Chapter 13
He exhaled.
A thin stream of warm air slipped through the hidden vents of his mask, barely more than a whisper against her mouth—yet it struck her like a force she had no defenses against.
Heat unfurled inside her with shocking speed.
It rushed outward, flooding her veins, her chest, her skin, her very breath.
The world shifted, brightened, sharpened—and then spun.
The scent hit her next.
Sweet.
Fragrant.
Musky.
Intoxicating.
A blend she had never encountered, something too primal to belong to Earth and too refined to come from any natural source. It surrounded her, wrapped around her, sank into her—an invisible storm crashing through everything she thought she understood about her own body.
Her fingers curled helplessly at her sides.
Warmth spread through her muscles, down her spine, pooling low in her abdomen. Her heartbeat skittered wildly, frantic and uneven, pounding against her ribs like it was desperate to escape.
Oh god.
A tremor rippled through her legs.
This was his venom.
She knew it as surely as she knew her own name.
Because nothing else could make her feel this way.
Her entire body vibrated on a raw edge between panic and something she refused to name.
Something that was warm and excited and…
Desperate.
Desperate—for him.
The realization crashed into her with humiliating clarity. She wanted to reach for him, to touch him, to feel that powerful body and the heat rolling off the golden armor. She wanted to lean into him, bury herself in the strength that terrified her.
She wanted him.
The thought alone nearly buckled her knees.
No.
She clawed at that single word like a lifeline.
No. You cannot give in to this. Fight it. Morgan, fight it.
Her breath broke on a quiet gasp.
Fucking Vykan.
The curse flickered through her mind—not spoken, but sharp enough to steady her for the barest moment. She tore her gaze from his burning eyes and forced it downward.
The only defense she had.
The ground swam slightly beneath her vision, but she focused on it, on the polished stone, on the faint rippling shadow of the waterfall behind her.
When she finally managed to speak, her voice was quiet but edged with something she couldn’t hide.
“Get out.”
She braced for impact.
For anger.
For punishment.
For the explosion of violence his form suggested.
Instead—
Nothing.
No retaliation.
No sound.
No shift in the air.
He was simply… gone.
One moment his presence weighed on her like gravity, and the next the garden felt unbearably empty, stripped of its heat and tension, leaving only the echo of what he had awakened inside her.
She sagged against the nearest stone pillar, breath shuddering, heart still racing in frantic staccato against her ribs.
Intoxication lingered.
Arousal pulsed through her with every shaky inhale.
And beneath all of it, deeper than she wanted to admit, something else stirred.
A fear that was not about him.
Not about captivity.
Not about alien worlds or impossible bonds.
A fear of herself.
Because in spite of her resistance, in spite of every instinct screaming at her to keep fighting, part of her—a treacherous, aching part—wanted to surrender to whatever he had just awakened.
And that was the part she feared the most.