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Medicinal precum. Of course he has medicinal precum.

“Oh, you have got to be kiddin’ me.” I look up at him. “Your slick heals?”

The answer comes slowly, as if he has to sort through my meaning and then his own knowledge of his body. It helps mate take my body for the first time. Keeps harm from rooting. Eases torn places. Softens pain slightly.

I stare at him, mouth agape, and he watches me carefully, both wary and confused. His body generates its own magical lube-slash-aftercare treatment—I guess the Aestrata was feeling thorough when she made him.

“You’re built to look terrifying, and every time I get close enough, I find another part of you that’s mindful.”

The bond goes quiet, full of more feeling than either of us can say. Lucas.

My name is full of warning. I already know what he’s warning against. Me getting too bold and deciding the healing slick means I’m invincible. Me taking more than I can handle because curiosity and want have teamed up and murdered my common sense in the furs.

“I’ll be careful,” I say before he can start listing every reason we should slow down.

His claws flex. You say careful while looking at me like you intend to climb onto your beast and make him forget every old law.

I don’t deny it. That alone makes his breathing change. Lucas—

“I said I’ll be careful, Wildheart,” I say and sit back on my heels, using what he’s already given me to coat my fingers again. His smell is all over me now. Mouth, hands, thighs. My body responds eagerly to it, slickening in its own way from the bond.

I’m still human enough that the idea of taking him like this makes nerves climb my spine. I breathe through them. Fear is information, not a command. Onyx taught me that without ever saying it that plainly.

I reach back and press my fingers against my hole, still expecting it to hurt… but it doesn’t. The slick warms immediately, sinking into the soreness. My breath catches, not from pain this time, but from surprise. The healing isn’t numbness. It doesn’t erase sensation. It clears the sharp edges so I can feel everything else more cleanly.

I slide one finger in, and my body opens around the touch with a low, warm pull that makes my thighs tremble. Onyx’s entire body locks beneath me, and the bond floods with hunger so intense I nearly lose my balance.

He watches me open myself with his slick on my fingers, and I feel what it does to him. The sight hits some place in him deeper than sex. His mate using what his body gives. His mate trusting the true form’s strange protections. His mate preparing not through fever or sickness, but choice.

The sheath pulses around the base, more slick spilling over the fur, and his cock throbs heavily where it rests against his stomach.

I add a second finger slowly.

This time, the stretch feels easier. Not effortless, but different. My body still remembers being sore, but the slick works through that memory like warm water through stiff earth. The ache fades into heat, and the heat turns deeper. My head tips back before I can stop it, a moan leaving me in a low, shaky sound.

Onyx snarls, and I open my eyes again as the noise rips through the den and straight into my spine. Little Ember opens with my slick and thinks I will stay sane.

“I didn’t ask you to stay sane,” I say, though my voice trembles enough to ruin the boldness a little. “I asked you to stay still.”

His growl deepens. Cruel mate.

I like this power in a way that frightens me a little. I like having him beneath me, huge and shaking, his body older than my bloodline and still held there by my words. I like that I can make him suffer with wanting and know he’ll thank me for the right kind of suffering.

My body feels warm and open, tender but not raw. The slick continues working, easing where it spreads, leaving me dizzy with the realization that taking him may not hurt the way I feared.

It will stretch—God, it will stretch. But the healing will keep the sharpness from becoming damage. His body gives me a way to survive the full truth of him.

I pull out my fingers and rise onto my knees above him. It takes effort because my legs have lost stability, and he reaches for me automatically.

Huge hands bracket my hips, claws gone, palms open. He doesn’t pull me down. Doesn’t guide me into taking more than I choose. He only steadies me, and the care in that, in a body so enormous, almost undoes me completely.

I grip the base of him with one slick hand, but even that isn’t easy. He’s too thick for my hand to close fully, ridged and hot and alive against my palm. I position him carefully, heart pounding so loudly I can hear it in my ears. The first touch of the head against my hole makes my body clench. Fear rises, yes, but it is tangled with want so tightly there’s no separating them now.

Onyx feels both. We stop if pain speaks too sharply, he sends, his iron-steady voice low through the bond.

I nod, then remember he likes words when thresholds matter. “Yes.”

His hands tighten slightly on my hips as I lower myself. The first inch takes my breath because the stretch is immediate. My body tries to resist for one panicked second, then the healing heat spreads through me again, easing the burn before it can become too sharp. I shake, both hands braced on his chest, head bowed, mouth open around air I can’t quite use.