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I t was a hungry, heated night.

Daisy only slept in spurts and spells, slipping off and then awakening again, gasping and arching and clinging to Filak’s lean moving body in the dark. Opening her legs wide for him, meeting his filthy kisses, sucking his long sharp fingers into her mouth. Fervently sucking his swollen sputtering cock, too, and then even pulling away to draw it in all its obscene beauty, hard and glossy and dripping, drenched in both their fluids, and greedy for more.

It was all the dream now, all the dark dangerous fantasy, lost in his beauty and his thrall. Lost in her mate, her sálufélagi , because she was staying with him, she was, she was. Even if he wanted to control her, to own her, to keep her forever. Even if it was foolish, stupid, dangerous…

She loved Filak . She loved this life here with him. She loved his danger and his passion and his art. She wanted to stay.

It was enough to shove down the last of Lew’s whining nattering voice, and to lock it away in the haze. So she could sink deeper into the danger and the craving, into the truth of her mate — her mate! — making more new art with her, vicious and triumphant. Growling into her ears. Sinking his teeth into her throat. Dragging his claws against her collarbone, her hips, her arse — and then, when she pressed closer against those sharp claw-tips, he scored them all the way from her arse around to her thigh, drawing their long curving lines deep into her skin. Hard enough that Daisy felt the skin burn and break, the pain flashing bright. Marking her, permanently, on purpose.

And when Filak then bent down, touched those new marks with his soft seeking tongue, meaning to lick her, heal her, Daisy shoved his face away. Refusing his healing, defying it, and she could feel the relief in his exhale, even as he growled, low and harsh against her skin. And it was right, that he should next slap her arse, and nip at her throat, her aching nipples. Right , that he should flip her over, hold her down by the kraga , and furiously pummel himself into her, until she was boneless and incoherent and begging. And right, after, how he kissed and caressed her, folding her into his warm safe arms. Whispering again and again how much he loved her, how he would always cherish her, and care for her, and keep her safe.

And then, as she’d slipped off to sleep in the dark, Daisy had felt his claw tracing that sun on her heart. Just the way he had their first night together. Making it fresh and clear, inking it with their new, shimmering truth. She would stay. She was his.

When she finally blinked awake again, it felt like a long time had passed, and Filak had already lit the candle, filling the room with its bright glow. Showing her the sight of his tall beautiful body lying beside her on the bed, still fully naked, with her vivid new eye marked on his half-hard cock. Hers .

“You love?” he murmured, tentative, and when Daisy glanced up, he was watching her, his eyes glittering in the light. “ Daisy love Filak ?”

Daisy swallowed, and her face flushed as she held his gaze. Had she really marked him, and then sworn to be his mate? To stay? Forever ? And then…

Her eyes darted downwards, to the vivid new black sun he’d painted over her heart, and then those five new long, curving white lines, etched deep into the skin of her hip and high. And her breath caught as she blinked toward them, because this had clearly been a test on his part, a taste of what was to come…

Daisy’s hand slid down toward those claw-marks, following the line of them, feeling how there wasn’t even a twinge of pain at the touch. Meaning that he’d still tended them while she’d slept, making sure they would heal, but also that they would stay. That they would forever speak of this night, of the art and the love they’d made together.

Daisy took a deep breath, raised her hand to Filak’s face. And then she drew him down for a slow, reverent kiss, for the answer he would know, even before she spoke it. “ Ach , Filak ,” she whispered, once she drew away again. “ I love you, myrkrie mitt. Sálufélagi minn .”

Filak betrayed a brief, full-body shudder, a shaky exhale that could only be relief. And then he swung himself up over her, straddling her thighs, spreading his hand against her belly. Against … his vow.

It was almost entirely faded now, lost forever into her skin, and Filak let out another ragged breath as he studied it, and then gently set his sharp claw against the first line. Holding it there for a long, quivering moment, and then… pressing.

The pain flashed and burned, but Daisy took deep breaths, and fought to hold herself still. Watching , with a strange shaky unreality, as Filak slowly drew that claw downwards. Scraping out more sparks of pain, drawing up beads of red, carving his vow into her skin.

“This vow… new,” he told her, hushed, as his gaze briefly met hers. “ Vow of mates, for Nor -ka-esh.”

Oh. Daisy swallowed and nodded, and Filak nodded too, and kept carving it into her skin. The feeling sharp and exquisitely painful, hushed and raw and dangerous, her mate swearing his care through her blood and her pain, through this silent shouting ownership. And Daisy had agreed to this, she wanted this, so why was her heart thudding like this, her breath heaving fast and unsteady beneath his carefully carving claw. And why was his breath heaving too, his eyes blinking hard, his claw hovering at the end of that first finished line, drawn deep and red and irrevocable into her skin.

Permanent. Forever .

The air felt dangerously thin, suddenly, the room slowly tilting behind him, and the unreality shuddered higher, darker behind Daisy’s eyes. She wanted this. He wanted this. He had to keep going, even if his hand was visibly shaking now, even if a single tear streaked down his cheek.

“Daisy,” he whispered, snapping her eyes up to his, swallowing her breath. Because that was a look she’d never seen on his face before, something unguarded and overcome. Something strong enough to streak another tear down his cheek, dripping off his jaw, falling hot and stinging onto his half-carved vow…

“What?” Daisy finally asked, her voice a jagged croak. “ What is it, Filak ? What’s wrong?”

But he was shaking his head, and that might have been a twitch of a smile, small and wavering on his mouth. As if it wasn’t something wrong, but…

“The sun,” he whispered, hoarse, as his shaky claws spread against Daisy’s lower belly, below that new red line of his vow. “ Our sun, sólin mín .”

Their sun. Daisy wasn’t following, glancing uncertainly at the sun on his heart, and then the matching one on hers. And maybe he meant he would make that permanent too, and…

But Filak shook his head again, and another tear slipped down his cheek, another shaky smile pulling at his mouth. “ Our sun,” he said again, with an intent glance down at his hand, still spreading like that, trembling like that, against Daisy’s lower belly. “ Sonur minn .”

Sonur minn . Daisy blinked, frowned, because that wasn’t right. He’d meant sólin mín. Sólin mín. Sól . Sun . Right ?

But her heartbeat was thumping erratically now, her wide eyes staring at his face. At his slowly tilting head, his furrowing brow…

“Not sól, sólin mín ,” he said, low in his throat. “ Sonur .”

Sonur . Daisy’s heartbeat thudded louder, because she’d learned that word, hadn’t she? It had been in the book, and Rosa had used it when talking about — about —

Filak’s eyes glimmered, and he angled a purposeful glance downwards, to his clawed hand still spread wide against Daisy’s belly, just below her vow. As if guarding something precious, protecting it, marking it as his own…

“ Sonur minn ,” he whispered, into the whirling dizzying darkness. “ We have made… my son.”