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“It is the answer that matters. I will not use Rath to push you into my bed or turn protection into a price you pay with your body.”

“Good, because I would object violently.” She folded her arms. “I hate the law. I hate that sex can change whether another camp gets to challenge for me. I also hate pretending that makes the choice simpler than it is.”

His gaze sharpened.

“I want you,” Kesta said. “I wanted you before Rath came through the gate, before Pellan was hurt, before tonight. Part of me also wants the claim sealed because I am tired of being a prize men can petition for. Those are two different reasons, and both are mine.”

Dreven went motionless enough that even his tail stopped. “Wanting me and choosing to use mating law are not the same decision.”

“I know. I am making both.”

He drew a slow breath. “If we begin and you change your mind, we stop. The claim remains challengeable. Rath remains a problem. I do not argue.”

“Yes.”

“If the band reacts, we stop.”

Kesta remembered the copper flare during their first kiss. “We stop long enough to decide what it means. The machine does not get a vote.”

After a moment he inclined his head. “Agreed.”

Her quarters were only a short walk away. Dreven stopped outside the door even though the old claim law gave him enough standing that no guard would have questioned his entry. Kesta noticed because a week earlier he might have noticed only the danger beyond the walls.

She opened the door and looked back at him. “You may come in.”

The room was too small for the weight of the decision: a narrow bed, a washstand, a battered chest and one lamp Tavi had repaired badly enough that it hummed. Kesta shut the door and turned the latch herself.

“Still yes?” Dreven asked.

She answered by walking into him and kissing him.

The careful restraint of their first kiss lasted perhaps two breaths. Dreven’s hands settled at her waist, large enough to span it, but he waited until Kesta leaned into him before drawing her closer. She felt the strength in him everywhere—the hard wall of his chest, the controlled flex of his fingers, the deliberate angle of his body so his horns never threatened her face. None of it frightened her. The care did.

Kesta slid her palms beneath his shirt and found heated skin crossed by old scars. He caught the fabric before it tangled around his horns, which earned him a muttered complaint about inconvenient anatomy and a brief, surprised laugh. The humor loosened something between them. Kesta stripped off her own shirt, took one of his hands and placed it against her bare waist.

His claws had retracted completely. The rough pads of his fingers moved upward slowly until his palm covered her breast, and desire tightened low in Kesta’s belly. She arched into the touch and pulled his mouth back to hers. Dreven groaned against her lips, the sound deep enough that she felt it through her ribs.

He touched her as though wanting and taking were two different languages he intended never to confuse again. When Kesta backed toward the bed and said his name, he stopped immediately.

“That was not a stop,” she told him.

His eyes had gone nearly black around the silver. “You have an alarming number of definitions.”

“Keep learning.”

She pulled him down with her. The bed protested his weight with a metallic groan, and for one absurd second they both froze before Kesta laughed into his shoulder. Dreven looked offended on behalf of his dignity and kissed the sound out of her.

The laughter became heat. She pushed him onto his back, opened his trousers and wrapped her hand around him. His breath broke, one hand closing around the blanket instead of her as she stroked him. The choice of where he spent that strength made her want him more.

Dreven rolled them only after she nodded. His fingers slid between her thighs, found her ready, and the first slow stroke made Kesta catch his shoulder.

Then the band around her wrist flared white.

Both of them stopped. Imperial symbols crawled over the copper surface: VOLUNTARY MATING PATHWAY DETECTED. CLAIM SEAL AVAILABLE. CONTINUE CONTACT TO CONFIRM.

Dreven moved away so quickly the mattress shifted beneath her, sitting at the edge of the bed with both hands visible. “I did not know it would do that.”

“Neither did I.” Kesta pushed herself upright. The band pulsed again, patient as a machine that believed bodies were another kind of form waiting to be completed.