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The bigger part of me doesn’t think so, and that part is certain our timing was just right.

After all, it led us to tonight.

“Yes,” I tell him, because despite it all, I can’t deny he’s right.

It’s always been there between us, that alchemy, that magick.

“That’s what I like to hear.” I’m turned again, held close, though I don’t miss the burning hunger in Cas’s eyes, the need, the flash of fang as he lowers his gaze to my throat. “Let me take you home, love?”

“Please.”

Being bloodbound always seemed like such an abstract concept to me.

Sure, mom and Samuel have been that way for years, so have Cleo and Steph, and while I get the mechanics of how it works, I’ve never really felt like it was my place to pry. Asking what it’s actually like to seal that kind of bond felt way too intimate and private to bring up.

So I don’t really know what to expect now that I’m here with Cas, laid bare and helpless to do anything but let him worship me.

But I trust him.

More than anything, I trust him to take care of me. If the last six months have taught me anything, it’s exactly that.

Cas cares for me and I care for him. I belong to him in a way I’ve never belonged to anyone else. He belongs to me just the same, and after tonight that belonging will run even deeper.

He pulls his face from between my thighs with one last, long draw on my clit, lips glossy and swollen from his efforts, a wicked smile on his face as he looks up at me in satisfaction from where he kneels beside the bed.

“Did you enjoy that?” he croons, like he doesn’t know exactly how much I did.

All I can manage is a garbled groan as I reach for him with greedy hands. He comes to me without a fight, prowling up the bed until he’s on top of me, palms planted on the mattress on either side of my head. Lips turned up in a smirk, he flashes a fang that catches the golden light from the candles on the nightstand.

Cas hasn’t bitten me yet tonight. He’s teased me to the edge of my sanity, and he was only centimeters away from one of his favorite marks just a few seconds ago, but so far he’s held back. That deliciously cruel denial stretches the tension betweenus, pulls it taut until I have to say something to break the unbearable anticipation.

“So are we going to, you know, do this anytime soon?”

“So impatient,” he croons. “I ought to make you come a few more times until you learn the finer pleasures of delayed gratification.”

“Cas,” I protest, reaching for him.

He’s an unmovable force above me, his expression going suddenly serious and tender. Stroking careful fingers over my cheek, across my jaw, and down to where his mark adorns my throat, he caresses me softly for a few long moments before he speaks.

“Will you be my bloodbound, sweet Ophelia? Will you bind your life with mine? Will you let me claim you, care for you, cherish you for the rest of our days?”

The words are low, solemn, a soft oath in the flickering candlelight between us.

“Yes,” I breathe, then swallow past the lump of emotion in my throat. “Yes, Cas. I will. But only if you’ll let me do the same. Let me claim you, keep you, bind my life with yours. Stay with me and be patient with me, let me tell you every day how wonderful you are.”

“Always, Ophelia.”

Cas leans down and catches my lips in an achingly tender kiss. Slow and sweet, it tastes like forever. When he pulls back, his eyes shine with love—endless, boundless, mine.

“It cannot be undone. You understand?”

“Yes, I understand. And nothing in the world could make me want it undone.”

“My sweet, sweet Ophelia,” he says, and for a moment I worry my heart might shatter from all the warmth and pride and affection he puts into the words. “You honor me.”

Casimir leans down and carefully, reverently, sinks his fangs into the mark he made all those months ago. He’s re-pierced it countless times since then, only tonight is… different.

The initial pain of it is deeper, more intense, like he’s struck some sort of nerve he’s always taken care to avoid. That pain melts almost immediately, though. Softening, warming, pouring through my veins in crimson and starlight that’s entirely unlike anything I’ve ever felt.