Chapter 9
CHAPTER
NINE
I wake slowly, aware first of warmth before anything else.
It surrounds me in a way that feels deliberate rather than accidental, a steady heat pressed along my back, an arm curved around my middle that holds without trapping.
For a few seconds, I stay exactly where I am, eyes closed, breathing evenly as I let my mind catch up with my body.
There’s no panic waiting for me this time, no cutting edge of remembered pain dragging me fully awake.
There’s only the quiet awareness that I am safe, held, and—strangely—comfortable.
That alone feels unfamiliar enough to make me hesitate.
I shift carefully, testing the limits of my body just like I’ve learned to do over the years. I expect the usual response: the quick, immediate protest from my ribs, the deep ache in my arm, the reminder that I’m still very much injured.
Instead, the pain comes softer.
It’s there, but dulled, as if someone has taken the worst of it and turned the volume down. My ribs complain rather than scream. My arm aches, but it does not burn. I take a slightly deeper breath just to be sure, and even that doesn’t punish me the way it should.
“Well,” I murmur under my breath, more to myself than anything else, “fated-mate shit for the win.”
Behind me, Varek makes a low sound that vibrates through his chest and into my back. It’s not quite a growl, not quite a word, but it is enough to remind me exactly where I am and who I’m lying against.
I open my eyes slowly.
The soft glow of Dathanor’s living stone spreads across the ceiling above me, faint blue-green light shifting in slow pulses.
The room is quiet, still wrapped in that strange sense of separation from everything outside it.
For a moment, I let myself stay in it, grounded in the steady rhythm of Varek’s breathing and the warmth of his body behind mine.
Then my body decides to make itself known in a completely different way.
I go still.
Because my cock is hard, and there’s nothing subtle about it. It’s not something I can ignore or pretend away. It presses firmly against the fabric of my clothes and, more importantly, barely a centimetre below where Varek’s hand rests just above it.
I let out a slow breath, staring up at the ceiling. “Fuck,” I mutter quietly.
The shift in me must be obvious, because Varek stills almost immediately. His arm tightens fractionally around my waist, not enough to restrain me, but enough to signal that he’s noticed.
“What are you doing?” he asks. His voice is low, controlled, but there’s something in it that I’ve not heard before. It’s not uncertainty, exactly, but it catches my attention.
I turn my head slightly, enough to look back at him. And then I have to stop myself from smiling.
Because Varek—who can face down a queen without blinking, who commands an entire rebellion like it is an extension of himself—looks, for the first time since I’ve known him, genuinely uncomfortable.
“You tell me,” I say, my voice still rough with sleep but already picking up with interest. “You’re the one with the enhanced senses.”
His gaze drops briefly, then returns to my face. His jaw clenches as if he is choosing his words carefully. “I can scent it,” he says.
I blink. “You can scent… what, exactly?”
“Your arousal,” he says plainly.
I stare at him for a second before dragging a hand over my face even as I feel a flush spread across my chest. “Fantastic,” I mutter. “That’s just brilliant.”
The situation is ridiculous. Mortifying, if I think about it too hard. But the directness of how he says it—so unfiltered—takes the edge off the embarrassment before it can fully settle.
“So you just decided to call it out?” I ask, lips twitching as I glance back at him.
“I did not call it out,” he replies. “I asked what you were doing.”
“That counts,” I shoot back, but there’s zero bite in my tone. “There’s such a thing as tact.”
“It would be a lie to ignore it.”
I pause because it’s not what I expected him to say. “You could have just said nothing,” I point out.
“That would still be avoidance of truth.”
I study him more closely now, something clicking into place. “Wait,” I say slowly. “You’re telling me you literally can’t lie to me?”
The answer comes without hesitation. “Yes.”
I let out a short breath, somewhere between disbelief and reluctant amusement. “That seems like a design flaw,” I say. “Or a very specific kind of problem.”
“It is not a flaw,” Varek replies calmly. “It is the nature of what we are.”
“As mates?” I repeat, testing the word even now.
“Yes.”
The certainty in his voice lands differently than it would have not that long ago. There’s no pressure in it, no demand. Just truth, offered without expectation.
I shift again, more deliberately this time, and turn around so I’m facing him fully.
The movement is careful, measured, but easier than it should be. When I settle, we’re close enough that I can see the subtle changes in his expression, the way his eyes track me, the way his body holds tension just beneath the surface.
His gaze drops briefly to my mouth, then rises again.
I notice. It’s impossible not to. And something that’s been quiet for far too long responds. “All right,” I say, tilting my head slightly. “Let’s test this whole honesty thing.”
Varek watches me, wary now in a way that feels almost… anticipatory. “What do you wish to know?”
I let my gaze drift deliberately, taking him in with the same attention he has been giving me since I woke. The curves of his horns catch the low light. The lines of his face are more defined up close, more alien and yet somehow more familiar than they should be.
“So,” I say, letting my tone stay light even as something deeper hums underneath it, “waking up next to me feels like what?”
He goes very still. For a moment, I think he might refuse to answer. Then he exhales slowly. “Dangerous,” he says.
I raise a brow. “Dangerous,” I repeat. “That’s what you’re going with?”
“It is accurate.”
I huff a quiet laugh. “Mate, I’m lying here half broken. I’m not exactly intimidating.”
“That is not the danger,” he says, lowering his voice slightly.
I hold his gaze. “Then what is?”
There’s a pause. A real one this time, during which I can see him deciding whether to say it or not.
Then he does. “It makes restraint difficult.”
The words settle between us, heavy and unguarded. I feel the shift within myself immediately, a flutter low in my gut, a lick of heat that has nothing to do with injury or recovery.
“Right,” I say quietly, some of the teasing disappearing, but not enough to make me change my mind about my super important “research” into this whole lie thing. Sure, I know he can sense lies or whatever, but I didn’t realise he couldn’t actually lie to me.
Colour me intrigued.
I glance again at his horns, curiosity sparking. “If I touch these,” I say, lifting my hand slowly so he can see exactly what I’m doing, “what does it feel like?”
His breath catches, subtle but unmistakable. “They are sensitive,” he says.
I hesitate for only a second before letting my fingers brush lightly against the base of one horn.
The reaction is immediate.
His body tenses, his breath falters, and the bond between us surges with a sudden, searing heat that runs straight through me. It’s not painful. It’s not even overwhelming. It’s simply… intense.
I still my hand, not pulling away, just taking in the reaction. “That answers that,” I murmur, my cock doing a valiant job of punching through the fabric keeping it contained.
“Pax,” he says, and this time there is a clear warning in his voice.
I look back at him, my blinks a bullshit attempt at innocence. “Yes?”
“You are not unaware of what you are doing.”
I consider that for a moment, then let a small smile pull at my mouth. “Maybe I’m figuring it out,” I say, easing into this new flirtation I haven’t allowed myself in years—long before I ended up in Terrafeara, in fact.
And that is the truth.
Because this version of me—the one who teases, who pushes, who asks questions like this without immediately shutting it all down—is not the man I used to be.
That man stayed quiet. Careful. Hidden.
This one doesn’t.
I let my hand drop, but I don’t move away. “You said you can scent it,” I continue, my voice quieter now. “My arousal.”
“Yes.”
“And are you aroused?”
He stills again. The silence stretches just long enough to make the answer matter.
“Yes.”
I let out a slow breath, something settling into place inside me. “Well,” I say, meeting his gaze, “that’s… convenient.”
The words hang there, balanced between humour and awareness. For once, I don’t shut it down. I let it sit. Let it exist. And that, more than anything else, feels new.
I should pull back. That’s the smart move. That’s the version of me that’s kept me alive for ten years—hell, long before that when I spent years protecting myself from Thomas. It’s the version that learned how to walk away before anything gets complicated, before anything gets real… or unsafe.
Instead, I stay exactly where I am.
Varek hasn’t moved either. Not properly. There’s tension coiled through him now, visible in the set of his shoulders, in how his breath comes slower, more deliberate, like he’s controlling something that wants out.
The bond hums between us, low and steady, but there’s an edge to it now. Heat layered over anticipation.
I swallow, suddenly very aware of how close we are. “Will you always be this honest?” I ask, because apparently I’ve decided talking is safer than thinking.
“Yes.”
“No filter at all?”
“Not with you.”
I huff out a quiet breath, dragging my gaze over him again, slower this time. Taking in details I’ve avoided for years. The clean lines of his face. The faint glow under his skin. The way his horns frame everything, elegant and brutal all at once.
“You’ve been holding back,” I say, not really thinking before the words come out.
His eyes narrow slightly. “From what?”