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LIORA

T he first thing I notice when I wake is him. We’re on the ground, and I’m unable to make heads or tails about what happened last night. I can’t wrap my head around it, but it was… out of this world.

Dain’s arm is slung around me, his grip possessive even in sleep. His body is warm, solid, the rise and fall of his chest too steady against my back. Too familiar. My skin tightens with awareness, memories from the night before clawing their way up my spine, his mouth on mine, the burn of his hands, the raw hunger in his eyes as he took me, consumed me, claimed me.

Heat flushes through me. I shift, testing my limbs, and ache pulses deep between my thighs. I press my lips together, swallowing down the sharp sting of satisfaction that comes with it.

I shouldn’t feel this way. Not after everything. Not after he’s spent every moment pushing me away, snarling at me to keep my distance, telling me I mean nothing.

Yet here he is, tangled around me like I belong to him.

A shiver rolls through me, but it isn’t from cold. It’s from something else. Something unfamiliar, a thrumming, electric pulse under my skin. Alive. Different. More.

I frown. That… is not normal.

I flex my fingers, expecting exhaustion, but instead, something pulses back—a warm, foreign energy that isn’t mine alone. It curls inside me, stretches, tugs. My chest tightens. It’s like a thread between myself and something else—someone else.

Dain stirs behind me.

The moment he wakes, his entire body stiffens. His arm retracts, peeling away from me like I burn him.

The loss is instant. And it hurts.

I turn, only to find him already on his feet, back to me, wings flaring as he rakes a hand through his hair. He doesn’t look at me. Not once.

“Dain?” My voice is hoarse.

He says nothing.

I push myself upright, clutching the remnants of my torn clothes around me. “You’re just going to pretend last night didn’t happen?”

His breath rattles out, sharp and wrong. His shoulders are tight, coiled like a predator on the verge of striking.

“It was a mistake.”

A mistake.

My stomach twists. I expected it. Of course I did. Dain has fought me at every turn, resisted me, denied me, but to hear it out loud.

I hate how much it stings.

“You weren’t saying that when you had me pinned against the wall,” I snap, voice colder than I feel.

His head snaps to me then, eyes burning.

“Liora.” The way he says my name, low, dark, warning, sends something wicked through me.

But I don’t back down. Not this time.

“Say it, then,” I push. “Tell me you didn’t want it. Tell me you didn’t enjoy it.”

Silence.

A heavy, suffocating silence that stretches between us, thick with everything we refuse to say. His jaw clenches. His wings twitch.

He turns away again.

“I am done with this conversation.”

I laugh. It’s sharp, bitter. “Of course you are.”

We don’t talk after that.

Dain moves like he’s trying to outrun something, ripping apart the room in search of supplies, avoiding my gaze at all costs. Fine. Let him avoid me.

The air in the ruins is thick, damp, pressing against my lungs as we prepare to leave. My body feels strange, lighter, sharper, changed. I roll my shoulders, trying to shake it off, but it lingers. An energy curling under my skin. A whisper in my bones.

I glance at Dain.

My chest tightens.

Something between us feels wrong. Not in a bad way, but in a way that is too much.

I inhale and I feel him.

Not in the way I always have, not in the way I’ve memorized his presence beside me.

I feel him inside me.

His power hums under my ribs. His presence threads through mine, woven into my own.

Panic claws its way up my throat.

I freeze. Dain…?

It isn’t a word, it’s a thought. A whisper.

Yet he hears me.

Dain stills mid-motion. Goes rigid.

When he turns, his pupils are blown wide, his breathing uneven.

He heard me.

His gaze is nothing short of murderous.

“What did you do?” His voice is low, rough, barely restrained.

I blink. “What?”

He moves. Fast.

In a blink, I’m pinned against the wall, his body towering over mine, his claws digging into my wrists. Too close. Too much. Too real.

“What. Did. You. Do?” He growls each word, his breath scalding against my cheek.

My heart pounds. “Nothing.”

“Bullshit.” His grip tightens. “I can feel you.”

Feel me?

The realization slams into me, cold and violent. We are connected.

Not just through touch. Not just through the raw hunger we shared last night. Something deeper.

His blood. My magic. The consummation.

I inhale sharply. “We?—”

Bound. The word flickers in my mind like a curse.

Dain’s expression darkens. He steps back like I disgust him.

“This is your doing.” His voice is sharp, accusing.

I shake my head, struggling to breathe. “I didn’t?—”

“You drank my blood. You used my power. And now this?” His wings flare, barely fitting in the tight space. “You bound us.”

Bound.

The word coils around my ribs, sinking into my skin like it was always meant to be there.

“No.” I shake my head. “I didn’t do this. I didn’t?—”

“Then why,” he snarls, stepping toward me again, “can I feel your every breath?”

I can’t answer as I don’t know.

But I suspect.

I suspect the bond isn’t just an accident. I suspect it was always meant to happen. I suspect the Purna in me, the magic I still don’t understand, has been waiting for this moment all along.

But I don’t tell him that.

Because if I do…

I think he might actually kill me.