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He groans against me and the vibration nearly takes me down.

I clutch at his shoulders, fingers digging into muscle, as he worships me. Sensation rises too fast, built from fear, love, grief, blood, candles and his mouth. He doesn’t let me escape it. He holds me still and takes every sound I make until I shatter with a broken cry, body trembling.

Before I can fully recover, he rises, his mouth wet from me. The sight almost ends my ability to function. ‘You look very pleased with yourself,’ I say weakly.

‘I am.’

‘Insufferable.’

‘Bonded to me soon, if all goes well. Prepare accordingly.’

The laugh breaks from me, raw and too close to tears.

Then he kisses me, and I taste myself on him.

He lowers us to the heated floor in the centre of the circle, his body over mine, one hand cradling the back of my head. The stone is warm against my back.

Then with his cock pressed at my entrance, he pauses there, shaking with restraint, his eyes locked on mine. ‘Say it again,’ he rasps.

‘I consent. Today. Forever.’

‘Eira. My Lyra,’ he breathes.

Then he enters me slowly. Relentlessly. Every inch feels deliberate. Sacred. Terrifying. My body opens around him, slick and aching, and when he’s fully inside me, when his hips meet mine and his breath leaves him in a broken sound, the bond blooms between us with such force I gasp.

I feel him. All of him.

The need and the fear. The love. The ancient loneliness and the hunger to claim. The savage discipline it takes not to simply take. His awe, which he would deny to every god.

He begins to move, not gently, because we are beyond gentleness now.

With feral purpose.

There’s a difference, and I feel it in every thrust as he fills me, claims me in strokes that make my nails scrape down his back. He lowers his mouth to mine and kisses me as if the vows are still happening there. The candles flare higher. The wards tighten. Somewhere far above, the Tower groans.

Rhythm builds. ‘Mine,’ he says against my mouth.

‘Yes.’

‘Say it as a vow.’

‘I’m yours.’

His eyes flash.

‘But you’re mine too,’ I gasp, because even now, especially now, I refuse to be swallowed whole by fate without biting back. ‘Say it.’

His thrust falters. Then he smiles, fierce and beautiful. ‘I am yours, Lyra Hannigan. Eira Cross. My little hunter. My mate.’

The circle ignites. Then his fangs descend.

Fear flickers. He feels it instantly and stills, buried inside me, forehead pressed to mine. ‘Yes or no?’ he says, voice barely human.

I look into his eyes. And I see everything waiting there.

Death. Hope.

Love.