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In one melding, Issa stripped him of this view and burned him down to raw sensation.

And he had never felt more alive.

He exhaled, his fingers tracing lazy circles over the small of her back. Her skin was damp, her breath warm against his chest, her hair a tousled crown on his throat.

He stared at the ceiling, his mind still trying to piece together what had just happened.

Because in the throes of their passion, he caught,fokk, flames?

Golden-white, licking at the air, wrapping around them, fusing with their innermost essence.

At first, he thought it was a trick of his vision, the dim glow of his metanoid tattoos reacting to the heightened sensory overload.

Then he perceived the heat, not just externally but inside him.

In his blood, in his bones.

He turned, raising himself on one elbow, staring down at her. ‘Seriously, woman, what the hell was that?’

His repeated utterance was rough, still hoarse from the sounds she wrung from him.

She stirred but didn’t lift her head.

He reached down, fingers curling under her chin, tilting her face up.

‘Issa.’

Her lashes fluttered, her gaze drowsy but knowing.

He held her stare unrelenting. ‘What was the fire?’

A slow, satisfied smile curled her lips.

‘You saw it?’ she murmured, her tone laced with exhaustion and amusement.

He arched a brow. ‘Fokk, I got freakin’ scorched to my bones.’

She traced his chest, her nails just skimming the inked ridges of his skin.

‘Sedevans Ssigis make love with an inner inferno,’ she whispered, with a sultry huskiness, as she shared her secret. ‘It’s a part of us, the way we are made.’

Ki’Remi frowned. ‘Explain.’

She sighed, shifting to her side to face him.

‘When a Sedevan Ssigis gives herself to another, she doesn’t just share pleasure. She shares her energy.’

Her fingers ghosted over his heart. ‘If the bond is strong enough, that vitality fuses their souls.’

He stilled beneath her.

Soul fusion.

The concept was absurd. Unfathomable.

However, there was no doubt he witnessed the fire and experienced it lash his body, flame his sinews, and light up even his metanoids.

Still, his skepticism warred with what he had just gone through, even though the overload of sheer force through him was still shaking him.