"Y-yes."
"I hear the doubt in your voice. You cannot pretend for me as you have for others," he murmurs, his lips tracing maddeningshapes across my throat. "Tell me your thoughts since you refuse to speak them to my mind."
This time, my words come quickly.
"You rejected me before. And now you want me because I am your mate. But I worry... you don't understand what it is to take on someone like me."
He pulls back, fingers skimming across my waist.
"That's not true. I was called to you before the bond opened between us," he says gently.
I cup his face. "I pursued you, not the other way around."
His brown eyes slowly shift into the blue ones I've come to adore. He places his hand over mine.
"Perhaps you pursued me, but I followed. I followed you into enemy territory and have thought of you every day. When I heard you in my head, it was as natural as breathing. I'm not one to give speeches, but I will speak for as long as it takes to convince you."
My breath catches. Did he know how desperately I wanted to hear something like that? If he were to take me now, I don't even know what it would be like.
I've never been so ready for sex, never wanted my partner as much as I desire him. But… when he fills me with his cock, and kisses me with his eager mouth, will I resist the divine magic between us?
“You told me that you felt stupid for saying you wouldn’t care for a woman’s previous daughters, but my secrets don’t end there,” I start.
His brows furrow, but he waits.
“I don’t want to be pregnant again,” I say, letting the words out into the world. It had been so difficult, so painful. “It was… the hardest thing I’d ever done. I almost died. By some miracle, I didn’t. And by another miracle, I went back to work.”
He still doesn’t say anything.
I bite my lip, uncomfortable by the silence.
“I take a brew for being with Eneko, and I don’t have any illnesses, but if you make love to me, you can’t ever expect another child,” I say, ears ringing.
My heart pounds, and I look away from his face, not being able to bear what comes next.
His fingers stroke my hand, coaxing me to look back up at him. “Ruh’flor, when I said what I said in the tent, I did not know what I was talking about.”
“And now you do?” I say bitterly.
He brings my gaze to his.
“Yes. What you say… it does not bother me. It does not hurt me.”
“But how?” I insistent.
He sighs. “As living beings, we have this tendency to trade our unseen injuries—the pain of loss, regret, harm—for wisdom. Some pains are too sweet to remove because... because of all that they represent. Years went by. Decades. I carried my abrasions just beneath the surface of my skin in sacred vigil for my sisters. My father. My brother. I went against my king and shut myself off from all, save my mother."
Ra'Sa drops his hand and trails his fingers up my bare arm, pushing my fingers out of my clenched fists and spreading them wide. They barely come up past his palm.
He continues reverently. "I fought it for a time, but when I held you in my arms while you panicked, something changed. I had this... uncontrollable desire to be better. Moreso when I met Thea and Wren. You are more than enough.”
I pause. “Why?”
He strokes my hand. “The walls around my heart tumbled down by the force of our song. It was as if my soul woke up and told me to make space for something new. For you and all the glorious newness that comes with you and your people."
He leans forward and kisses me.
"Your ingenuity."