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When she finally tied off the last stitch and bandaged the wound with clean cloth, exhaustion crashed over both of them like a tide. Akoro’s eyes had grown heavy with fatigue and the aftereffects of blood loss, while Naya felt drained from the careful concentration required for the delicate work.

“Rest,” she said, helping him settle back against the pillows. “Sleep.”

“Stay.” It was a command wrapped in need.

“Of course,” she said without hesitation.

She meant to sit in the chair beside his bed, to keep watch while maintaining appropriate distance.

But when he reached for her with his uninjured arm, pulling her down beside him with gentle insistence, she didn’t resist. Her body curved against his uninjured side with devastating rightness, her head finding the hollow of his shoulder where his scent was strongest.

“Naya,” he murmured against her hair, his arm tightening around her with careful possession.

“Shh,” she whispered. “Sleep.”

But neither of them slept immediately. Instead, they lay together in the golden afternoon light, both acutely aware that this might be one of their last quiet moments before reality intruded.

The storm was gone. Her duty to her empire waited.

Their agreement hung between them like a blade, sharp with the promise of separation.

Yet for now, in the sanctuary of his chambers with her Alpha’s heartbeat steady beneath her palm, Naya allowed herself to simply exist in the moment.

To breathe him in, to catalog the way their bodies fit together, to memorize the profound sense of rightness that settled over her whenever she was in his arms.

When sleep finally claimed them both, they were wrapped around each other like missing pieces of the same whole—Alpha and Omega, king and princess, mates in everything but acknowledgment.

Three days passed in careful domesticity that felt both natural and heartbreaking.

Naya moved through Akoro’s chambers as though she belonged there, tending to his wound with gentle efficiency, ensuring he ate despite his poor appetite, monitoring his recovery with the devotion of a mate caring for her injured Alpha.

She ordered his meals, supervised the changing of his bandages, and slept curled against his uninjured side each night as though it were the most natural thing in the world.

The palace staff didn’t treat her any differently than before, and the guards that used to keep her in the room ignored her now.

“The stitches can come out tomorrow,” she announced on the third evening, examining her handiwork by lamplight. “The healing is progressing well.”

“Thanks to your skilled hands,” Akoro said, his voice rougher than usual as he watched her work. Even this clinical touch sent heat radiating from his skin, his scent deepening with the controlled arousal that had been building between them for days.

They’d been careful with each other since returning to the palace—intimate without being sexual, tender without crossing lines that might complicate the emotional tangle they were both trying to navigate.

But the careful distance was becoming harder to maintain with each passing hour.

His body had healed enough to respond to her proximity with devastating intensity, while her inner Omega—no, she —grew increasingly restless at being so close to her Alpha without claiming the connection they both craved.

“There,” she said, securing the fresh bandage. “That should?—”

Her words died as his uninjured hand cupped the back of her neck, fingers threading through her copper hair with gentle possession. The simple touch sent electricity arcing between them, and she found herself leaning into his warmth despite her intentions to maintain control.

“Naya,” he said, her name a low rumble in his chest.

“We shouldn’t,” she whispered, but even as the words left her lips, she was moving closer to him on the bed. “You’re still healing.”

“I’m fine,” he said, and the hunger in his dark eyes made her breath catch. “More than fine.”

His thumb traced the racing pulse at her throat, feeling how her body responded to his proximity despite her attempts at restraint. Her scent had shifted to something richer, sweeter, broadcasting her arousal with instinctual honesty that made his own control fray at the edges.

“The wound—” she tried again.

“Will be fine,” he finished, his voice dropping to that Alpha tone that made her inner Omega purr with submission. “I need you, tmot zia. It’s been too long.”

The raw honesty in his admission shattered the last of her resistance.

With a soft sound that was half-surrender, half-relief, she let him pull her closer until she was straddling his thighs, careful to avoid jarring his injured shoulder.

Her borrowed Ilǐa clothing had been replaced with flowing silk in deep emerald that made her copper hair shine like fire in the lamplight.

“Beautiful,” he murmured, hands skimming up her sides with reverent appreciation. “Always so beautiful.”

Despite his injury, his arousal was hard and ready through the thin fabric of his sleeping clothes. The knowledge that he wanted her with such intensity sent answering heat pooling between her thighs, her body responding to his with the desperate hunger of too many careful days.

“I missed this,” she admitted, her voice barely above a whisper. “Missed you.”

“Show me,” he commanded softly, and the gentle dominance in his tone made her core clench with need.

Her fingers moved to the ties of her sleeping gown, undoing the silk with slow, practiced ease. The fabric slipped down her body, pooling at her waist and baring her breasts to the warm lamplight.

Akoro groaned—rumbly and deep. Even injured, the shift in him was unmistakable.

His gaze dragged over her skin like a physical touch, eyes darkening with hunger, with something deeper—possessive reverence.

The tension between them thickened. Her slick stirred at once, her body responding to the silent command in his stare.

His uninjured hand lifted, rough palm cupping the soft swell of her breast. His thumb grazed the peak with maddening slowness.

“Perfect,” he rasped, voice deep and wrecked. “My perfect Omega.”

The possessive claim sent fire racing through her veins, a moan escaping her lips as heat bloomed low in her belly. She arched into his hand instinctively, her scent spiking, thick with need and submission. The reaction was visceral, beyond thought.

Even now—even injured—he was hers. But more importantly, she was his.

He sat back against the pillows, muscles straining with control, his chest wrapped in fresh bandages that did little to disguise his size. The wound slowed him, but it didn’t stop the way he watched her, hungry and unrelenting.

Naya climbed over him with care, straddling his lap, guiding her slick folds along the hard length of him. He groaned, low and desperate, his hand tightening on her hip as she teased him, rocking forward until the head of his cock slid through her slick, coating him in her arousal.

She reached down and guided him to her entrance, locking eyes with him as she sank down slowly, inch by inch, claiming him with her body. The stretch made her whine and pant.

His jaw clenched, eyes rolling back, the cords in his neck taut as he tried to hold still for her.

His scent exploded around them, thick and heady, instinct at the ready.

When she finally took him to the hilt, fully seated on his cock, they both froze—just for a breath—lost in the rightness of it. Of being joined and connected.

She started to move, hips rolling gently, keeping the rhythm slow to protect his wound, but the tension in him was building fast. His hands roamed her body—possessive, reverent, tracing the curve of her waist, the dip of her spine, the trembling of her thighs.

Every drag of her cunt over him was slick and tight and devastating.

Her scent flooded the room, Omega heat rising with each pass.

She could see it in him—the need to take control, to claim, held back only by pain and sheer force of will. And it turned her on even more. Her body squeezed around him, clamping every inch.

His breath grew ragged.

“Let me,” she whispered against his throat, her voice breathless, lips brushing his skin. “Let me do it this time.”

He didn’t answer, but the low growl that rumbled in his chest was all the permission she needed.

She rode him gently, then harder, finding that angle, that grind, that pressure that made them both come apart.

When her orgasm hit, she cried out, body clenching hard around his cock, slick gushing between them. Her release pulled him over the edge.

He surged up, teeth bared in a snarl of pleasure, and slammed his hips up into hers once, twice—then knotted.

The swell stretched her open, locking them together in a perfect, primal seal.

She collapsed against his chest, panting, his scent wrapping around her like warmth, like territory, like home.

His knot throbbed inside her, pulsing with slow, possessive satisfaction as he emptied into her. Her body trembled with aftershocks, every part of her marked, filled, and sealed.

And beneath the heat and bond and thick breathless haze of satisfaction, she knew: This wasn’t just physical. This was belonging. This was where she was meant to be.

Afterward, they lay tangled together in the lamplight, her head pillowed on his uninjured shoulder while his fingers traced lazy spirals across her bare back.

The satisfaction of their joining hummed between them, but beneath it lurked the same unspoken tension that had haunted their every interaction since stopping the storm.

“Akoro,” she began hesitantly.

“Don’t,” he said quietly. “Not tonight.”

She lifted her head to study his face, seeing the same conflict she felt reflected in his dark eyes.

They both knew what needed to be discussed—the future, their agreement, the impossible choice that waited for them both.

But neither seemed ready to voice the words that might shatter the fragile peace they’d found in each other’s arms.

“All right,” she agreed, settling back against his warmth. “Not tonight.”

But as sleep claimed them both, Naya couldn’t shake the sense that time was running out.

Soon, they would have to face the reality waiting beyond these chambers—his duty to his people, her responsibility to her empire, and the devastating truth that love alone might not be enough to bridge the distance between their worlds.

For now, though, she was content to exist in the sanctuary of his arms, breathing in his scent and memorizing the steady rhythm of his heartbeat beneath her palm. Tomorrow would bring its own challenges.

Tonight was theirs.