—Natasha's POV—
The word—whether it was “claim,” “accept,” or something else entirely—was lost the moment it left my lips, swallowed by the cataclysm it unleashed. There was no gentle merging, no sacred union. It was a cosmic collision, with my fragile human body as the fault line.
A concussive wave of power, distilled from the risen moon and focused through Zane’s indomitable will, did not flow into me—it impaled me. It struck the center of my chest with the force of a meteor forged from frozen starlight and primal intent. My spine arched in a violent, unnatural curve, every muscle seizing. A sound escaped me, not a scream, but the raw scrape of air being forced from lungs that had forgotten how to breathe.
The crude linen of my ritual gown didn’t burn; it simply ceased to matter agai
