and her eyes widened to match the perfect O of her lips.
The tattoo of his Empyrean name on her wrist wasn’t gold, like the ones he’d seen on his brothers’ mates, but was purely opalescent, like it had been ground from the most precious of seashells before being etched into her skin. Yet when he moved her wrist to catch the light, the same iridescent effect was achieved. Gone this way, and visible the other way.
A nod to her lycan heritage, one that was averse to metal but one that was still made perfectly for him.
“That is my name, princess, written in the old language of the Empyrean. Sendran. It is a mark that can only be bestowed upon the joining of true soul bonds.”
A shining awareness lit her features. “Soul bonds? As in . . .”
He smiled and kissed her fully. “Mates.”
“But how?” Clara tried to rub at the thing, but it stayed pressed into her skin regardless. And after a time, the worried rubs turned into sincere swipes and then, finally, soft caresses. “I don’t understand.”
