Chapter 4: One Night

NIKOLAI

She didn't tell me to stop.

That was the only answer I needed.

I pulled back far enough to look at her—really look, the way I'd learned to assess everything that mattered—and what I found wasn't surrender. It was a decision. Deliberate. Hers. The difference registered somewhere important.

"You're certain," I whispered. Not a question. A confirmation.

Her chin lifted slightly. "Don't make me repeat myself."

That was all she gave me.

It was enough.

I kissed her again—slower this time, with considerably more intent—and felt the precise moment her body stopped bracing for something painful and started responding to something else entirely. Her hands found my shoulders, fingers pressed in. My mouth moved to her jaw, her throat, and the soft place beneath her ear. Her breath changed in a way that Draven registered before I consciously did.

'Mate,' he pressed, low and reverent.

I knew.

She smelled like rain and jasmine and something ancient that my blood recognized before my mind caught up, and I stopped trying to reason around it. I pulled her closer, hands moving carefully—learning rather than claiming—and she made a sound against my throat that undid approximately a century of practiced restraint.

"Nikolai."

My name in her mouth.

I'd heard it used as a warning, a title, and a threat—never like that.

I drew back to look at her face. Dark and half-lidded eyes stared back at me, the silver-gold ring around her irises catching the low light. That expression, the one I hadn't earned yet but intended to.

"Tell me what you want," I breathed into her ear.

She blinked, as if the question surprised her.

That told me everything about the life she'd been living.

"That's not how this usually goes," she murmured.

"I'm aware." I held her gaze. "Tell me anyway."

Something shifted behind her eyes. The wariness didn't disappear—I didn't expect it to—but beneath it, something else surfaced. She reached up and touched my jaw. Deliberate. Testing.

"More," she said finally.

I obliged, laying her back against the sheets. Bracing one leg between her thighs, I lifted her arms above her head, my lips trailing down her neck. "Is this what you want?" I asked, my voice low and rough.

Anaiyah nodded, her breath hitching as she arched into my touch. "Yes," she whispered, her fingers tangling in my hair.

With every touch, kiss, and nibble, she moaned in pleasure, my hands tracing circles over her full breasts. I could feel her desire building with each passing moment, her body responding eagerly to my every move, igniting a fire between us that burned hotter with every touch.

She released another moan, her fingers digging deeper into my back, beads of sweat glistening across her forehead.

I left her breasts and trailed kisses down her slender stomach, journeying down to her pubic bone. Her eyes met mine, and I knew she could see the lust and desire reflected in my gaze, which regarded her body like a temple that needed to be worshiped, a gift meant to be adored.

She flushed at my stare.

I took my time sucking every inch of her body and savoring the taste of her skin, relishing the way she arched her back in ecstasy.

One hand tangled in the sheets while the other clung to my hair. I'd never admit this if anyone asked, but I live for her moans. I live for the way her body responds to my touch, the way she surrenders to the pleasure I give her.

I unbuckled my belt and kicked off my trousers, my manhood now fully exposed and ready for her.

"Now or never," I grunted into her ears as I stroked my manhood. Her eyes followed every stroke of my hand, her chest rising and falling. I pressed my throbbing cock at her entrance and rubbed it up and down.

Anaiyah stared up at me, her eyes like those of someone possessed. I wasn't even inside her yet, and that was her reaction.

"You gonna keep teasing me or actually put that monstrosity inside me?" Her thighs wrapped around my torso and yanked me closer.

Who would’ve thought my little mate was such a vixen?

'Be gentle with mate,' Draven urged.

I leaned forward, pressing my chest into the fullness of her breasts, and whispered in her ear, "Remember… you asked for it." With a mischievous grin, I finally entered her, savoring the gasp that escaped her lips.

Her body went still, her breathing shallow and raspy. I knew I had her right where I wanted her.

"Don't," she mumbled, turning her face away.

"Don't what?"

"Look at me like that."

I raised my head. "I'm not looking at you any particular way."

"You are." Her expression flickered. "Stop."

I moved, slowly, inch by inch until my cock was buried deep inside her. Her fingers dug into my skin, her head thrown back against the pillow, her back arching off the bed.

"Niko… lai…"

I pulled out and pushed right back in, and each time I did, she clung to me tighter, her walls adjusting to the size of me.

She was extraordinarily responsive and extraordinarily guarded in equal measure. She was a paradox I couldn't get enough of.

She grabbed my collar and pulled me down, and the last of her wariness dissolved somewhere between that moment and the next, replaced by something without her usual armor around it.

Draven went completely silent.

I noticed it halfway through—the absence of pressure. The burning that had lived beneath my chest for years, the weight behind my eyes, and the constant low grind of something clawing toward the surface. All of it simply… stopped. My breathing steadied. My pulse found a rhythm it hadn't maintained in longer than I could clearly remember. My hands stopped shaking at the edges the way they'd begun doing in recent months.

I went still.

Anaiyah noticed. "What?"

"Nothing."

She studied my face with those perceptive eyes. "Something."

"Later." I kissed her again before she could press further, and she let me redirect her, but I felt her file it away.

That honesty undid me faster than anything else could have.

We moved together through the kind of quiet that wasn't empty—full instead, layered with breathing and skin and the occasional fragment of language that didn't require completion. She said my name twice more. Both times it meant something different. I learned the difference.

Afterward, she lay beside me, catching her breath, staring at the ceiling.

I watched her.

The burning hadn't returned.

Draven remained silent—genuinely quiet, not suppressed—and my body felt steadier than it had in years. I ran a systematic check: sternum, vision, pulse, and the specific pressure behind my molars that preceded the worst episodes. Nothing. All of it gone.

Not managed.

Gone.

'She calms us,' Draven said finally.

I didn't answer him.

Anaiyah turned her head and caught me watching. Something crossed her expression—too quick to name. Then she looked back at the ceiling.

"You're still thinking," she said.

"I'm always thinking."

"About what?"

"Tomorrow." Partially true.

She was quiet for a moment. "And tonight?"

I looked at her. "Tonight was its own thing."

That seemed to satisfy something she'd been calculating. She exhaled slowly, and the tension across her shoulders released in stages. Her eyes closed. Her breathing deepened, then evened.

She fell asleep faster than I expected.

I didn't move.

The room sat quiet around us. Her warmth pressed against my side. Draven remained still in a way he hadn't been in years, and the absence of constant pain was so foreign it kept pulling my attention, demanding to be examined.

She was doing this.

Somehow, she was doing this.

I didn't understand the mechanism. Didn't have enough information yet. But the evidence was immediate and specific: every symptom I'd been managing through sheer force of will for the past decade had receded the moment she was close.

That was not the mate bond.

Or not only the mate bond.

'Not only bond,' Draven confirmed, infuriatingly.

I ignored him.

Anaiyah shifted in her sleep. I reached over—without deciding to—and pulled the blanket across her shoulder. Then I noticed what I'd done. Held still for a moment.

I hadn't done something like that in a very long time.

I rose before dawn. Dressed quietly. At the door, I paused and looked back at her—curled beneath the blanket, entirely unaware that the most dangerous man she'd ever encountered had just spent the night convinced she was somehow the most important one he'd ever met.

I opened the door.

My guard straightened immediately.

"Wake Beta Orion," I instructed. "Then find Alpha Adrian and bring him to the courtyard."

The guard hesitated. "And if he refuses, Alpha?"

My eyes settled on the corridor ahead.

"He won't."