"Trust you," she breathed, the words a phantom sound.
Those two words shattered the last of my resistance.
I bent my head to her throat, finding the pulse point where her life's blood ran closest to the surface. My fangs extended, sharp and ready. I pressed my lips to her skin, feeling the faint, fluttering whisper of her heartbeat against my mouth.
And bit down.
TAMSIN
Cold.
That was the only thing I knew. A deep, final cold that had extinguished the pain in my side and was now pulling me down into a quiet, starless void. I could feel my own heartbeat stuttering, a weak, fluttering rhythm like a dying bird's wings.
Then, through the encroaching numbness, a sharp, bright point of pain. It was not cold, but a searing jolt of pure energy that shocked the numbness from my bones. For an instant, it was the only thing I could feel in the entire universe.
Then the heat came.
It started at the bite, a wildfire racing through my veins, chasing away the cold with a ruthless, cleansing determination. It was a storm of sensation and change, consuming and rebuilding me in the same breath. I felt my body responding, my very cells reorganizing themselves according to new, non-human blueprints. My heart, which had been struggling, suddenly surged with a new, powerful strength, each beat a thunderclap in my chest.
But it was more than just physical. Something else moved through me, foreign and overwhelming. His presence, somehow, threading through my thoughts, weaving into the fabric of mybeing. It wasn't like he was reading my mind—this was deeper, more fundamental. A connection that rooted itself in the most primitive parts of my brain.
I knew him then, in ways that had nothing to do with sight or sound. I could feel the fierce, desperate protectiveness that drove him, the crushing guilt he carried for what he was doing, the overwhelming relief that was flooding through him as my body responded, as my life force rekindled. His emotions bled into mine, the boundaries blurring until I couldn't tell where I ended and he began.
The transformation was not gentle. It was a violent unmaking and remaking. The person I had been dissolved in that fire to make room for something new. Something that could survive in his world. Something enhanced. Claimed.
His.
The thought should have sparked rebellion, should have made me fight. Instead, it settled into my bones with a sense of rightness that defied all logic. The bond, I realized, worked both ways. Just as surely as I was his, he was now irrevocably mine.
The intensity began to ebb, the wildfire settling into a steady, warm burn. Exhaustion pulled at me, but it was the healthy tiredness of a body that had fought a great battle and won. My breathing had steadied, my heartbeat was strong and sure.
I felt Talon's hand smooth over my hair, his touch gentle now that the crisis had passed. His relief was a tangible thing, flooding through the new bond between us with an intensity that made my chest tight.
"Sleep," he murmured, his voice rough with emotion. "Let it finish."
I wanted to open my eyes, to tell him that I understood. That I wasn't angry. That the choice he had made for me was one I would have made for myself, had I been strong enough.
But the darkness was calling again, and this time it didn't feel like an ending. It felt like a beginning.
TALON
The bond was a live current in my veins, a constant, humming connection to her. Savage relief and abject terror warred in my chest as I watched her breathe. Each steady rise and fall of her chest was proof that I had saved her.
With each passing moment, the weight of what I had done pressed down on me.
But I would do it again without a moment's hesitation.
My quarters were silent, save for the soft hum of the ship's life support. The lighting was low, casting gentle shadows across her face. She looked peaceful now, the lines of pain smoothed away. On her shoulder, the mark I had left was a dark, intricate web of cobalt against her pale skin—my sigils, my claim, undeniable and permanent.
It was spreading. Even as I watched, the pattern was threading down her arm in delicate, static lines that mirrored my own. The claiming bite had triggered something deeper than just healing—it was rewriting her very biology.
I sat in the chair beside her bed, my usual control stripped away, leaving me raw and exposed. My hands trembled as I reached out to touch her face, then pulled back. I had no right. Not after the choice I had stolen from her.
A soft sound escaped her lips, and I leaned forward, my pulse quickening. Her eyelids fluttered, and then those hazel eyes opened, unfocused and confused. She blinked several times, her gaze wandering around the unfamiliar, austere room before finally settling on me.
"Where...?" Her voice was hoarse, barely above a whisper. "Where are we?"
"You've been unconscious for a day," I said, my voice raw. "I got us back to my ship,The Penumbra. You're in my quarters."
