"You're mine," he whispered again, the words vibrating against her lips, heavy with defiance and desire. Before she could retort, he closed the distance even further by tightening his arms around her, but he didn't attack her mouth with the violence he had shown before.
Instead, he framed her face with his large, calloused hands. His thumbs brushed over her cheekbones, high, sharp, and glowing with inner light… with a tenderness so fierce it was almost frightening.
He kissed her forehead. Then her eyelids. Then the tip of her nose. His lips traced constellations across her skin, as though mapping a universe that only he could see.
Isylia froze. She had braced herself for another assault, for pain, for humiliation. She had prepared her mind to endure the ravings of a beast. But this... this was confusing. Something she had not expected.
