"I cannot wait to sleep," Roxanne muttered under her breath as she pushed her bedroom door open.
She stopped.
A figure stood with his back to her, still and unhurried.
waiting.
"Can I help you with anything?"
Cassius turned.
"I felt you use the Sumsum Kasa Bind," he said.
Roxanne stepped inside and let the door close behind her. "Yes. And is there a problem with that? You told me how to use it. You never told me what to use it for."
He moved toward her then, not quickly but deliberately.
His hand closed around her arm.
"We got married today," he said.
Roxanne looked down at his hand. Then she peeled it from her arm with quiet precision, finger by finger, and let it fall.
"I am aware of that," she said, meeting his eyes without expression. "I was present." She moved past him toward the bed, reaching up to begin unpinning her hair. "If you came here to discuss it, I have nothing new to offer you on the subject. What I do have is an intention to sleep. So unless this is urgent, Cassius , I would appreciate the use of my own room."
"Good," Cassius said. "Then you already know why I am here." He closed the distance between them in a few measured steps, the space in the room shrinking with each one. "I am here to seal it."
Roxanne did not move back.
"There is no need," she said evenly. "I am completely fine as I am." She held his gaze without wavering. "And when this plan is finished and everything we came here to do is done, I want this marriage dissolved. Completely and without complication."
Cassius looked at her for a long moment.
The room was very quiet around them.
"You want it dissolved," he repeated.
"Yes," she said. "That was always the arrangement. Nothing has changed."
Before Roxanne could reach for the covers Cassius moved.
He caught her arm and pushed her back against the bed, one hand braced on either side of her as he held himself over her.
Is this what you think?" His voice came out low and unsteady, stripped of its usual control. "Is that all this bond means to you? A stepping stone? Something to be used and then discarded when it is no longer convenient?"
Roxanne stared up at him.
"What is wrong with you?" She pushed against his chest. "Get off me. Are you drunk?"
Something flickered across his face. He pressed his eyes shut, jaw tight, and when he exhaled the tension in his frame eased slightly.
"I am sorry." His voice came back quieter, more like himself. "It is my wolf. He is trying to take over and I cannot fully—"
Then it happened again.
Mid sentence his voice dropped to something deeper, rougher, no longer entirely his own. His eyes shifted colour, bleeding from their usual shade into something older and more primal, and the hand braced beside her head pressed harder into the mattress.
I need you, Roxanne." His voice was no longer fully his own, something rawer and more ancient moving beneath it. "I truly do."
Before she could respond his head dropped to her neck and he bit down.
Roxanne's breath caught. She pushed against him, twisting her body, trying to create distance between them but Cassius was immovable. He caught both her wrists in one hand and pinned them above her head against the pillow, his weight settling over her like something that had already decided this was where it belonged.
The blood came slowly at first, then steadily, a warmth spreading down the curve of her neck.
Roxanne felt the room begin to tilt. The edges of everything softened and her body grew heavy against her will, the dizziness pulling her under in gentle waves. She fought to keep her eyes open.
Then above her, through the blur of the ceiling, something opened.
A domain.
It unfurled from nothing, golden and vast and achingly familiar, the same light, the same crystals cascading in silence, the same sacred space that had witnessed everything between them the first time. It bloomed above her like a sky replacing a ceiling, reaching outward until it swallowed the room entirely.
"I can't feel my body…" Roxanne whispered, her voice thin and distant.
A low, rough voice answered inside her mind.
"Let me handle this, Roxanne. I'm your wolf. I want my consciousness to take over your body. I can't help seeing my mate this needy."
The moment the words settled, her eyes flashed pure silver.
Cassius's control snapped.
He tore her nightgown clean down the middle with one powerful yank, the soft fabric ripping apart and falling away from her flushed skin. His golden eyes burned with pure hunger as he shoved her thighs apart and settled between them. He laced his fingers tightly through hers, pinning her hands above her head, then slowly pushed the thick head of his other man against her entrance.
With a guttural growl he sank into her in one long, deep thrust.
Roxanne's back arched hard off the bed. A broken moan tore from her throat as he stretched her completely, filling her to the hilt. Cassius didn't give her time to adjust. He pulled almost all the way out and slammed back in, setting a relentless, punishing rhythm. Each powerful stroke drove him deeper, his hips snapping against hers with wet, filthy sounds that echoed through the private domain.
He released one of her hands only to grip her thigh and push it higher, opening her wider so he could bury himself even deeper. The new angle made her cry out. Her free hand clawed at his back as pleasure and the overwhelming force of the claim crashed through her.
Moans and gasps filled the entire golden domain. If the barrier hadn't existed, the whole palace would have heard every filthy, desperate sound they made.
Cassius's mouth found her throat again, kissing and biting as he pounded into her. "You are the sweetest place I've ever been," he growled against her skin.