Chapter 12 Bonded
The next morning the sun filtered through the curtains, casting a warm, golden grid across the tangled sheets.
I woke up gradually, but the usual heavy, disoriented feeling of a morning was completely absent.
Instead, I felt an extraordinary, vibrating clarity.
Before I even opened my eyes, a soft, deep rumble echoed directly inside my mind.
“Good morning, beautiful.”
My eyes snapped open. Aylin was lying on his side next to me, propped up on one elbow.
His lips weren't moving, but his blue eyes were fixed on me, bright and incredibly soft.
“Aylin?” I thought, testing the words internally.
The thought didn't just feel like my own voice.
It felt like a physical thread leaping across the space between us.
“Right here,” his voice echoed back, accompanied by a sudden, involuntary wave of warmth and fierce affection that wasn't mine, but flooded my chest nonetheless.
I gasped softly, sitting up and pulling the blanket to my chest.
The experience was dizzying. The telepathic connection wasn't just a walkie-talkie in my head.
It was a living, breathing bridge of raw data.
As I looked at him, I could feel his appreciation of the sunlight hitting my white hair.
I could feel the faint, dull ache in his shoulder mirroring the phantom tenderness in my own, where his mating mark now sat.
“It’s loud,” I thought, a little overwhelmed as a stray flash of his memory, having sex the night before, pulled at my consciousness.
Aylin smiled gently and reached out, his large hand wrapping around the back of my neck, his thumb lightly caressing the newly healed mark on my shoulder. The moment his skin made contact, the chaotic mental feedback loop instantly quieted down, settling into a smooth, comforting hum.
“You have to learn to push it to the background,” Aylin explained in my mind, his mental voice dropping to a soothing caress.
“Like background music. Close your eyes. Picture a door.”
I closed my eyes and took a deep breath, inhaling his scent of pine and sandalwood.
In my mind’s eye, I visualized the wide-open, roaring bridge between our souls.
Slowly, I imagined drawing a heavy, solid oak door across it, leaving just a small crack at the bottom.
Instantly, the flood of Aylin’s ambient thoughts receded.
The overwhelming sensory data vanished, leaving only a gentle, pulsing awareness of his presence and his steady, protective love anchoring me.
I opened my eyes and smiled, a breathless laugh escaping my lips. "I did it."
"You did," Aylin said aloud, his physical voice a deep, sleepy rumble that felt just as good as his mental one. He leaned forward, pressing his forehead against mine. "You’re a natural, Celest. Our wolves are perfectly matched."
Through the tiny crack I had left open in the bond, I felt his absolute pride in me, a solid, unshakeable foundation that I knew would follow me every single day for the rest of our lives.
“We are matched that’s for sure, and we stink,” I say laughing and standing up.
We walked over to the bathroom, and I turned on the water, turning back to the mirror I noticed the most beautiful mark on my shoulder.
It looked like a hand sized black and white galaxy resting over my collar bone. Aylin had the same one on his collar.
“Everything they told me is true then, I am the Queen of the Cosmos,” I say and realize that I hadn’t told anyone that yet, but Aylin just nodded, and then he bowed to me.
“I wasn’t supposed to tell anyone that, please don’t say anything, it is not the right time.”
“Celest, I love you, you are not only the love of my life, but my Luna and Queen, I would never risk your safety, plus babe I already knew. Capella told me for your safety.”
I couldn’t help myself; I reached up and pulled him into a deep kiss and he followed my lead by picking me up from under my thighs and carrying me into the shower pushing my back against the shower wall and this time we made love because we wanted to, not because of my heat,
this time I cried out his name in pure ecstasy.