But underneath the focus, like a current beneath still water, I felt something else.
Heat.
His wanting bled through in waves that made my breath catch. Not constant—he was controlling it, pushing it down, keeping it contained the way he'd been containing himself since the day we met. But when his attention slipped, when his mind wandered to wherever thoughts go in the quiet moments between tasks, I felt it. The banked fire of his desire. The constant, low-burning need that lived beneath his careful composure.
He was thinking about me.
The knowledge made my body clench with sudden, desperate want.
I pressed my thighs together beneath the sheets. Tried to will myself calm. Tried to remember that I was a grown woman, a healer, someone who had survived twenty-seven years without needing anyone. I didn't have to feel like this. Didn't have to lie here aching just because a man hundreds of miles away wanted me badly enough that I could feel it in my blood.
But god, I felt it.
My hand moved before I consciously decided.
Beneath the sheet. Across my stomach. Lower, where the ache had settled like a second heartbeat, insistent and demanding. I hadn't touched myself since the transformation—hadn't even thought about it, too overwhelmed by everything else. But now, alone in the dark with his desire singing through the bond, my fingers found the edge of my sleep-shift and slipped beneath.
The first touch made me gasp.
Sensitive. I was so sensitive now—every nerve rewired, every response amplified. My fingertips brushed the inside of my thigh and pleasure sparked like lightning, arcing up my spine and behind my eyes. I hadn't expected it. Hadn't been prepared for my own body to feel like something new, something strange and wonderful and terrifyingly responsive.
I found slick heat between my thighs.
I was wet. Embarrassingly, impossibly wet, soaked through with wanting that had been building for days. Since the first cup of tea he'd brought me. Since the first stroke of the brush through my hair. Since he'd held bread to my lips and watched me eat and called me good girl in a voice that ruined me.
I thought of his hands.
The way they'd trembled slightly after the ritual—weakness and restraint warring for dominance. The way they'd cupped my face when he explained the pact, steady and possessive. The waythey'd felt in my hair, each brush stroke a meditation, a promise, a claim.
My fingers circled my clit and pleasure bloomed, sharp and sweet.
I thought of his voice.
"Good girl." Low and rough, like velvet dragged over gravel. "My Little." "When I return, I intend to test exactly how much of my power you've restored."
A moan escaped me. Small. Needy. The sound of a woman past caring about dignity.
And through the bond—
His attention sharpened.
I felt it like a physical weight, like eyes opening across impossible distance. He knew. Somehow, through the connection between us, he knew exactly what I was doing. I should have stopped. Should have been embarrassed, ashamed, should have pulled my hand away and pretended nothing had happened.
But he wasn't stopping me.
His desire surged in response to mine, feeding back through the bond until I couldn't tell where my arousal ended and his began. He was feeling this too. Feeling my pleasure as I felt his, a loop of wanting that built on itself, spiraling higher with every stroke of my fingers.
Was he touching himself too?
The thought made me whimper. Made my back arch off the bed, made my fingers move faster, chasing something that felt vast and inevitable. I pictured him somewhere in the dark, one hand wrapped around himself, stroking in time with my movements because he could feel them, could feel everything—
The shadows in the room began to stir.
I barely noticed. Too lost in sensation, in the feedback loop of desire that had become something almost unbearable. Hiswanting fed mine. Mine fed his. We were linked across all that distance, caught in something neither of us could control.
"Please," I heard myself whisper. To him. To the darkness. To the bond that connected us. "Please, please, please—"
Through the connection, I felt his response. Not words exactly. Something deeper. A pulse of authority, of possession, of permission granted. Take what you need, little one. Let me feel it.