Page 329 of Elemental Becoming

There was a time I thought I’d never be enough for someone like Thane. A man made of fire and silence, prophecy and power. I used to wonder when he’d see it—that I wasn’t chosen, I was justthere. A girl from a quiet village with magics that scared her half to death.

But he’s still here. Letting me look. Letting me touch.

Showing me I belong.

Not after everything we’ve survived. Not after everything I’ve become. I’m not afraid of my power anymore. Not of what I carry or the space I take up. My place in this world wasn’t given to me. It was carved by fire and forged through loss.

I move again, circling him like a moth to a flame, heat trailing in my wake. My fingers skim across his skin, light but purposeful, tracing the strong curve of his back. I feel his muscles tighten beneath my touch, a quiet response he doesn’t try to hide. He remains silent, but his throat dips and his breathing deepens. I know exactly what I’m doing to him.

He’s everything to me in this moment. And now, somehow, impossibly, he’s mine.

My gaze drifts lower, lingering on the sculpted line of his ass—strong, powerful, honed like the rest of him. He looks like he was made for war, but tonight he stands here and allows me to see him like this. Bare and vulnerable.

I let my hand follow the slope of muscle, teasing enough to draw a reaction. A shiver moves through him, and I bite back a smile, pleased by how much I can make him feel with so little.

This man—this warlord forged in fire and burden—lets me touch him as though he’s precious. More than that, he wants it. Not just the pleasure, but the understanding. The certainty of being seen.

The bond pulses gently between us, neither demanding nor insistent. It lives beneath everything else, a constant presencethat feels like him.

When my hand grazes the line of his hip, he inhales sharply, but doesn’t withdraw. I take my time. Heat gathers between us, threaded with trust and permission, and in that stillness, I feel myself settle.

Not so long ago, I would have doubted this. I would have worried I was taking too much, that I had no right to stand here in a place so grand and big, touching him like this. I would have looked at Thane and seen every way I fell short.

Not anymore.

I remember the way he looked at me when I was falling apart—and how he didn’t turn away. How he stood beside me, not because prophecy told him to, but because he wanted to.

And now, when I look at him like this, when I touch him without my doubts, I finally see it for what it is. He hasn’t just let me in. He’s trusted me with the parts of himself he gives no one else.

I step around him, taking my time, letting my fingers drift across the hard lines of his abdomen as I move. He doesn’t stop me. He just watches, those smoke-gray eyes tracking my every movement, the gold flecks within them glowing faintly in the low light like embers that refuse to die.

When I come to stand before him again, my gaze drops—and gods.

He’s fully erect. Desire is written plainly in the shape of him and the quiet restraint in the way he holds himself. There’s no shame or self-consciousness. Just confidence, unwavering and absolute.

My breathing deepens from the sheer awe of it. Of him. Of this moment. The contrast between his strength and his stillness. The way he stands here and lets me see all of him.

I let my gaze linger, unhurried and unhidden. I want him to know I’m admiring him.

When I finally meet his eyes again, a smile tugs at the corner of my mouth.

“Well,” I murmur. “Aren’t you something.”

His breathing remains even, a faint smile playing at his lips. He stands there like he’s daring me to keep looking, daring me to take what I want. He’s a man who knows exactly what he’s worth, and knows I belong to him just as much as he belongs to me.

And gods, it leaves me reeling.

It’s not just his body, the shape of him, or the heat pouring off his skin. It’s the way he lets me see him like this. No shame. No armor. No carefully guarded distance.

Just Thane.

He trusts me with everything. His fire. His past. His power.

On the final pass behind him, I step in close, pressing myself against him from behind. My arms slide around his waist in one smooth motion. My breasts press into his back, skin to skin, and I feel the subtle tension that runs through him for a single breath before easing beneath my touch.

We’re flush now, his body pressed fully to mine. I rest my cheek against his back, breathing him in. Fire and leather and a scent I couldn’t name even if I tried because it only belongs to him.

My hands spread across his abdomen, fingers gliding over hard muscle, and I feel the breath leave him, measured and controlled, as though he’s trying to keep hold of himself. Yet beneath that calm exterior, the bond pulses hot between us. Want. Desire. The unmistakable certainty that we’re bound together.