Her voice, her scent, her presence, it was a brilliant light in the dark.

As was her kiss when she put aside the empty nutrient bottle and touched her lips to his. An invitation to play from a wolf.

Chapter 34

Touch is our cornerstone

Cure for the heart

Medicine for the soul

—Anonymous changeling poet

ETHAN WRAPPED HIS arms around Selenka’s body . . . and only then did he sense the faint trembling that shook her frame. “Selenka?”

“It was as if you were in a coma.” Rasped-out words. “And your eyes bled.”

Burying his face against the side of her neck, he held her tight as she held him. And though the world was heavy and dull right now, his senses in a fog, the import of her words hit him like a hammer. Selenka had worried about him until she trembled from her relief. Ethan had never mattered that much to anyone.

Pressing his lips to the skin of her throat was instinct and need. Such deep need. He wanted to gather in all that she felt for him, wanted to surround himself with it until he wouldn’t ever forget. Until the power stretching his mind couldn’t steal it away.

She arched her neck for him, her claws slicing out to prick him through his T-shirt.

But when he slid his hand under her jacket and tee, fingers splayed against the smooth warmth of the skin of her lower back, she gripped his wrist. “I want Oleg to take a look at you first.” Breath shallow and pulse rapid, her fingers clenching on his wrist. “I need to know for sure that you’re healthy and safe.”

“I am,” Ethan vowed. “Trust me.”

Wolf-gold eyes examined him with a potent intensity. He held his breath, suddenly realizing how much it meant to him that she do that: trust him.

Releasing his wrist in silence, she leaned into him . . . an alpha wolf who trusted him with herself. Chest aching in a way that was a large rock on his rib cage, he said, “Your back?”

“All but healed.” Clawed fingers scraping gently down his jaw. “Do what you will, Ethan. I’m a wolf.” A soft growl. “I won’t break.”

Accepting her at her word because his mate was a wolf, a powerful one, he shifted to take her to the bedding on which he’d been lying, turning them so that the line of his body pressed up against hers as she lay below.

He needed to cover her this way, protect her, even knowing she was lethal and well capable of protecting herself. But the madness inside him was insistent that even alpha wolves needed tenderness when wounded and scared. His Selenka needed the tenderness.

He touched her with reverence, still not quite believing that she was his, that he had this right. But to care for her was his right and his privilege. Ethan would not guarantee the well-being of anyone who got between him and his mate.

When he went to remove her jacket, she lifted up enough that he could tug it off. Her body was sleek and strong under his, her hands possessive as they shaped his shoulders, and her mouth wet and hot. He drank it all in, each kiss, each caress, each instant with her filling a deep, empty well inside him.

He wanted to fall into her, devour her.

When she pushed up his T-shirt, he tore it off over his head and dropped it to the side. She learned him with her hands, her pleasure in his body doing things inside him he couldn’t explain. Ming’s henchmen hadn’t been gentle about the physical punishments they’d meted out.

Selenka brushed her fingers over one of the ridged scars. “I want to kill them.” Soft words, a predator’s growl. “Rip their limbs from their bodies and their heads from their necks.”

“They’re already dead.”

“Good.” She tugged down his head for a kiss tangled and wet and possessive. Her chest rumbled with her wolf’s voice, her fingers clawed against his scalp.

Ethan didn’t fight the primal possession; he fell into it. Into her. Into a woman as wildly alive and vibrant as the summer storm he’d once seen when Ming forced him to commit murder. When he kissed her with voracious hunger, she responded with moans in the back of her throat and the pricking of claws at his nape before she slid her hands over his back.

Claws scraped his skin, but lightly, playfully. His mate was pleased with him, wanted him. “I’m so glad you’re mine, Ethan Night. Strong, stubborn”—a nip of his jaw—“dangerous, beautiful, and tender. I’m keeping you.”

The soul Ethan wasn’t sure he possessed drank in the words, and even recovering from a flameout, the power of her claiming was a punch through his system. Breathless, hungry, needing, he kissed his way over her jaw and to her throat, and when he pushed up her T-shirt, she took it off to drop it beside his.

Loyal got up and wandered off.

A soft laugh from Selenka. “I think we’re shocking your dog.”

“He’ll get used to it.” Because Ethan intended to do this with Selenka as often as possible.

His mate’s bra was black lace with each strap formed of two thin but strong ribbons, with a small bow at the end where it joined the cup. “I—” Pushing up on his arms, he looked down at how her breasts plumped pale against the cup of lace. “This isn’t like your other item of underwear.”

“Like it, do you?” A laugh that held a kind of power he’d never before faced, and he’d been around plenty of powerful Arrow women. “I’m partial to lace and satin at times.” She ran a finger over one breast, drawing his attention to the soft, plump mound.

He pressed down on his hands to put his lips against her delicate skin.

Groaning, she said, “Ethan, you are ridiculously hot when you show off all that muscle.” Her words trembled as she gripped his taut biceps. As if he did to her what she did to him. As if he had sensual power of his own. The warmth inside him grew and took on a tone of . . . satisfaction. Settling more firmly against her, he kissed and licked and stroked her breasts before cupping one and squeezing.

She clamped her thighs around him, her body arching in a sinuous curve as she ran her nails up his back in a caress that had the tiny hairs on his body standing up. Tugging down the lace of her bra cup, he closed his hand over her bare flesh, her nipple a pebbled hardness against his palm. He kept his gaze on her face as he squeezed this time, saw her eyes flutter almost all the way shut—but for the slitted gold gaze that watched him with predatory focus.

Soft lips curved. “Come here, Ethan.”

He could and would deny her nothing.

His reward for surrendering was a kiss slow and languid that melted things in his body that shouldn’t have melted. Even as it did so, he began to feel flickers of awakening power. Soon, he’d be dealing not just with his telekinetic abilities, but with the rogue power that was a thing of chaos and madness.

Wanting as much skin contact as possible before that happened, he stripped off his remaining clothes at furious speed. Selenka smiled, powerful and sensual, when he returned to her and put his hands on the waistband of her pants. She cooperated by lifting her hips off the ground, and he soon had his mate naked but for the lace of her bra.

Lifting her arms, she invited him close.

He went, sinking into her kiss, letting go in a way he wouldn’t be able to do when the power surged. As if sensing his utter capitulation, Selenka flipped them so he lay on his back with her astride him, a powerful alpha wolf who liked the taste of Ethan Night, broken Arrow and devoted mate.

Her hair was a tumble of black, purple, and pink, and where many of his race would’ve seen that as a symbol of a lack of discipline, he saw a woman so confident that she didn’t need the trappings of what passed as control.

“You are so beautiful.” It was wrenched out of him, all his shields down and his heart laid bare. “You own me.”

Smile slow, Selenka reached back and unhooked her bra, sliding it down her arms to drop it on their other discarded clothes. His heart kicked, the reaction visceral and uncontrollable. His hands were on her hips before he was aware of it, and when she leaned forward into him, he felt caged by her powerful femininity—and it was the only cage he’d never wanted to escape.

“Those eyes, the way they look at me . . .” Selenka nipped him on the jaw. “Have a care, zaichik, or I’ll eat you up.”

“Anything you want. Anything you wish.”

Wolf-gold eyes glowed in the semidarkness beneath the forest canopy before her kiss consumed him. He stroked the sweet slope of her back, filled his hands with her breasts, tried to kiss every inch of her. When he got her on her back again and went down her body kiss by kiss, she gripped his hair with one hand but didn’t stop him.

Ethan licked her between the thighs.

Her moan created a haze in his brain, the taste of her a drug. Sinking into position, he kissed her as he would her mouth, the slick heat of her driving him on until his penis felt like stone and his skin was afire. Thighs quivering, she pulled at his hair until he looked up and began to crawl his way back up her body.

He wasn’t truly thinking at this point, every cell in his body focused on her and her pleasure. The kiss they shared was erotic with the taste of her, and he wanted more. Dropping his head to her throat, he sucked. She growled and changed their positions again, so he was the one on the bottom—with a magnificent woman astride him.

The wet heat of her brushed his erection.

Neck rigid, he gripped her hips and aligned their bodies. “Selenka.”

Wolf-gold eyes watching him, she sank down on his rigid length, enclosing him in scalding softness. His power stirred further to the surface. Gritting his teeth, he thrust up into her, wanting to reach the crescendo before he once more had to spend a massive part of his energy on controlling the rogue power.

Selenka’s claws dug into his skin, her hair falling silkily on his chest as she moved with him. Ethan needed . . . something but didn’t know what, or how to ask for it. Then Selenka kissed him with ferocious affection and that was it, the caress throwing him over the edge of the abyss.

His body blazed with pleasure as his mind blazed to full power, and for a stunning instant that hung in time, he was all he would ever be, without walls or chains or shields.