Page 57 of Zayrik

We were past restraint. Every roll of her hips drove me harder, faster, until the sound of our bodies meeting filled the room, rough and wet and relentless.

She was panting, moaning into my neck, biting at my jaw, and gods, I wanted to feel her fall apart. I reached between us, found her again with my fingers, circling her clit just right, and she shattered, tightening around me with a cry that ripped through both of us.

I wasn’t far behind. Her body gripped me like it knew what I needed, like she wanted to take everything I had. I slammed into her one last time, groaning her name, and gave her everything I had.

For a moment, neither of us moved. Just the sound of breathing. The faint hum of the ship. Her pulse against mine.

Then her hand found the back of my neck and pulled me in again. Not gentle, not sweet... just wanting more. And gods help me; I was already ready to give it to her.

I was still inside her when the second wave hit.

It wasn’t physical at first. It was something else. Deeper. A pull just under my skin. Like something had rooted itself in my chest and decided her heartbeat was the only rhythm that mattered.

Alaran instinct. The claiming. I knew the stories. Knew the bond that was supposed to lock into place the first time a true mate was claimed.

But I was only half.

It wasn’t supposed to work like this.

So why did I suddenly feel like her breath was mine?

She shifted beneath me, her thighs still locked around my waist, and the movement pulled a low groan from my throat. She wasn’t done.

Neither was I.

She kissed me again, hungry, open. And I was already hardening between her thighs. Her hands slid down my stomach, then lower, and that’s all it took. Whatever space existed between want and instinct vanished.

I moved, slow this time, dragging myself out of her just enough to slam back in again, harder. She cried out, legs tightening, hips meeting me thrust for thrust. The pressure built fast. Everything slicker, rougher, needier.

Her mouth moved along my jaw, her voice rasping against my skin. “I can feel you everywhere.”

I stilled for half a breath.

So could I.

Not just the way she fit around me. But in my head. In my chest. Like she’d marked me.

I growled low in my throat and braced one hand under her ass, the other sliding up her back to fist in her hair. “You’re mine now, thief. You feel that?”

She whimpered, gasped, rocked against me harder. “Yes.”

And gods help me, I felt her inside me, too.

That impossible thread pulled taut... no longer flickering, no longer faint.

Solid. Permanent.

A bond sealed in heat and truth.

I SNAPPED MY HIPS AGAIN, and this time when she came, I followed. Not just with my body, but everything I was.

As I buried myself to the hilt, groaning her name like it was carved into my tongue, I felt the bond lock into place.

Silent, sacred, undeniable.

Something ancient inside me had recognized her.

Claimed her.

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