Chapter 4
FOUR
LINDSAY
“You’re sure about this?” Dorian asks after a moment.
The servants’ passage is narrow, the air thick with dust and the faint metallic tang of old wards.
His arm is still solid beneath my grip, his power a steady thrum against my palm.
“Raiden’s not going to be gentle when he finally sees you.
Weeks of pain, weeks of separation, weeks of thinking you were gone forever… his beast is riding him hard.”
“I know.” My fingers tighten on his arm. “That’s why I’m going. He’s suffered enough because of me.”
Dorian’s steps slow. He glances sideways, blue eyes searching my face in the dim, flickering light of the sconces we pass. There’s no teasing smirk now—just a quiet, almost careful intensity.
“When I say ‘riding him hard,’ Lindsay…” He pauses, choosing his words with unusual delicacy for someone who usually flings innuendo like confetti.
“I mean the mating urge has had six weeks to fester without any release. Without you. His beast isn’t just protective right now.
It’s feral. Starving. The only thing that’s ever truly settled a shifter in that state is…
” He lets the silence finish the sentence, but his gaze drops meaningfully to my mouth, then lower, before flicking back up.
“Full claiming. Skin to skin. Bond to bond. Everything.”
Heat floods my cheeks, then races lower, pooling in places I refuse to acknowledge while we’re creeping through a forgotten corridor like thieves. I swallow anyway.
“You’re saying sex,” I say flatly, forcing the word out, because dancing around it feels worse. And it’s not lost on me that Raiden and I haven’t had sex yet.
“I’m saying mating,” he corrects softly.
“Which, for him—for your bond—is going to look a lot like desperate, consuming, possibly rough sex the second he gets his hands on you. Claws. Teeth. Fire. The works. He won’t be thinking about being gentle.
He’ll be thinking about claiming what he thought he lost.”
My pulse hammers against my throat. The bond pulses in answer—Raiden’s heat flaring brighter, wilder, closer now that we’re moving toward him. I can almost taste him on the back of my tongue.
“I can handle rough,” I say, and it comes out steadier than I feel. “I’ve handled worse in the Veil.”
Dorian’s expression flickers—something dark and appreciative flashing across his face.
“I don’t doubt it, Veilborn. But this isn’t about pain tolerance.
It’s about the fact that once he starts, he may not stop until the bond is sealed so deep neither of you can breathe without the other.
Until every inch of you smells like him.
Until the beast inside him finally believes you’re real and here and his. ”
He stops walking entirely, turning to face me in the narrow passage. His free hand lifts, fingertips brushing the side of my neck where my pulse is racing.
“And you’ll want it,” he adds quietly. “The bond will make sure of that. But wanting it and being ready for the reality of it…those are two different things.”
I hold his gaze. Shadows curl lazily around my ankles, brushing the hem of my clothes like they’re listening. Like they approve.
“I’ve spent weeks in a place that wanted to devour me whole,” I tell him. “If Raiden needs to claim me to feel whole again, then let him. I’m not afraid of his fire. I’m not afraid of him.”
Dorian studies me for a long beat. Then the corner of his mouth curves, looking almost proud of me.
“Good,” he murmurs. “Because when we open that door, there won’t be time for second thoughts.”
He starts walking again, slower now, guiding me around a sharp corner where the passage narrows even further. The wards here are older, weaker; I feel them shiver against my skin like cobwebs.
“Once he scents you,” Dorian continues, voice barely above a whisper, “the wards won’t matter.
Nothing will. He’ll tear through them like paper.
And the second he has you in his arms…” He lets the sentence trail, but his thumb strokes once along the inside of my wrist where it rests on his forearm—a small, deliberate touch that sends sparks racing up my arm.
“Just…don’t fight the bond. Let it happen.
Fighting it will only make the beast more frantic. ”
I nod once. The Veil inside me hums—dark, eager, approving. It wants this. Wants the bonds strengthened. Wants all of them anchored to me so tightly nothing can tear us apart again.
We reach a rusted iron grate set into the wall. Dorian presses his palm to it; faint green light flares, then fades as the metal groans and swings inward on silent hinges.
Beyond it: a short flight of stairs leading up, then we are standing in front of Raiden’s quarters.
I’ve never been here before, but I know he’s behind the door, what’s left of it anyway.
It has claw marks that are so deep they splintered the wood on this side, and peeks of light filter through to the darker hall.
I can feel him now—furious, aching, and needy. The bond is a live wire between us, pulling taut.
Dorian pauses a few steps from the door.
“Last chance to turn back,” he says, though we both know I won’t.
I step forward instead, shadows rising to curl around the hem of my clothes like a dark coronation robe.
“Open it.”
He does, and the door swings wide.
Heat blasts out first. Then the roar of Raiden’s beast fills the corridor, raw and desperate and so full of longing it cracks something inside my chest.
His eyes find me from the center of the ruined room. And everything else disappears.
The door slams shut behind us with a crack of splintering wood—Dorian’s magic or Raiden’s fury, I don’t know, and I don’t care.
The air is thick with smoke and cedar and the sharp metallic bite of blood.
Scorch marks stripe every wall, furniture lies in shredded pieces, and the heavy oak bed-frame is cracked down the middle like someone tried to tear it apart with bare hands.
In the wreckage stands Raiden.
Fully shifted.
Nine tails fan behind him in a blazing corona of white-gold fire, each one rippling with barely contained power.
His fur is darker than I remember—almost black at the tips, streaked with molten amber—as if the weeks of torment have burned new colors into him.
He’s massive, easily twice the size of his human form, shoulders broad and muscled, claws long enough to gouge stone.
His muzzle is pulled back in a silent snarl, fangs gleaming, ears pinned flat against his skull.
But those eyes—those golden eyes—are locked on me like I’m the only thing left in the world that matters.
Lindsay.
The word isn’t spoken aloud. It’s a rough, desperate rumble inside my head, layered with so much raw need it vibrates through my bones.
He takes one step forward.
Then another.
I don’t move. I can’t. The bond between us is screaming now—hot, electric, pulling so tight it hurts in the best way. My heart slams against my ribs in time with his.
Mine.
The word is a growl, possessive and feral, nothing like the gentle, teasing Raiden who used to kiss my knuckles and call me trouble with a soft smile. This is the beast that’s been caged for six weeks, starving, aching, convinced his mate was gone forever.
You’re real.
He’s moving faster now—long, prowling strides that eat the distance between us. His tails lash once, twice, sending sparks scattering across the ruined floor.
You came back.
Dorian steps half in front of me, shadows of green fae magic flickering at his fingertips, ready to shield. “Easy, fox—”
Raiden doesn’t even look at him.
One massive tail whips out—faster than I can track—and wraps around Dorian’s waist, yanking him aside with casual, brutal strength. Dorian stumbles but doesn’t fight it, just shoots me a look that says I told you so before melting back toward the wall, giving us space.
Raiden closes the last few feet in a single bound.
His front paws hit the floor on either side of me, caging me without touching. Heat rolls off him in waves. His muzzle lowers until his nose brushes my hair, inhaling deep.
You smell like the Veil. Like death and power.
A low, rumbling purr vibrates through his chest.
And like mine.
Before I can answer, his nine tails surge forward and wrap around me.
Thick, burning fur coils around my waist, my thighs, my arms—dragging me flush against his massive chest. The heat sears through my clothes but doesn’t burn; it licks, teases, marks.
His scent floods me—smoke, cedar, wild forest, and something darker, hungrier.
Every tail strokes, rubs, and presses against my skin, rubbing his essence into my skin until I’m drenched in him.
Lindsay…
His muzzle drops to my throat. Teeth graze the place he bit me before—that sometimes I think I can still feel a slight bruise. That bite was in his human form.
I gasp. “Raiden. I’m here. I’m not going anywhere.”
He nips, and desire explodes through me like wildfire.
My knees buckle; only his tails keep me upright.
The pain is bright, perfect, threading straight to my core.
The new found darkness inside me loves it—shadows surge up my legs, twining with his tails, embracing the violence, drinking it in like wine.
Need you.
He nips again—higher, along my jaw—and I gasp. My hands fist in his fur, pulling him closer.
Need to feel you. Need to know you’re here. Need to mark you so deep nothing can take you again.
His voice in my mind is fractured, feral, nothing but instinct now.
Another nip—harder—right over where he bit me before. This time he breaks skin.