Ariane:
His breath ghosted across my mouth, warm and unsteady. My chest rose to meet his, heart to heart, a shared rhythm without beginning or end. Only this. Only us.
And his eyes—gods, his eyes—held lifetimes.
Fathomless and wide, like galaxies cracked open. They drank me in as though he hadn’t known thirst until I touched him, as though he could devour my soul through nothing but a gaze.
“Say it again,” he rasped, voice raw, nearly undone. “Say I’m yours. I heard you the other night, I heard your claim. Please, Ariane, just—”
“You’re mine, Seris.”
The words lived in every breath between us, in the way my hand trembled as I reached for him, in the tilt of my chin, the parting of my lips, and the surrender etched into the curve of my throat.
He saw it.
Felt it.
And then—
He kiss
