“You won’t.”

He needed her to anchor him, because the flood of magic began to take him under. He could feel his power rushing back. It was like waking up after a vivid dream. Days and weeks and years tumbled in his mind, like the strands of an intricate tapestry tangling, unraveling, then forming something new. But the pattern was familiar. These were his years. His moments. His words.

They fell into his mind until their weight threatened madness.

Then…

One piece locked into place.

I heard you!

A hiss of steel and the bite against his skin.

Another piece locked.

“Do you have a name?”

A name?

“My name is Malachi.”

Another and another and another.

Colored threads twisting in a hedgerow. Pine needles on the forest floor. Salt and cedar and wind in the pines.

In the crash of memory he became hers again.

“You make the voices go away.”

A kiss.

One touch that had changed the world.

“You’re not crazy, Ava. You’re a miracle.”

A miracle.

He didn’t know what was real except for her.

She was real. The single voice in his mind.

“Come back to me.”

So he did.

“MALACHI.”

He heard her. Smelled the magic in the room like the lingering bite of ozone after a storm.

“Malachi?”

He blinked his eyes open and saw… everything.

Ava’s hair hung around her face, a dark halo surrounding radiant gold eyes. Her mating marks still lit the room, and a sheen of silver reflected on her breasts. He looked down, then looked back at Ava. Her smile trembled on her lips.

“They’re back.”

He nodded. He could feel every inch, even the aching scars on his back where he knew his family marks had returned. But he couldn’t take his eyes from her face. She must have given him new eyes, because his mate’s skin was luminous.

“Does it hurt?”

Malachi paused. He knew that it must hurt. His brain registered the pain in his arms. But it was nothing to the pure jolt of power her mating song had given him.

“Will you say something?”

“No.”

He sat up, wrapped his arms around her waist, and tackled her to the bed.

Ava gasped as he covered her. His mouth fell on hers in a ravenous kiss. He felt her breasts crushed against his chest. His hands tangled in her hair. Heat and magic and hunger swirled together in a vicious cocktail of need.

Malachi kissed her mouth, opening her lips with his tongue to taste her. Stroking along the lips that had worked such painful, beautiful magic. He bit her lower lip, sucked it into his mouth, and released it before he did the same to her upper.

One of her hands clutched his hair, the other dug into his neck, pulling him closer as her legs wrapped around his waist.

Jaw. Neck. Throat.

He let his lips linger at the rapid pulse in her neck as she gasped for breath.

Then his lips and tongue went lower, tasting the golden skin of her breasts, teasing frantic cries of pleasure from her. He bit the inner curve that tempted him, marking her with his teeth as he pressed up at the small of her back. He lifted her soft belly to his lips. He could feel his aching skin stretch and heal around the black ink that had reappeared, but the silver glow of the magic she’d given him was a pure current running through his body.

He pressed forward, taking her mouth again.

She was his. Every inch of her. Every breath. Every cry.

“Malachi, I need you.”

His to cherish. His to hold.

He ran a hand down the curve of her waist to her hip, stroking back and squeezing the tight round muscle in the palm of his hand. He pressed up and in, holding her there as the scent of her arousal filled the room.

“Please,” she whispered. “Please.”

He released her mouth only long enough to tear away the loose pants she wore. Then he shoved down his own and he was over her, poised at her entrance.

“Ava,” he commanded. “Look at me.”

Gold eyes met grey.

“You are mine.”

“Yes.”

Malachi drove into his mate with one thrust, sinking to the hilt and allowing his face to fall into her neck on a groan.

He closed his eyes and saw it again, a gold sky streaked with light.

Holy and wholly.

Their union a perfect mirror of eternity as their magic met and twined together. Light and dark spun in an endless whorl.

FAST. Then slow. Fast again.

“You’re going to kill me,” she panted after the second time they’d come together, and Malachi showed no sign of slowing down.

“Never.”

Malachi teased her for hours, the potent cocktail of magic and endorphins forming a perfect storm of sexual energy. Ava was wrung out. Exhausted.

But he could also feel her happiness.

Her contentment was a balm over his soul. He could feel the magic she’d sacrificed to bond herself to him, but he refused to let fear spoil her gift.

“I love your vow.” He stretched his arms over his head as she rode him.

She bent down, ran her lips over the flat, sensitive nipple surrounded by spells. Let her lips trail over the skin where he’d put her words.

“I will be proud to wear it,” he said.

“I’m glad.”

“I promise to always be a good home, Ava.”

She paused and looked at him, her eyes stripped of every defense.

Malachi whispered, “A safe home. Always.”