Hux
THIRTY-FIVE
They barely made it to the cottage, stopping twice before they even reached the door.
“Inside,” she gasped against his mouth. “Now.”
“Patience.” He nipped at her bottom lip, savoring the way she trembled. “I’ve waited my whole life to feel this. I’m not rushing the actual claiming.”
“You’re infuriating.”
“So you keep telling me.” He kissed her again—slow and deep and full of promise. “I like to be thorough.”
“Thorough is for municipal reports.” Her hands tugged at his shirt, trying to find skin. “This is supposed to be passionate.”
“Who says thorough can’t be passionate?”
She made a sound of pure frustration, and he laughed against her mouth. Gods, he loved her. Loved her sharp tongue and her impatience and the way she made him want to tease her until she was incoherent.
He carried her the rest of the way, through the door she’d left unlocked, across the main room with its celestial charts and dried flowers, up the narrow stairs to the bedroom under the skylight.
The stars were just appearing overhead—pinpricks of light through the glass, watching them with ancient indifference. Hux set her down beside the bed, both of them breathing hard, and forced himself to slow down.
“Are you sure?” His voice came out rough, barely human. His lion was very close to the surface, golden light bleeding into his vision. “Once I claim you—”
“I’m sure.” She reached up and began unbuttoning his shirt, her fingers steady despite the tremor he could feel running through her. “I’ve been sure since you nearly died in my arms and I realized I’d rather face a void entity than live without you.”
The shirt fell away. Her hands mapped his chest—the faded scars from the void-touch, the muscles that tensed beneath her palms, the heart that beat too fast when she touched him.
“Your turn,” he managed.
She smiled—that sharp, knowing smile he’d fallen for weeks ago—and pulled her flowing top over her head in one smooth motion.
The air left his lungs.
He’d seen her before. Had mapped every curve of her body with his hands and mouth, learned what made her gasp and what made her moan. But tonight felt different. Tonight, every touch mattered more. Tonight, they were choosing forever.
“You’re beautiful.” The words weren’t enough, but they were all he had. “Every part of you. The woman who runs from emotions. The witch who reads death in stars. The chaos and the competence and everything in between.”
“Chaos?” She arched an eyebrow, reaching for the clasp of her bra. “I’m very organized. I have systems.”
“You showed up twenty minutes late to your official welcome ceremony with a sunflower behind your ear.”
“That’s not chaos. That’s prioritization.” The bra fell away, and he stopped thinking entirely.
They fell into bed—a tangle of limbs and urgent need, mouths finding each other in the half-light.
Hux took his time. Despite the lion clawing beneath his skin, despite every instinct screaming at him to claim, mark, mine, he made himself slow down. This was important. This mattered. He wanted to worship her properly before he put his teeth in her shoulder.
He kissed his way down her throat, pausing to scrape his teeth against her pulse point. She gasped, her fingers tangling in his hair. He moved lower—across her collarbone, between her breasts, following the map he’d memorized over weeks of learning her body.
Every sigh. Every shiver. Every soft sound she made when he found a particularly sensitive spot. He catalogued them all, stored them in the place where his emptiness used to live. This woman. His woman. The one who’d chosen to stay when running was all she’d ever known.
“Hux.” Her voice was breathless. “We don’t have to—”
“I want to.” He pressed a kiss to her sternum, feeling her heart race beneath his lips. “I want to make you fall apart before I claim you. I want you so lost in pleasure that the pain barely registers.”
“What pain?”
He looked up at her, letting her see the gold bleeding into his eyes. “The bite.”
Her breath hitched. Not fear—anticipation. “Tell me.”
“It’ll hurt.” He resumed his exploration, mouth trailing fire across her ribs.
“My teeth breaking skin. Deep enough to scar. Your shoulder will ache for days, and then it’ll heal into something new.
” He reached the waistband of her pants and began working them down her hips.
“A mark that says you’re mine. That lets every supernatural who sees it know you’re claimed. ”
“And you?” She lifted her hips to help him, and the rest of her clothing disappeared. “What do you get?”
“Everything.” He settled between her thighs, looking up at her—spread out beneath him, lit by starlight, more beautiful than anything he’d ever seen. “A bond. Knowledge of where you are, always. The certainty of belonging to someone.”
“The curse—”
“We’ll find out if it matters.” He lowered his mouth to her hip, pressed a kiss to the curve of bone.
Then he stopped talking and showed her exactly what he meant.
Lunaria shattered twice before he let himself inside her.
His name on her lips. Her fingers in his hair, pulling too hard, scratching down his back. The sounds she made—desperate, needy, utterly undone. He catalogued every one, stored them all.
When he finally slid home, they both groaned.
“Luna.” Her name came out reverent, broken. He held himself still, buried to the hilt, giving her time to adjust. She was tight around him, slick and hot, her body welcoming him in ways that made his lion howl.
“Move.” Her legs wrapped around his waist, heels digging into his lower back. “Hux, please—”
He moved.
Slow at first, despite the animal urge to take her hard and fast. Long strokes that drew sharp sounds from her throat. A rhythm designed to build rather than destroy. He wanted her right at the edge when he claimed her. Wanted her so overwhelmed with pleasure that the bite became part of it.
His lion approved.
He increased the pace, watching her face, reading the signs he’d learned over weeks of loving her. The way her breath caught when he hit that spot inside. The way her nails scored his shoulders when she got close. The flush spreading across her chest, her throat, her cheeks.
“I can feel you,” he ground out. “Getting close. Let go for me.”
“Not without you.” Her eyes met his—dark and fierce and absolutely certain. “I want us to fall at the same time.”
At the same time.
He shifted his angle, hitting deeper, driving them both toward the edge. His lion was fully at the surface now—golden light flooding his vision, instincts screaming claim, claim, claim. He could feel his canines lengthening, the predator rising to meet its mate.
“Luna.” His mouth found her left shoulder, the spot he’d been preparing for. He scraped his teeth across her skin, and she shuddered. “When I bite—”
“I know.” Her hand came up to cradle the back of his head, holding him there. “I want it. I want you. All of you.”
“It might not work. The bond—the curse—”
“I don’t care.” She pulled his head up, forced him to look at her. Fire in her eyes. Certainty. Love. “I choose you, Hux Holt. Curse or no curse. Bond or no bond. Whatever happens next, I choose you.”
A lock he hadn’t known existed turned inside him. A door swung open to a room he’d boarded up long ago, convinced no one would ever want to enter.
“Then I claim you.” His voice wasn’t entirely human anymore. “As my mate. My partner. Mine.”
He drove into her one last time—hard and deep—and sank his teeth into her shoulder.
Pain first. Sharp and immediate, her blood on his tongue.
Then everything else.
The world exploded into sensation. Lunaria cried out beneath him—not in pain but in wonder, something that sounded like revelation. Her body clenched around him, orgasm crashing through her in waves, and he followed her over the edge with a roar he couldn’t contain.
But that wasn’t the important part.
The important part was what came after. The rush of warmth that flooded through him, starting from where his teeth met her flesh and spreading outward. The sudden, impossible awareness of her—not in his head, not telepathy, but deeper. Knowledge of where she was. Knowledge that she was his.
The emptiness that had defined his entire existence... contracted.
It didn’t disappear. The curse was still there, still eating at his potential. But now had a small, warm flame burning at its center.
Luna.
He could sense her—not her thoughts, not her emotions, but her presence. A soft awareness at the edge of his consciousness, telling him exactly where she was. In his arms. In his bed. His.
His lion purred with satisfaction. Decades of silence, decades of barely stirring, and now it was awake and content and utterly certain that everything had clicked into place.
He released her shoulder, lapping at the wound he’d made. The bite was deep—his lion had made sure of that—and the blood was still flowing, but already he could feel her magic responding. Celestial power mending the damaged flesh, sealing his mark into her skin.
“Hux.” Her voice was raw, barely there. “I can feel you.”
“I know.” He gathered her against him, still inside her, unwilling to separate. “I feel you too.”
She laughed—a warm, overwhelmed sound. Tears were streaming down her face, but she was smiling. “It worked. The bond—it actually worked.”
“Weak.” His nose brushed hers, breath mingling. “Fragile. Not like what the others describe.”
“But there.” Her hand found his chest, pressed flat over his heart. “Present. Real.”
“Real,” he agreed.
They lay tangled in the starlight, the skylight framing the heavens above them. He could feel her presence now—a soft pulse at the edge of his awareness, like a candle flame in a dark room. Small. Flickering. But there.
Against all odds. Against a curse generations old.
After a time, she reached for the small chart kit on the bedside table—that old reflex, the automatic reach for starlight whenever something significant moved through her life.
But when she unrolled the silk pouch and pressed her fingertips to the celestial map she carried everywhere, her breath caught.
“What do you see?” he asked quietly.
She was quiet for a long moment. When she finally looked up, her expression was something he had no name for—not grief, not wonder exactly, but some territory between them.
“Something I’ve never seen before.” Her fingers curled over the chart. “Not death. Not fate. Something chosen.” She looked at him then, and the raw openness on her face undid him entirely. “It’s us. It’s actually us.”