Her hand slipped between their bodies, her fingers closing around his hard cock. The feel of her small, strong hand on him, guiding him to her entrance, shattered the last of his control.
He pushed into her, inch by perfect inch. She was so tight, so warm, sohis. The mate bond blazed, magnifying every sensation until the pleasure was almost unbearable in its clarity. He felt her inner muscles flutter around him and felt the sharp intake of her breath as he filled her completely.
“Faith,” he growled against her lips.
Her answer was a loud, uninhibited moan that echoed off the stone, a sound of pure pleasure that was the finest music he’d ever heard. He began to move, setting a slow, deep, deliberate rhythm. He savored the drag and glide, the way her nails bit into his shoulders, and the broken sighs she breathed into his mouth. He was drawing out her pleasure, building it with every measured thrust, making her feel every inch of his possession.
“You feel like heaven,” he rasped, his forehead pressed to hers, their breath mingling in the steam. “You feel like home.”
“Kovrak… please.” Her voice was a ragged thread of sound. “Faster. Harder. Don’t be gentle.”
A predatory smile touched his lips. He would obey his queen.
The pace shifted from worship to primal. His thrusts became powerful, intense pistons, driving into her with a force that had her crying out and her head falling back against the tile. The water cascaded over them, cool on their heated skin. Thesteam thickened, a private cloud holding the symphony of their joining: her gasps, his groans, and the slap of wet skin.
He could feel her pleasure coiling, a tangible tension through the bond, a shimmering wire about to snap. Her inner walls began to clench rhythmically around him.
“Come for me,” he commanded, his voice raw with his own impending release. “Let me feel it. Give it to me.”
She shattered with a sharp cry, her body convulsing around him. The waves of her climax crashed into him through the bond, a feedback loop of ecstasy that tore his own control to shreds. Her pleasure was his pleasure, her peak his own trigger. With a final, deep thrust, he buried himself to the hilt and roared his release, his body shuddering as he spilled his seed deep within her, claiming her in the most primitive way.
For long moments, they clung to each other beneath the cooling spray, hearts hammering a frantic, synchronized rhythm. He gently lowered her, her legs wobbling, and he held her steady, his arms a fortress around her. He rested his forehead against hers, breathing her in—soap and the unique, intoxicating scent of her skin and their shared passion.
“The bond,” he murmured, his voice rough with spent emotion. “It will grow stronger. Deeper. More consuming with every day we share.”
She laughed softly, the sound utterly sated. “How could anything be more than that? That was… perfection.”
He pulled back just enough to look into her eyes, his pale blue gaze holding absolute, alpha certainty. “It can. And it will.” He brushed a wet strand of hair from her cheek. “Because our beautiful future has only just begun.”
TWENTY-ONE
FAITH
The palace kitchen hummed with the controlled chaos of creation. Faith stood at the center of it all, her hands steady as she guided the final delicate sugar florals into place on the towering six-tiered cake that had consumed her attention since dawn. The wedding cake rose before them like an edible monument—white fondant cascading in perfect waves, hand-painted twin suns blazing across the top tier in gold and amber, and edible metallic threading tracing the intricate lines of the Auryx pride crest with painstaking detail.
“Careful with that rose,” Faith murmured, watching Liora’s grandmother’s weathered fingers position a spun-sugar blossom at the base. “It needs to catch the light just so.”
Liora’s mother, a woman whose steady presence reminded Faith of mountain stone, stepped back to assess their work. “It’s magnificent, my dear. Fit for an empress.”
“A queen,” Liora corrected with a grin, her bright eyes dancing.
The words still sent a flutter through Faith’s chest. Three weeks ago, she’d been a failing bakery owner clutching a mysterious contract. Now she was hours away from wearinga crown. The transformation felt surreal, like stepping into an impossible dream.
She adjusted a final flourish—a cascade of silver leaves that seemed to shimmer with their own inner light. The rhythm of creation had claimed her completely, the way it always did when her heart was full, and her creative fire burned brightest.
This wasn’t just a wedding cake. It was a declaration. A symbol of two worlds, two hearts, two destinies braided together in sugar and art.
She could still hear Kovrak’s deep, amused protest from two weeks ago when she’d first sketched the design. “Faith, you don’t need to do all that. A simple cake would be perfectly?—“
“Nothing about us is simple,” she’d interrupted, her brown eyes blazing with determination. “And I want something grand enough to honor not just a wedding, but a destiny neither of us expected.”
He’d surrendered with that devastating smile that made her knees weak, pulling her against his chest, “Then create your masterpiece, my love.”
The memory sent heat spiraling through her, the mate bond humming with anticipation. Tonight, after the ceremony and the celebration, she would be his wife in every sense. The thought made her fingers tremble as she positioned the last sugar petal.
“Faith.” Liora’s voice cut through her reverie, gentle but urgent. “As much as I love watching you perfect that rose for the fifteenth time, you need to remember that in less than an hour, you’ll be walking down an aisle instead of circling a cake stand.”
Faith blinked, the spell of creation breaking as reality crashed back. The afternoon light streaming through the kitchen windows had shifted, golden and slanted.