“I know. That’s not what I meant. I only meant—”

Before she could finish whatever excuse she’d conjured up, he lunged. Gripping her hip with one hand, he wrapped his other around the column of her throat, pulling her flush against him and snarling down at her.

“Try to shut me out, Veralie. I’ll burrow so fucking deep under your skin, you’ll have to carve me out.”

She encircled his wrist with both of her hands, her callouses scraping his skin as she squeezed. “I’m not rejecting our bond, Jaren. I’m just not sure how I feel about the lack of privacy. I’m struggling enough with my own emotions without adding yours to the mix.”

He shook his head, her explanation doing nothing to calm him. “We are mates. Our bond exists for that exact purpose. So that I may anticipate your needs and see to it that they are met.”

“Open, honest communication can do that too,” she snapped.

He moved his hand higher, spreading his fingers around her jaw and tilting her head back. “I want to feel you, Veralie. All the time. In everything I do. It feeds me in a way I cannot describe.”

Her expression softened, and she released her grip on his wrist, caressing her thumb along his skin. “It’s just a lot, Jaren. Sometimes I can’t separate how I feel with how you feel. It’s confusing.”

He inhaled through his nose, saturating his senses with her star-fire scent and trying to calm the roar in his veins. “I don’t know of a way to block our connection without rejecting the bond. If any mated pair has discovered a way, they have not made it known,” he ground out.

Her brow furrowed. “I wonder if that’s why some Magyki reject it in the first place. Maybe it’s not that they’re against having a mate, maybe they just don’t want the intrusion of it.”

He dug his fingers into her hip, lowering his face until it hovered just above her own. “You have no idea how intrusive I can be. Tempt me, little star. I will intrude inside your body until we are one and the same. Until you can’t tell where I start and you end.”

He ran his nose along her jaw, watching gooseflesh pebble down her neck as he whispered in her ear. “You think our emotions are mixed now? I’ll meld them together until you can’t tell the difference between your pleasure and mine. I’ll forge our bond into gods damn steel.”

Her throat bobbed, and her heart picked up until it was a thrumming beat beside his own. “You’re a lot more possessive than I anticipated,” she breathed, pressing closer to him.

He grinned, drinking in the quick flare of arousal that rolled off her in response to his touch. “You have no idea.”

And she didn’t. Not yet.

The moment the Daughter to the Throne stepped foot on Bhasura, unmated Magyki everywhere would flock to her like starving beasts, desperate to sink their teeth in and lay claim to both her body and her title.