Arik purred low against him, his lips brushing the shell of Liam’s ear. The warmth of his breath made Liam’s fingers curl into the front of his shirt.
"I don’t think you do, Eshara."
His hand slid into Liam’s long hair, gathering the strands before tightening his grip just enough to draw Liam’s head back and bare his throat. Arik’s mouth hovered over the mark there, his pheromones growing heavier around them.
"I plan to show you," he murmured. "I want you to feel the sovereign ether the way I do, flowing through the bond while I’m deep inside you."
Arik’s mouth closed over the mark before Liam could answer.
The bite was not hard enough to break skin, but the pressure sent a violent shiver through Liam’s body. His hands tightened in Arik’s shirt, dragging the fabric loose from his waistband as the bond between them flared.
Golden ether answered immediately.
It moved differently now.
Before the oath, Arik’s ether had always felt immense to Liam. Now something deeper moved beneath it, a distant current that seemed to have no beginning or end. The Nurian Core did not enter Liam directly, but through Arik he could feel its weight pressing against the edges of their bond.
His breath caught.
"Arik."
"I know."
The answer came against his throat.
Arik released Liam’s hair and slid his hand down the center of his back, gathering the sheer robe with it until the fabric bunched around Liam’s waist. Gold chains shifted softly against bare skin.
Liam could barely concentrate on any of it.
The ether was growing stronger.
He had felt the Core during the oath, but then it had passed through him in a single overwhelming wave. This was different. Arik was opening the bond, allowing Liam to feel what had been settling inside his channels for weeks.
Liam’s expression changed.
"So this is why you’re tired."
Arik’s gaze sharpened.
Even now, apparently, Liam intended to analyze him.
His hand closed around Liam’s hip.
"Not now."
"It is constantly pulling at you."
"Liam."
"And you thought—"
Arik kissed him again, effectively ending the investigation.
Liam made an irritated sound into his mouth that lasted less than a second before his body betrayed the complaint entirely.
Arik pressed him deeper into the mattress.
The gold cage caught between them.
Liam shifted instinctively, seeking friction, and Arik felt the small locking mechanism react beneath his hand when his pheromones thickened.
He looked down.
Fine lines of sovereign gold had appeared across the metal.
Liam followed his gaze.
"That is supposed to happen."
"I assumed."
"You have to—"
"I read the mechanism."
Liam blinked.
"When?"
"While walking here."
Arik slid two fingers beneath the edge of the cage and let his ether gather.
The response was immediate.
Gold spread through the tiny engraved channels, matching the rhythm of the sovereign mark around his wrist. The lock recognized first his pheromones, then the ether carried through their bond.
A quiet click sounded beneath the robe.
Liam went still.
Arik did not remove it.
His thumb rested over the released mechanism while his eyes returned to Liam’s face.
"You spent an afternoon choosing something only I could unlock."
"Yes."
"And now you are surprised I intend to take my time."
Liam’s eyes narrowed.
"I am not surprised."
Arik’s mouth curved slightly.
"No?"
Liam reached up, caught him by the collar, and pulled him close enough that their mouths almost touched.
"I spent a month waiting for you. I’m not interested in patience anymore."
That finally stripped the last amusement from Arik’s expression.
The bond surged.
Liam gasped as sovereign ether poured through it again, stronger this time, filling every familiar pathway between them with heat and pressure. Beneath it, the Core remained vast and distant, but Arik’s presence surrounded it completely.
Liam understood then what Arik had meant.
He could feel Nuria through him.
Not clearly enough to identify places or systems, but as an immense pulse underneath Arik’s ether, something ancient responded to its sovereign while the bond carried an echo of it into Liam.
His fingers tightened on Arik’s shoulders.
"That is..."
"I know."
Arik kissed the corner of his mouth, then his jaw.
The gold chains trembled faintly as Liam’s body shifted beneath him.
Arik’s voice dropped against his throat. "Oh, my Eshara, you don’t know what you’ve done."
Arik finally opened the cage.
The small piece of gold came free beneath his hand and disappeared somewhere into the sheets.
Then Arik was on him.
He gave Liam no time to recover, using his weight to press him back into the mattress as he settled between his thighs. The sheer robe had ridden up around Liam’s waist, reduced to a translucent spill of white fabric beneath the fine gold chains. Freed from the cage, Liam’s body reacted immediately to the heat and pressure of Arik against him.
"Look at you," Arik murmured, the words roughened by the rut he had held under suppressants for too long.
He braced himself on one arm while his other hand slid into Liam’s hair again, gathering the long strands at the back of his head. His gaze moved slowly over Liam’s flushed face, the jewelry at his wrists and waist, the robe he had chosen for no purpose other than destroying Arik’s restraint.
"All that planning. All that effort because I told you to wait." His fingers tightened slightly in Liam’s hair. "You wanted my attention. Are you satisfied now?"
Liam tried to answer with something clever.
What came out instead was a broken breath as he pulled at Arik’s shirt, trying to bring him closer.
"More."
Arik went still.
The single word traveled through the bond with none of Liam’s usual defenses around it. Want, frustration, relief, and a month of being kept at a careful distance reached Arik all at once.
His expression changed.
The possessive edge remained, but something warmer moved beneath it.
"You should have told me sooner."
"I tried." Liam’s fingers worked at the fastening of Arik’s shirt with considerably less patience than coordination. "You told me to wait several weeks."
"That was before you declared war on my self-control."
Liam finally managed to pull the fabric open far enough to put both hands against Arik’s chest. Golden ether glimmered faintly beneath his skin, answering the bond before Arik consciously released any more of it.
Liam felt the Core again.
Not as the overwhelming presence from the oath, but as a deep current beneath Arik’s own ether, vast enough to make the room seem momentarily smaller around them. It moved through the bond in slow pulses, following Arik’s heartbeat and settling against Liam’s channels without crossing the containment formations around the corruption.
Arik watched his face carefully.
"Still all right?"
Liam nodded, then caught Arik by the back of the neck and pulled him down again.
"Don’t stop now."