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I think Memnon knows it too and is eager to watch me come undone because, amidst all of it, I feel a phantom finger stroke along the edge of my entrance.

That’s all it takes.

If I was a bowstring before, then my orgasm is the arrow, shooting through my body. I come with a cry, my release swallowing me up.

Between my legs, Memnon groans, his hold tightening as he must feel an echo of my release down our bond. When he looks up at me, his mouth glistens with my slick, and his eyes have the barest edge of a glow to them. Idly, he strokes a hand up and down my skin, his gaze finding mine. “Love watching you come—and feeling it too.”

Gently, Memnon lifts my thighs from his shoulders and disentangles himself. But the moment his skin is gone, his magic is there, tugging my pants back up my body and releasing my arms.

I sit up, my gaze finding the far-off settlement.

“I think we’ve been gone appropriately long,” Memnon says, leaning over me and pulling out a long blade of grass from my hair.

I stare at that blade and bite my lower lip. “They’re all going to know what we’ve been doing out here.”

Memnon laughs. “And absolutely no one will argue that we are not a strong match. But,” he says, picking off another strand of dead foliage from my hair, “if you prefer, I could use my magic and clean you off.

I stand up and dust my hands. “I don’t prefer it,” I decide. I think Ilikethe idea that they can see him all over me.

I glance down. “Come, husband.” I reach out a hand for him. “You’ve thoroughly captured me, and I’m at your whim. Now let’s go get married.”

We stand before the settlement’s sacred fire, the flames dancing high into the sky. An Anarya priest stands before us, their masculine form clothed in a long, feminine kurta, a tall headdress resting on their brow. Around us, the camp’s inhabitants have gathered, Memnon’s closest kin and friends standing nearest us. Ferox sits at my side like a sentinel.

“Today we bear witness to the binding of these two souls,” the priest announces, their age-roughened voice carrying across the small clearing. They incline their head to Memnon, indicating for him to speak.

My husband’s eyes shine more than usual as he takes me in. “From the gods that made me to the gods that take me,” Memnon recites, “from this first breath to my last, I am yours.”

As I stare into Memnon’s smoky-amber eyes, the sensation that flows over me is something out of a dream. Too strange and joyous to be real.

He gives my hand a squeeze.It’s your turn to say the vows.

My heart beats fast as I haltingly repeat what Memnon said. “From the gods that made me to the…”

Gods that take me, Memnon fills in for me.

“—gods that take me.” I smile at him, my hands trembling in his. “From this first breath to my last, I am yours.”

Memnon grins wide, the expression reaching all the way up to the corners of his eyes, while the people around us cheer.

“And now, the bloodletting,” the priest says.

Bloodletting?

Memnon unsheathes his gold-hilted dagger and Zosines approaches us, holding a drinking horn that’s partially filled with wine. I stare, alarmed, as Memnon pushes up the shirtsleeve of his arm, then brings the edge of his dagger to the light brown skin there.

Memnon, what’s going on?

There’s iron in his voice:Making you mine.

Zosines angles the drinking horn roughly under Memnon’s arm right before my husband drags the blade across his skin, parting the flesh.

A dizzying amount of blood wells up, then spills from the wound, dripping down Memnon’s arm before Zosines catches it in the drinking horn, where it mixes with the wine. I sway a little on my feet at the sight of the wound.

You didn’t tell me about this part of the ceremony.

Memnon’s gaze meets mine, and I can see both guilt and resolve in it.I’m sorry.

Zosines turns his attention to me, that bloody drinking horn still clasped in his hand. I can sense other gazes now turning to me.