Page 54 of Hush

That knowledge makes me lift myself onto one elbow, every sense narrowing to him. Lucas makes another sound, softer, helpless in a way that turns my blood to heated sap. His hand fists in the sheet near his chest. The bond trembles with want, not open fully, but leaking at the edges because the feeling is too strong for sleep to keep contained.

I should leave his mind-den untouched, but the dream is already spilling into me. Not with words or pictures clear enough to be looking. Edges. Heat. My name. A plea shaped around need so fierce my breath catches.

I close my eyes and hide at the edge of the dream, the way I hide at the edge of his clearing, present enough to understand, not enough to command. If his mind turns from me, I will leave. If the bond closes, I will obey. I hold myself small against his threshold, which is difficult for what I am. I have never been made small without pain, but for Lucas I learn many uncomfortable things.

The dream opens, and I nearly lose the human shape.

He is on the forest floor, not against a tree this time. Moss beneath his back. Ferns crushed under his shoulders. Moonlight over his body, skin bare, ember-marks bright where sweat catches. His legs are spread around a figure of me. His hands are in my hair, then on my antlers, then gripping my shoulders as if he cannot decide which part of me he needs to hold to stay inside his own body.

I am in true form and not.

Dreams understand what waking cannot. I am slate skin and pale eyes, antlers black against the moon, bark marks raised and dark across the body covering his. My skull is there and not there, bone softened enough for my mouth to find his throat, teeth grazing skin without tearing. My hands are clawed, but he is not afraid of them. He pulls me closer when they spread over his thighs.

This came from him—it strikes through me harder than desire.

His sleeping mind reached for my first face and gave it pleasure, not fear. He did not choose only the human shape. He did not put aside bone and antler and claw to make wanting easier. He dreams of me as I am and arches beneath me with his head thrown back, voice raw from begging.

“Onyx,” dream-Lucas gasps, and my name in that place carries so much need that I almost answer aloud in the room. “Please. Fuck… please.”

The dream-me moves over him with the slow, heavy rhythm that made him wake ashamed once, but there is no shame in the dream now. Only need. Only acceptance. Only his hands dragging down my back, fingers slipping through the coarse fur there, his mouth open against my shoulder as he takes everything and asks for more.

I feel my waking body lower closer to the floor, one hand braced hard enough that wood groans beneath my palm.

Then my mouth opens at the side of his throat, and dream-Lucas bares it. Not in fear, in offering.

“Mark me,” he begs, voice breaking around the words. “Please, Onyx. I want it. I want you to claim me.”

The room around my waking body disappears for one violent heartbeat. This is the next step, and my entire being recognizes it.

Bond begun.

Bond named.

Mate touched.

Mate saw first face and stayed.

Mate willingly invited into den.

Now mate dreams of the mark of claiming, of the bite that tells the forest and every old thing that he is guarded and chosen.

For my kind, the mark is not decoration or simple pleasure. It is a promise written into flesh and scent—a threshold crossed with teeth and consent, and the deepest part of the bond opening between two bodies.

Lucas should not know this fully, but something tells me Aestrata has turned her face toward my little mate and sent him a dream.

Aestrata. Is this your hand?

The dream-Lucas trembles beneath dream-me, eyes bright, throat offered, body open to the mark that would change everything. My need becomes so sharp I have to pull back from the dream before it drags me too deep and turns watching into touching.

I open my eyes in the dark room.

Lucas is still asleep above me, but his body is restless now, the scent heavy with arousal, trust, and something dangerously close to readiness. His lips part, and my name leaves him in a whisper.

“On…yx.”

The human shape shakes with the effort to stay where I am, but I do not climb into his bed or touch him.

I sit back on my heels on the floor beside him, eyes fixed on the rise and fall of his chest, and I let the need tear through me without acting on it. My mate must choose while awake. Dreams can prepare him and the bond can open paths.