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Memnon places a hand against the ward. Beneath his touch, my magic thickens and shifts, moving toward his palm.

“There is no keeping me out, little witch.” My magic crawls up his fingertips, then the back of his hand and wrist. As it does, the rest of the wall melts away, the power dissipating until the two of us are staring at each other with nothing in between.

Memnon drops his hand. “Every part of us longs for the other—even our magic.”

My heart constricts, and my eyes rise to his face. “What happens now?” I ask softly.

“You could run some more—I’m always happy to chase you—or you could come back with me so I can officially make you my queen.”

I hesitate. “It didn’t take very long for you to catch me…” I had hoped to linger out here for a while.

He huffs out a laugh and steps up to me. “Ah, I see. Someone told you that strong couples stay out here for a long time?”

I nod.

“And you’re afraid our people will think we’re a weak match if we don’t?” He squints as he asks it.

Now I hesitate, not wanting to admit that they’d likely see us as weak becauseIam weak, and the haste of this wedding ritual would only validate that truth.

Memnon’s voice lowers. “Our people could never think such a thing of you. Not when you bring their king to his knees.” As he speaks, he drops down to one knee, then both. His fingers move to the laces of my pants, and he begins to undo them.

“Memnon,” I gasp, my hand covering his as I glance over his shoulder to the settlement in the distance. “What are you doing?”

Memnon smiles. “Making your capture take longer.” Then he tugs down my pants.

The feel of his roughened palms on my bare thighs feels unreasonably good. It always does. There’s magic in his touch, magic that has nothing to do with our supernatural abilities.

I glance uncertainly at the distant camp again, still nervous, until deep blue plumes of Memnon’s magic shroud them from sight and a phantom hand tilts my head back down to him.

“They cannot see you,” he reassures me. He runs a thumb along the seam of my sex, eliciting a hiss from me. “Now,” Memnon continues, “would you prefer I taste you while you’re standing or while you’re reclining?”

“Taste?” I suck in a breath at the thought, even as that languid warmth begins to pool between my thighs.

“Reclining it is,” Memnon announces.

His magic does the rest, dragging my torso back until I gently hit the ground. My legs are trapped together at the ankles by my lowered pants and my soft leather boots, and Memnon uses this to his advantage, lifting my bound feet up and spreading my legs wide enough for him to slip beneath them and settle my thighs on either of his shoulders.

Any lingering resistance I might still have is banished by the first brush of Memnon’s lips against my slit. Without meaning to, I shift my hips, my legs falling farther open.

Memnon huffs out a laugh at my body’s response, his hands lovingly sliding up my thighs.

He presses kisses up and down my outer lips, gently nipping at them as he goes. I let out a moan and reach for his head, eager to thread my fingers through that rich, dark hair of his. His magic, however, presses my arms back, pinning them together above my head.

“What are you doing?” I ask, wriggling. I feel like meat on a spit.

Memnon pauses his work to look up, and I can’t help but notice the obvious desire in his eyes and the soft smirk on his lips. “Keeping you at my mercy.”

I’m reminded then that this ritual is about capture and surrender.

I will make your surrender memorable, he said.

Memnon’s arms pull my thighs apart as much as possible, and then he leans in.

No longer is he interested in teasing me. His tongue dips into my opening, and then his mouth finds that point right above it, the one that makes my muscles tense and pleasure coil in my belly.

He sucks on that fold, his teeth lightly scraping over it every so often. I writhe and shift beneath him, my hips tilting uselessly, my arms tugging at their magical bindings.

I want to feel him—my hands in his hair, his heavy body against mine, my heels dragging down his back. I want his warmth and the friction of his form, and the absence of it makes me feel caged within my own skin. The conflicting sensations seem to only wind me tighter and tighter, until I’m taut and poised like the string of a bow.