Page 107 of The King has Fallen

I could barely breathe, but hope took flight in my chest as I stared her down.

“Yilan… tell me there is no bond. Tell me your soul doesn’tsingwhen we touch?” I flattened my hand over hers on my chest and waited.

She stared back at me, that horror and fear roiling in her eyes, and yet…

She slumped in my arms and shook her head. “I can’t,” she whispered.

I descended on her with a tormented groan, with hands clawed, body shaking. The kiss was deep and brutal and a relief because she clung and clawed and gave as good as she got. And then she pressed herself against me, hooked her leg behind my thigh and gasped my name, and the leash I’d been holding so tightly for what seemed like forever, just snapped.

I was mindless, growling,devouringher. Clawing at her clothing, tearing it from her body, hissing when her nails scored my back as she tried to pull off my weapon straps.

Instead, I was forced to let her go long enough to rip the buckles loose myself—and open my leathers to free myself because my need was so great, I worried I would limit blood flow within the confines of my trousers.

There was no sound but our gasping breaths and the rustle and rip of clothing as I stumbled with her towards the bed, bit her lip between my teeth until she gasped, then picked her up and threw her onto the bed.

She bounced. She gave a small, breathless chuckle as she pushed up on her hands to sit, then reached for me as I crawled up after her. Unable to be apart from her for even the seconds it took to find her body, I gripped her hair and pulled her into a deep kiss as I lowered her back to the pillows and settled between her thighs.

But just as she writhed against me and her mouth opened, just as I would have muttered the vows and taken herright then,I froze.

She went still under me and her eyes flew open—and I saw the zing of fear there, the immediate question, the doubt—and shook my head.

“I will give no room for anyone to deny this, Yilan. Tell me how your people bind for the vows?”

Her eyes went very wide. She had both hands on my face, gripping me and she stared, breathless for a moment.

“Are you certain?”

All the questions, all the doubts, all the obstacles and complications we would face swirled in my head, but they were nothing in the face of thisconvictiondeep in my chest.

She was for me.

She was made for me.

And I would never be complete without her.

“I have never been more certain of anything in my life,” I croaked.

She gave a breathless little laugh and shook her head, but she was smiling. Then she looked to the side, found the edge of the pillowcase and gripped it. I frowned, then realized she was trying to tear a strip from it.

Letting my weight rest on her so that she sighed, I reached over her head for the simple cotton and tore it, pulling a strip that ran the length of the pillow, yanking it off, then offering it to her.

She blew out a shuddering breath as she took it, then looked at me. “Give me your wrist.”

I offered her my right hand, knowing she preferred her right to be free, and her forehead creased. She stretched up to kiss me, her lips soft and plump and her tongue teasing so that I almost forgot what was happening, but then, after plunging the velvet depths of her mouth, I growled and leaned back again, bracing on my other arm so she could have that wrist.

Breathing quick and sharp, she tied the end of the cotton to my wrist, looping it twice, then tying it off with a complicated knot I’d never seen before.

She hesitated, and looked at me before she put her own hand near mine, and I knew she was considering what we were about to do. The bond that we would forge. Theeternalnature of this moment.

And, even as desperate as I was, as deeply as I yearned tofightfor this, I stayed silent.

I would not convince her. I could not take her against her will. I would not complete the bond that way.

She searched my eyes, then used that hand to cup my cheek. “Melek?”

“Yes?” I grunted, terrified she was about to retreat.

She bit her lip. “Thank God that you’re mine,” she whispered, and as my heart exploded, she laid her hand against mine, looped the cotton around both our wrists in a figure-eight, then tied it off on hers, using her teeth to pull it tight.

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