The kiss through the leather was a strange, muted sensation, yet it sent a bolt of pure heat through my veins. It was a fire I thought had been extinguished forever, now roaring back to life.

His arm snaked around my waist, pulling me flush against his hard body. There was no mistaking the solid wall of muscle, the raw power held in check. He lifted me into his arms as if I weighed nothing, carrying me toward the bedroom without ever breaking our strange, masked kiss.

He laid me down on a bed so soft it felt like sinking into a cloud. My heart was a frantic drum against my ribs. This was it. The final act of self-destruction, the one night of oblivion I had bargained for.

His lips left mine and trailed down my neck, his touch sending shivers across my skin. The moment his mouth made contact with my bare flesh, just below my ear, it happened.

A blinding, explosive jolt of energy erupted from the point of contact. It was a thousand times stronger than the Sparks I'd felt before-a torrential flood of pure, unadulterated power that lit up every nerve ending in my body.

I gasped, my back arching off the bed. I knew this feeling. I had read about it, dreamed about it. It was the legendary, undeniable sign of a fated mate bond locking into place.

He froze above me, his entire body going rigid. He pulled back, his eyes wide with a raw, visceral shock that mirrored my own. He had felt it, too.

"That's... not possible," he breathed, his voice a ragged, disbelieving whisper.

My mind was a maelstrom of confusion and terror. How? My bond with Zane was broken. The connection was severed. Unless... The thought was a wild, impossible spark of hope. A Second Chance Mate. The rarest of gifts from the Moon Goddess.

The idea was so overwhelming it was terrifying. I didn't want this. I couldn't survive being broken like that again.

But my wolf had other ideas.

In the silent, dead cavern of my mind, a roar erupted. It was Lyra, awake and alive and more powerful than I had ever felt her.

*MINE!*

The single word was not a gentle purr like it had been for Zane. It was a ferocious, possessive, triumphant scream that shook my very soul. A powerful, ancient energy surged through my limbs, a strength I didn't know I possessed.

I could feel his shock. I could feel his own wolf responding, not with a simple answer, but with a roar of its own that I could somehow hear in my own mind.

*OURS! AT LAST! OUR QUEEN!*

Queen?

The world tilted on its axis. The bargain, the mask, the one night of oblivion-it all evaporated in the face of this cataclysmic, divine intervention. This wasn't a trade. This was destiny.

The look in his eyes changed. The cool, assessing stranger was gone, replaced by a man looking at me with a storm of raw possession, of deep, soul-shaking emotion.

"You," he said, his voice thick with awe. "You are mine."

It wasn't a pickup line or a declaration of intent. It was a statement of absolute, undeniable fact, written in the fabric of our souls.

I was too stunned to speak, to move. My mind screamed to run, to push him away, to protect myself from this impossible hope. But my body, now thrumming with Lyra's ecstatic energy, betrayed me. It yearned for him, every cell crying out for his touch.

He didn't hold back any longer. He crashed his lips down on mine, and this time there was no mask, no barrier. It was a kiss of pure, unbridled claiming, a desperate and hungry collision.

This was nothing like the pale imitation of a bond I'd shared with Zane. This was a supernova. A soul-deep resonance that vibrated on a frequency I never knew existed.

I surrendered completely, letting the tidal wave of sensation and emotion pull me under. For the first time in my life, I felt not just wanted, but essential.

In the heat of our passion, a sliver of his control seemed to return. He pulled back slightly, his breath coming in ragged gasps. He looked down at me, the masked woman in his bed who had just turned his entire world upside down. I saw the shock in his eyes, the confusion, and a flicker of something that looked like fear.

He had to know. He had to see.

His voice was a low, urgent command, laced with an authority that was impossible to deny.

"Take it off."

Chapter 7

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