lowered her to the bed she’d slept in all day, coming down over her, his knee nudging her legs apart. Heart pounding, she widened her thighs to accommodate him. To welcome him. He brushed kisses over her wet lashes and then she felt him, that thick, broad head pushing into her tight entrance. Her breath caught in her throat.
“Ainamet andam. I give you my body.”
She so wanted his body. She tried to push herself onto him, but she was so tight, her muscles resisted his invasion. She didn’t care if he stretched her beyond burning. She needed him. Nearly sobbing, she bucked her hips and squirmed, desperate to take him all the way inside her. The birthmark over her left ovary began to glow, the dragon showing himself.
Isai’s breath caught in his throat and then he kissed the mark gently. Reverently. “Mark of Dragonseeker. It is strong in you,” he whispered. “Sívamet kuuluak kaik että a ted. I take into my keeping the same that is yours.”
He surged a little deeper and she almost couldn’t breathe. When he bent his head to hers, his sapphire eyes burning his claim into her, his dark hair brushing like fingers over her skin, she couldn’t look away. Then he was kissing her with exquisite tenderness. He lifted his head, so their gazes collided, and she was held prisoner in all that blue.
“Ainaak olenszal sívambin. Your life will be cherished by me for all my time. Te élidet ainaak pide minan. Your life will be placed above mine for all time.”
He began to move in her, all the while those eyes staring into hers, as if he could see right into her soul. He held her as if she was the most treasured, precious woman in the world. She felt like she was truly beautiful, cherished, maybe even loved. He looked as if he knew her, and maybe he did, he’d been in her mind.
“Te avio päläfertiilam. You are my lifemate. I’m so grateful that you’re the one, Julija. That you are mine.”
She was more than grateful he was hers. She almost didn’t believe it, but it was difficult to refute it when he was looking right into her eyes. She could barely blink. She certainly couldn’t look away. “I feel the same,” she whispered, praying he was for real. That this wasn’t some elaborate illusion or dark, sinister plot against her. She wouldn’t be able to live through another one, not whole and intact. “Be real, Isai. Please, be real.”
“I am going to be so real most of the time, my little mage, that you will wish me otherwise.” His voice was warm with amusement, but it was also a warning.
She chose to ignore that. She found herself lifting her hips to meet his every stroke, urging him on with one hand to his hip.
“Ainaak sívamet jutta oleny. You are bound to me for all eternity.”
She wanted to be bound to him. Maybe he would drive her insane, but he would be hers. They would fight their enemies together. She needed that. She needed someone to care whether she lived or died.
“Ainaak terád vigyázak. You are always in my care.”
It was strange, but even with flames spreading like wildfire through her veins and little sparks of electricity dancing over her skin, she felt tiny threads binding them together, weaving back and forth between them. Her light shed over his darkness. In any context she would have thought it hokey, but she had studied Carpathian society. She knew lifemates were a reality in their world. Now she knew it applied to her as well.
He moved in her, welding them together, fusing their bodies the way he had their souls. She clung to him, her nails biting deep. Deep inside she felt the tension coiling tighter and tighter. Her gaze clung to his.
“Isai?” His name escaped. A ragged whisper of sound. Breathy. Needy. A little afraid.
“I have you,” he said. “Just let go.”
She knew when she did she would be swept away. Julija would be gone and it would always be Julija and Isai. “I’m terrified.” She was. Of the unknown. Of needing someone the way she would need him.
He leaned down and nuzzled her throat. “Come to me, sívamet. Just let go. You will never be alone again.”
Looking into those brilliant blue eyes, with her body on fire and wound so tightly she was afraid she might shatter, she took a breath and did exactly what he said. The tidal wave was massive, moving