The air between them was molten, every breath charged with unspoken promises. Mae's skin still tingled where Lucien's hands had touched, and though no words passed between them, she felt the weight of everything unsaid pressing closer than his body.
Lucien's lips brushed hers again, slower this time, deliberate, as if he wanted her to feel each second stretch. His touch was both grounding and consuming, tethering her to something solid even as the world seemed to unravel.
Mae's fingers traced the lines of his chest, memorizing the shape of him beneath her hands, each curve sparking a wave of heat. His strength was undeniable, but what struck her most was his restraint, the way he trembled slightly under her touch, as though holding back more than she could fathom.
Her breath caught as his hand slid to the small of her back, drawing her closer. "You are not afraid of me," he murmured, almost a question, almost a confession.
Mae shook her head, her lips brushing his jaw. "I never was, not really," she whispered.
The words cracked something open. His control slipped, just enough for her to feel the depth of what he had been holding in, the hunger, the ache, the centuries of solitude breaking against her like a storm. The intensity of it stole her breath, but it did not frighten her. It only pulled her deeper, into him, into the inevitability of them.
Their movements grew more urgent, each kiss searing, each touch carrying the weight of everything denied. Mae's heart raced, but beneath it all was clarity. This was not just desire. It was surrender.
As Lucien pressed his forehead to hers, their breaths mingling, she realized this was the moment everything shifted. She was not only giving in to him, she was giving in to herself, to the bond that tied them together. Whatever awaited beyond this night, she knew one thing with certainty. She was his, and he was hers.
Lucien kissed her again, no longer hesitant, no longer testing restraint. Mae melted into him, her body arching toward his. His hands traced her sides with reverence, memorizing her shape. Every place he touched ignited something inside her, heat radiating outward until her skin hummed.
Mae gasped when his mouth trailed along her neck, each kiss deliberate, burning with purpose. Her fingers tangled in his hair, pulling him closer, urging him on. The strength in him, the restraint giving way to something far more consuming, thrilled her.
Time shattered. The war, the fear, all fell away until there was only him. Every movement, every brush of his hand against her skin, sent a cascade of sensation through her. Lucien held her like she was both breakable and indestructible, guiding her with steady certainty, but always letting her choose to claim him in return.
When their bodies finally aligned, the connection was more than physical. It was a collision of worlds, of power, of something ancient binding them together. Mae cried out, raw and unrestrained, her fingers digging into him as sensation tore through her. She wanted more, needed more, and Lucien gave it to her.
Their movements found a rhythm, desperate yet unspoken, a dance of need and surrender. Mae's breaths came faster, her body trembling as waves of heat and light coiled tighter inside her. Each movement carried the weight of his power, the echo of hers, intertwining until she could not tell where she ended and he began.
"Mae," Lucien whispered against her skin, his voice rough, his restraint unraveling. "You are mine."
And she believed him.
When release came, it was like the universe cracked open inside her. Sensation consumed her, fire and light flooding her body, drowning her in him. She clung to him, every nerve alive, every beat of her heart echoing in the space between them.
Lucien's arms tightened, holding her through it, his own body shuddering with the same surrender. For a long moment, there was nothing but the sound of their breathing, the heat of their bodies pressed together, and the undeniable truth that nothing could break the bond they had just forged.
Mae rested her forehead to his, feeling the thrum beneath his skin answer the pulse in her own. The planet's night pressed in, a hush alive with distant currents, as if the world itself listened.
Lucien did not let go. His palm splayed at the small of her back, steady and warm, the tension in him softening. He studied her face as if reassembling constellations, memorizing what the dark could not steal.
"Tell me to stop and I will," he said, voice rough velvet. "Tell me to stay and I will carve a path through the void to keep it so."
Mae's answer was a quiet yes that lived in the press of her mouth, in the way her hands framed his jaw, in the way her body curled closer rather than away. The fear in her chest loosened, replaced by something fierce and startlingly calm.
The afterglow stretched, a slow tide rolling in and receding. Lucien gathered his cloak around her shoulders and she leaned into it, into him, that strange safety that always felt like standing on the edge of a blade. He kissed her temple, a whisper of heat that made her eyes drift closed.
The ground answered.
At first it was only a tremor, faint and far beneath their feet. Then a second, closer, threaded with a tone that was not earth at all. Mae's skin prickled. The air cooled. The stars above blurred, as if seen through water.
Lucien went still. "Do you hear it," he asked.
She did. Two quick, stuttering beats, light as birds in a distant tree, then a third sound like a breath caught in a throat. Her heart lurched. She had never held them, she had only heard Lucien say they were perfect, and now those faint rhythms trembled in the dark as if calling from a room she could not reach.
Light bled beneath her skin, fine filaments rising like ink in water along her wrists and collar, the same violet lines that lived beneath Lucien's, flaring in answer. His eyes widened, not with fear but with recognition.
"They are marking you," he said softly. "Not the Unseen. Something older."
The wind shifted. Leaves turned all at once. A cold, clean note hummed across the clearing and every hair on Mae's arms lifted. The sound was not the hungry thrum of the Unseen, nor the pull of the void. It was a lullaby, carried on air that tasted like iron and rain.
Lucien drew her behind him, one arm out, the other still holding her close. The lines along his skin burned brighter, chains of light tightening as if readying for a pull. The soil ahead split in a thin, precise seam. No quake, no roar, only a quiet parting of what should never part, a door opening where there was only night.
The lullaby stopped.
In the silence that followed, something knocked from the other side, three soft taps, the kind a child might give when it is too polite to wake a sleeping house.
Mae's breath stuttered. The seam widened by the width of a finger. A sliver of color showed within, not darkness, not light, a bruise of shifting twilight that bent the air around it. From that narrow space came a single sound, high and fragile and unmistakable.
A cry.
Lucien's hand tightened on her waist. "Back to the ship," he said, low and even, the calm of a blade before the cut.
The seam quivered, as if it heard him choose.
Then a shadow leaned close from the other side, close enough that Mae saw the outline of a face, familiar and wrong at once, a profile that could have been Kaine's or a mask wearing him. It smiled without teeth. The lullaby began again, farther away, as if walking deeper into whatever lay beyond.
The seam opened another inch. Something small pressed against it from within, a bundled shape shifting toward the gap, and the ground at their feet answered with both heartbeats at once.