Chapter 5
Imissed him before I even opened my eyes.
His heartbeat—that second pulse I'd grown accustomed to, steady and certain beneath my own—had gone distant overnight.
Muffled. Like a voice calling through water, present but unreachable.
I pressed my palm flat against my chest and felt only my own rhythm, faster than it should have been, already searching for what it couldn't find.
I made myself get up anyway.
The Sanctuary responded to my waking the way it always did: star-veins in the walls brightening to something approximating dawn, shadows drawing back to give me space.
It knew me now. Recognized me the way it recognized him.
But without Morgrith here to anchor the connection, everything felt slightly off. Like a song played in the wrong key.
Breakfast waited in the dining chamber—appeared, really, the way food always appeared in this place, as if the Sanctuary itself was determined to follow his rules even in his absence.
Bread. Soft cheese. Sliced fruit arranged on a dark plate that gleamed with trapped starlight.
The same things he'd fed me that first night, piece by piece, honey-dipped and sacred.
I sat alone at the table for two.
The bread tasted like nothing.
Not bad. Not stale. Just . . . empty. I chewed and swallowed because those were the rules, because I'd promised, because somewhere across impossible distance he might feel my obedience through the bond and know I was keeping faith.
But the pleasure was gone. The simple joy I'd discovered in eating—in being fed, in being cared for—required him there to witness it.
I finished everything on the plate anyway.
Good girl.
The words echoed in my memory, his voice rough with restrained wanting, and I pressed my thighs together beneath the table even though no one was watching.
Especially because no one was watching.
The nursery called me back afterward, though I told myself I was just resting. Following rules. Being good.
The truth was messier.
My body thrummed with energy I couldn't name—transformation magic still settling into my bones, rewiring my nerves, changing me into something that could match him.
I felt it like static beneath my skin, like lightning with nowhere to strike.
In the days before, his presence had grounded the current.
His touch on my hair, his voice in my ear, the simple fact of his attention—it had given the energy somewhere to go.
Now it just built.
I paced the nursery like a caged thing. Ran my fingers along the walls where shadow-puppets waited, dormant, their stories on hold until someone wanted to see them.
Pressed my palms against the cool surface and felt the Sanctuary's heartbeat beneath—slower than mine, ancient and patient, as if it had all the time in the world to wait.
I didn't.
The shelves caught my attention around midday.
I'd noticed them before, of course. Morgrith had pointed them out during the tour, mentioned that they held "objects" without elaborating. I'd been too overwhelmed then—too lost in the vastness of everything he was offering—to look closely.
Now, alone, I looked.
Toys.
That was the only word for them. Small creatures stitched from shadow-fabric, their bodies soft and yielding beneath my fingers.
A dragon no bigger than my palm, its wings spread wide.
A star that pulsed with gentle light when I held it.
And this one—a creature I couldn't name, something between a cat and a cloud, its fur made of darkness that rippled when I touched it.
I picked it up before I could stop myself.
It was so soft. Impossibly soft. The kind of softness that made something in my chest crack open, made my throat tight with an emotion I refused to name.
I'd never had toys as a child. Not really.
My grandmother had been practical, focused on survival, on training me to use my gift without dying from it. There'd been no room for softness.
There'd never been room for softness.
I pressed the shadow-creature against my chest and felt something shift.
The walls rippled. The shadow-puppets woke.
They danced across the dark surfaces—silent stories unfolding in silhouette. Dragons soaring through starlit skies. Flowers blooming and dying and blooming again. Two figures meeting, reaching for each other, their hands almost touching before the scene dissolved and reformed into something new.
I watched, transfixed, the creature clutched tight against my heart.
This was it.
This was what he'd been offering.
Littlespace, some part of me whispered. The word I'd been avoiding, the concept I'd been fighting because it felt too childish, too weak, too much like admitting I needed something I'd spent twenty-seven years pretending I didn't want.
But no one was watching now.
No one would know if I let myself be small. If I curled up on the too-soft bed and pulled the weighted blanket over my shoulders and watched shadow-puppets dance while holding a toy I was far too old for. No one would judge. No one would see.
The weighted blanket settled around me like being held. The pressure was perfect—exactly what my body needed, exactly what my mind craved. I curled into a ball beneath it, the shadow-creature tucked under my chin, and let my eyes go half-lidded as the puppets told their silent stories.
Safe, something whispered. You're safe.
And I was. Impossibly, unexpectedly, I was.
Not because someone was protecting me. Not because I'd earned it through service or sacrifice or pain willingly taken. Just because I was here, in this space he'd made for me, wrapped in comfort I was finally letting myself accept.
The realization settled into my bones like warmth after a long cold.
I could do this on my own.
I could give myself permission to be small.
But beneath the sweetness, something else grew. An ache. I missed him. I missed his hands in my hair, his voice steady and certain, his presence that made everything make sense. I missed being watched, being known, being seen by someone who found me precious.
The comfort was real.
But it wasn't enough.
I lay there until the star-veins dimmed to something approaching evening, the shadow-creature pressed against my heart, and felt the hunger building beneath my ribs like a second heartbeat.
Sleep refused to come.
I lay in the nursery bed, shadow-silk sheets cool against skin that burned.
The weighted blanket had been kicked off sometime in the last hour—too heavy now, too much, when every nerve I possessed seemed to be firing at random.
The transformation was doing something to me.
Making me sensitive in ways I didn't understand.
Making my body feel like a instrument strung too tight, waiting for someone to play it.
Waiting for him.
Through the bond, I could feel Morgrith.
Distance muted the connection, turned it from a river to a stream, but it was there. He was working. Doing whatever Dragon Lords did to identify souls and trace resonances and save the world.
But underneath the focus, like a current beneath still water, I felt something else.
Heat.
His wanting bled through in waves that made my breath catch.
Not constant—he was controlling it, pushing it down, keeping it contained the way he'd been containing himself since the day we met.
But when his attention slipped, when his mind wandered to wherever thoughts go in the quiet moments between tasks, I felt it.
The banked fire of his desire. The constant, low-burning need that lived beneath his careful composure.
He was thinking about me.
The knowledge made my body clench with sudden, desperate want.
I pressed my thighs together beneath the sheets.
Tried to will myself calm. Tried to remember that I was a grown woman, a healer, someone who had survived twenty-seven years without needing anyone.
I didn't have to feel like this. Didn't have to lie here aching just because a man hundreds of miles away wanted me badly enough that I could feel it in my blood.
But god, I felt it.
My hand moved before I consciously decided.
Beneath the sheet. Across my stomach. Lower, where the ache had settled like a second heartbeat, insistent and demanding.
I hadn't touched myself since the transformation—hadn't even thought about it, too overwhelmed by everything else.
But now, alone in the dark with his desire singing through the bond, my fingers found the edge of my sleep-shift and slipped beneath.
The first touch made me gasp.
Sensitive. I was so sensitive now—every nerve rewired, every response amplified.
My fingertips brushed the inside of my thigh and pleasure sparked like lightning, arcing up my spine and behind my eyes.
I hadn't expected it. Hadn't been prepared for my own body to feel like something new, something strange and wonderful and terrifyingly responsive.
I found slick heat between my thighs.
I was wet. Embarrassingly, impossibly wet, soaked through with wanting that had been building for days.
Since the first cup of tea he'd brought me.
Since the first stroke of the brush through my hair.
Since he'd held bread to my lips and watched me eat and called me good girl in a voice that ruined me.
I thought of his hands.
The way they'd trembled slightly after the ritual—weakness and restraint warring for dominance. The way they'd cupped my face when he explained the pact, steady and possessive. The way they'd felt in my hair, each brush stroke a meditation, a promise, a claim.
My fingers circled my clit and pleasure bloomed, sharp and sweet.
I thought of his voice.
"Good girl." Low and rough, like velvet dragged over gravel. "My Little." "When I return, I intend to test exactly how much of my power you've restored."
A moan escaped me. Small. Needy. The sound of a woman past caring about dignity.
And through the bond—
His attention sharpened.