MARRIED TO THE HIDDEN LYCAN KING

Chapter 9 — The Bond

(Kaeryn)

I had told myself, for months, that I could do this without losing control of it. Marry the human bride, honor the contract, protect the House, and keep whatever the bond wanted from me locked down tight enough that it never became more than duty.

I stopped believing that the moment her mouth touched mine in that chapel and something ancient in my blood recognized her as mine with a certainty that had nothing to do with choice.

By the time we reached the room prepared for us — her room now, ours now, the thought still strange in my mouth — I had rebuilt most of my composure. It lasted exactly as long as it took her to turn around and look at me the way she was looking at me now: uncertain, curious, and not remotely afraid, which undid me faster than fear ever could have.

"You're allowed to say if you'd rather wait," I said, low, giving her the exit I owed her. "Tonight's been enough already, without—"

"Kaeryn." She crossed the space between us before I finished the sentence, close enough that I could hear her pulse pick up, feel the warmth radiating off her skin. "I've spent a week being handed decisions I never got to make. Let me make this one."

I should have been stronger than this. Kings before me had held the line against exactly this kind of pull and survived it — but none of them, I thought distantly, had been looked at like this, like something worth wanting instead of something to be managed.

When I kissed her again, it wasn't careful. It wasn't a promise anymore. Her hands found the front of my shirt, and mine found the curve of her waist, and the low sound that left my throat wasn't entirely human, and she didn't pull back from it — she pressed closer, like the wildness in me was something to be met rather than feared.

"Tell me if I need to slow down," I murmured against her jaw, fighting for the last thread of control I had left.

"Don't," she breathed. "Slow down, I mean. Don't slow down."

That was the last coherent thought either of us had for a long time.

I learned the shape of her slowly, deliberately, despite every instinct screaming at me to be faster, rougher, to claim rather than discover — because some things deserved to be discovered, and she was the first thing in eleven years of ruling this House alone that had felt like it was mine to keep rather than mine to protect from a distance. Her hands mapped the same hunger back into my skin, fearless in a way that should have been impossible for someone twelve hours removed from watching me become something out of nightmare, and every gasp, every soft broken sound of my name in her voice, wound the bond between us tighter than any ceremony had.

Somewhere near dawn, wrapped around her in the dark, feeling the bond settle into something that pulsed low and warm and permanent between us, I made the mistake of thinking, for one unguarded moment, that maybe I could actually protect her from everything waiting outside these walls.

That was when I felt it — faint, distant, but unmistakable through the bond that had just cemented itself between us.

Her heartbeat, spiking hard with fear, even in her sleep.

And underneath it, carried on the wind through a window I'd forgotten to check, the scent of gun oil and silver that had no business being anywhere near my land.