I rear back in my seat. That…wasn’t the confession I was expecting. I assumed he’d tell me some scheme he’d been keeping from me, not serve me his heart on a platter. I’d almost forgotten the unbreakable oath I made to him. But Memnon hasn’t.

You didn’t want me to know that?

No, he says. He doesn’t explain himself further.

When I pull up the long driveway to Memnon’s secluded house, he’s already there, standing out in the elements, waiting for me to get to him. The rain mats his hair to his face. Distractedly, he runs a hand through the wet locks, and the sight sets my whole body on fire.

I look at him, and finally, I see him, really see him. He’s no longer just some strange menace come to haunt me. He’s my soul mate, the man whose mind reached out to mine two thousand years ago when we were both children in the ancient world. He has been my enemy recently, but he has always been my partner.

The truth of it hits me like a blow to the chest, and it’s as though I can breathe again for the first time since he reentered my life.

I turn off his car and step out of it.

My gaze moves from him to his motorcycle, then back.

I shut the car door and round the vehicle. “You’re never going to drive that motorcycle again without a helmet,” I say.

I see him shiver at the command in my voice.

He twists his lips into a smirk. “And why is that?’

He wants the answer. He’s a wolf who’s scented the truth.

I stop walking, and the two of us stare each other down.

“Because I care about you. Because you’re my soul mate,” I say. I’ve always known it, but now I accept it. I accept him. The two of us are connected by an invisible cord of magic. It mingles, his darkness tingeing my power, my light brightening his. “And I claim you as mine.”

My power flows through me, yearning for one thing, and he’s standing in front of me.

Memnon looks at me like I contain the whole world beneath my skin. “Selene.” His eyes begin to glow, and thick plumes of his magic flow out of him.

I don’t know which one of us moves first, only that we come together as the rain batters down on us.

Memnon’s mouth finds mine, even as his eyes still burn like embers. The press of his mouth is desperate, insistent, as though he might coax more truth from it.

I thread my fingers through his hair, reveling in the strange feel of his floating locks.

This is our deepest truth. That time and place can change—even life experiences can change—but we will still come together.

Memnon closes his eyes as though basking in this moment. “How I have longed to hear those words.” He presses his forehead to mine. When he opens his eyes, they are that beautiful, complicated brown once more. “I am yours, dear soul mate,” he breathes. “Always yours.”

He kisses me again, and there’s a heady rush.

The leather jacket he wears hangs open, and I push it off his shoulders. It hits the driveway with a wet plop.

I need to get closer to him. Need to feel his very essence on me and in me. There’s a hurried, almost instinctual rush to this, and I don’t know if it’s driven by my magic or my repressed feelings.

Perhaps it’s a bit of both, because when I reach the hem of his shirt, my magic has beaten me to it. It tugs the garment up, breaking our kiss. Memnon grins devilishly as my power pulls it over his head and casts it aside. Then the sorcerer’s hands and his mouth are back on mine.

His chest is deliciously warm, and I step closer into his embrace, savoring his heat and closeness.

He picks me up, wrapping my legs around his hips. My hands are still in his wavy hair, and my magic is moving about us. It’s at my back, and though I can’t see it, I sense it swarming around Memnon’s hands. It tugs at my shirt, then⁠—

Riiiip. My power tears the back of my shirt in two. It falls in tatters between us, and I pull away enough to shrug out of it. Memnon uses the moment to cast a silent spell of his own, his magic taking the weight of my body to free his hands.

The sorcerer reaches out, wiping the wet locks of my hair out of my face.

“Hello again, my love. It has been an age.” We look at each other, our torsos bare save my bra and his tattoos, and the two of us laugh.

In that moment, there’s no division between who I was as Roxilana and who I am as Selene; the past and the present are here, all at once.

“It worked,” I say softly. My fingertips graze his face and the puckered skin where his scar is. “I never truly lost you.”

He shakes his head. “No, my queen, this is just the beginning.”

Memnon carries me inside. We’re dripping from head to foot, and the sorcerer’s shoes are making hilarious squishing noises until one of our spells removes them from his feet. The rest of our clothing gets peeled and ripped away by our power as we move through his foyer, then down the hall to his bedroom, each discarded garment hitting the ground with a wet slap until the two of us are naked.

I shiver in Memnon’s arms, my legs locked around his waist. I can feel his erection brush against the curve of my ass.

“I don’t need a bed for this,” I say.

“I do,” Memnon says with too much fervency. He leans into me and nips my lower lip. “There will be time to make love like the heathens we are. But tonight, I want to savor your skin and the look in your eyes. They hold my whole universe in them.”

I swallow, growing serious. We’ve done this many times in the past week, but I’ve always, always had my guard up. But when I woke this morning, fresh from an evening of hell, all those guards I put in place to keep Memnon out were ripped apart.

The sorcerer’s eyes drop to my throat, and he presses a gentle kiss there. “My fierce queen, who battled death to save me, who gave up much so that we could be here in this moment.” His gaze flicks over me, and I think he sees that I’m ready for the slow sex he’s been promising and all the intimate connection that comes with it. “My exquisite mate, who has been exceedingly patient with me.”

He lays me out on the bed, then follows me onto it, fitting himself into the space between my thighs.

Despite the patter of rain, the world has grown very, very quiet.

“Let me show you how I love you,” he breathes.

He grabs my legs, sliding his hands down my thighs like he can’t help but touch me before spreading them obscenely apart.

Memnon dips his mouth to my core. “I promised you I’d feast on your pussy,” he says against my sensitive skin, and I moan at the way even that casual brush of his lips sets my nerve endings on fire.

He kisses my pussy then, his tongue slipping inside me briefly.

I arch off the bed, nearly coming undone from that alone.

Memnon groans, leaning his forehead on my pubic bone. “You’re dripping.”

I’m breathing heavy, though he’s hardly touched me. I run my hands over his shoulders, reveling in the roll of his muscles.

Memnon dips his head to press a soft kiss to my clit. I nearly yelp at the sensation.

“I hate to break my earlier promise,” he says, “but—” Another roughened kiss to my clit that sets me alight. Memnon lifts his head, and our eyes meet across the expanse of my body. “I did not imagine you would look at me tonight the way you have been or say the things you’ve said.”

With that, he drags himself up the length of my body until his hips are cradled against mine.

My hands glide up the rippling muscles of his abs, then circle around to his back.

The sorcerer stares down at me. “Don’t look away,” he says. It’s equal parts command and plea.

“Don’t you look away,” I say, turning the command back on him.

“I won’t,” he vows.

He reaches between us, adjusting himself until his cock is right at my entrance, and I’m about to glance down at where we touch⁠—