All it will take is me stepping into his space and running my palms up his strong red thighs. I’m still not convinced he’s wearing undies—or hell, a loincloth or something—under t?—
“Jack.” This time my name’s garbled, a desperate plea that I’m pretty sure means he wants me to stop and get to business that doesn’t involve his monster peen in my arse.
I should be taking it easy on him. There’s little doubt that whatever he needs to tell me is as serious as a giant dick in my butt, but since my mind is apparently solely on his junk, there’s only a slim chance that I’m going to make it easy and stop eye fucking him. Wanting him. Needing him.
“I need you to try to stop blasting your intentions to me for one second and clear your mind,” he says through gritted teeth, as though each word is painful.
His words are enough to have me considering what he means, though my hard cock isn’t at all fazed. “Blasting my intentions?” Somewhere in the recesses of my brain, I know my reaction to Solan, to finally being alone with him, is excessive… desperate, even. The awareness doesn’t help in the slightest.
Especially when the strands of his hair are undulating, reaching for me. A shiver racks me, wanting their touch… Solan’s touch more than is logical, let alone healthy.
Hell, we’re both still splattered with dried monster blood. I have zero fucks to give, though, apparently.
“Please, Jack.”
It’s the tremble in Solan’s voice that has me swallowing hard and trying to clear my head from the desire that’s doubling down and taking over every cell of my body.
“Okay.” I nod a little stiltedly. “Intention? What do you mean?”
Solan exhales heavily, his chest rising and falling in a deliberate rhythm, like he’s trying to ground himself. His molten gaze flickers to me, his expression taut with restraint.
“You’re broadcasting,” he says, his voice a low, trembling growl. “Your emotions, your desires… everything. I canfeelit, Jack. It’s like a firestorm, impossible to ignore, impossible to—” He cuts himself off, his jaw tightening.
Broadcasting? The hell? I stare at him, trying to piece together what he means, but my focus keeps slipping back to the way his hair moves—those tendrils of living flame undulating with his every breath once again stretching towards me like they have a mind of their own.
“I don’t—” I start even as I recall our earlier moment when I was sure I could feel his emotions, but he raises a hand to stop me, his red fingers gleaming faintly in the dim light.
“You don’t realise you’re doing it,” he says, his tone softening. “It’s not your fault. The bond… it’s incomplete, but it’s already strong. Stronger than I expected. And after everything we’ve just discovered….” He trails off, something like desperate urgency in his eyes that begs me to understand the significance of what’s happening between us.
My heart skips a beat. “The bond,” I echo, the words thick on my tongue.
“Yes,” he murmurs, his gaze holding mine. “The connection between us. It began when we exchanged blood—the cut on your hand—that was the first step.” I look at my hand, then his, a frown dipping my brows low. “I cut it not on purpose,” he says quickly, and I nod, sending him a soft smile, knowing thatinstinctively. “The connection,” he continues, getting back on track, “It’s only a fragment of what it will become.”
I swallow hard, my mouth suddenly dry. “And the rest?”
This is absolutely something we both know we should have spent time talking about, but in fairness, we’ve been busy trying to stay alive. That kinda took precedence.
Solan hesitates, his tendrils curling and uncurling with a kind of restless energy. “The bond completes through the exchange of body, mind, and soul. Only then will our connection be whole. It’s… irreversible, Jack. Eternal. When one of us dies, the other will follow immediately. But until that time, we would share everything—strength, power, life itself. Even the fire I’ve already shared with you, the one you barely understand, will become something more.”
My mind reels, the weight of his words pressing down on me like gravity cranked to eleven. Eternal. Irreversible. Life itself.
I stare at him, the weight of his confession settling like a stone in my chest. Despite everything—the danger, the confusion, the sheer absurdity of this situation—there’s one thing I can’t deny: The thought of being without him is unbearable.
“Solan…,” I begin, but my voice falters as his hair brushes against my arm, the tendrils, warm and alive, sending a shiver down my spine. Apparently we’re no longer a couple of metres apart, our bodies working like the moon and the tide.
“I need you to understand,” he says, his tone urgent. “The bond isn’t just about us—it’s about what we can become together. My strength, my fire… it will become yours. And your fire will grow, become something neither of us can predict. But the connection goes both ways. Your emotions, your desires….” He trails off, his eyes darkening. “They already affect me more than you know.”
My breath catches, heat pooling low in my gut. “So… when you say exchange of body, mind, and soul….”
“It means what you think it means,” he says, his voice dipping into a growl. “And it means more than that.”
He steps closer, his presence overwhelming, the heat of him wrapping around me like a living thing. “The exchange of body… it’s the final step, the catalyst for the merging of our minds and souls. When that happens, we’ll be bound completely. Nothing will separate us—not distance, not death. We’ll share everything, Jack. Every thought, every feeling, every breath.”
I should be terrified. Hell, maybe I am. But all I can think about is the way his voice wraps around me like a promise, how his hair reaches for me like it’s as desperate for this as I am.
“And your hair,” I say, my voice rough. “It reacts to me because of the bond?”
He nods, his expression softening. “As you know, it’s part of me. A sensory extension. It responds to you because I respond to you. Because you’re mine.”
