The training grounds offer no escape.

I drive my blade through the practice dummy's throat for the third time, imagining Iara's knowing smile. The straw head tumbles into the dust, and I'm already reaching for another target when the bond flares—a pulse of loneliness so acute it steals my breath.

Rafael. Still locked in my dwelling where I left him.

I slam my blade into the weapons rack hard enough to crack the wood.

"Trouble in paradise already?" Tlali appears at my elbow, because of course she does. She's eating something wrapped in banana leaves, unbothered by the violence I'm radiating. "You've been out here for three hours. Pretty sure the dummies are dead."

"Not dead enough."

"Mm." She takes another bite, watching me with those too-knowing eyes. "So when are you going to actually talk to your pretty consort? Because the gathering is in two days, and unless he can speak more than 'please don't kill me' in our tongue, Iara's going to eat you both alive."

Fuck.

The gathering. Where every warrior displays their consort like a prize, where alliances are made and broken over wine and whispered conversations. Where Iara will be watching for any sign of weakness.

Where Rafael will need to prove he's mine.

"He speaks his own language well enough," I mutter, retrieving my blade. "That'll have to suffice."

"Will it?" Tlali's voice is deceptively light. "Because I'm pretty sure Iara's already spreading rumors that you claimed a broken thing. A man who can't even understand our customs, our words. She's saying you were desperate."

My fingers tighten on the blade's grip until my knuckles go white.

"She's saying," Tlali continues, relentless, "that the claiming was a mistake. That you panicked after the raid and grabbed the first warm body you could find." She pauses. "She's saying you're losing your edge."

I spin, blade rising, but Tlali doesn't even flinch. She just looks at me with something too close to pity.

"So maybe," she says softly, "you should actually teach him. Unless you want to prove Iara right."

---

I return to my dwelling as the sun bleeds into the horizon, painting everything the color of fresh wounds.

Rafael is exactly where I left him, sitting on the floor with his back against the carved wooden post, the collar's chain pooled in his lap. He's been studying the murals on my walls—scenes of battles won, sisters lost, glory earned in blood.

He looks up when I enter, and the bond surges between us. Relief. Anger. Hunger.

I ignore all of it.

"Get up," I say in his language. "We have work to do."

He rises with that fluid grace that shouldn't be possible for someone who's been sitting for hours. There's a question in his dark eyes, but he doesn't ask it. Smart man.

I switch to my own tongue, letting the familiar syllables roll off my tongue like smoke. "This is how you'll greet the council: Tlazohcamati in mochihuani."

He blinks. "I don't—"

"That's the point, consort." I cross the space between us, close enough to smell the bergamot and leather that clings to his skin despite days in captivity. Close enough to see the pulse jumping at his throat. "You have two days to learn enough of our language to not embarrass me. So listen carefully."

I repeat the phrase, slower this time, watching his mouth shape the unfamiliar sounds.

"Tlah... tlazoh..." He stumbles over the pronunciation, frustration bleeding through the bond.

"Tongue against your teeth for the 'tl' sound." I step closer, invading his space because I need him off-balance. Need him focused on the lesson instead of the questions I can feel building behind his eyes. "Try again."

He does. Gets it almost right this time.

The bond hums with his small victory, his desire to please, and I hate how much that affects me.

"Better." I circle him slowly, predator assessing prey. "Now: Nehuatl in iconetzin Ximena. It means 'I am the consort of Ximena.' Say it."

He tries. Fails. Tries again.

We fall into a rhythm—me speaking, him repeating, both of us pretending the bond isn't singing every time we move closer. I teach him greetings, formal phrases, the words he'll need to survive the gathering.

An hour passes. Then two.

"Why didn't you teach me this yesterday?" he finally asks, switching back to his own language. His voice is rough from the unfamiliar sounds, and I absolutely do not notice how that roughness makes something low in my belly clench. "If this gathering is so important—"

"Because I didn't want to." I turn away, reaching for the water pitcher to give my hands something to do. "You're a tool, consort. I'll sharpen you when I need you."

"Liar."

The word cracks between us like lightning.

I spin, water forgotten. "What did you say?"

He's standing now, the chain in his hands, and there's something dangerous in his expression. Something that makes my pulse quicken for reasons that have nothing to do with threat.

"You heard me." He takes a step forward, and the bond flares so hot I can barely breathe. "You feel what I feel, remember? So you know I can feel you lying. You didn't teach me yesterday because you were afraid."

"I fear nothing."

"No?" Another step. The chain clinks softly. "Then why are your hands shaking?"

I look down. He's right.

Fuck.

"The bond," I force out. "It's just the bond. It means nothing."

"Does it?" He's close now, close enough that I can see the flecks of gold in his dark eyes. Close enough that his scent wraps around me like a physical touch. "Because I've been sitting in your dwelling for hours, feeling everything you feel. The rage when you train. The fear when you think about the gathering. The loneliness that never stops."

"Stop talking."

"Make me."

The words hang between us, charged with possibility.

I should step back. Should remind him that he's collared, chained, mine to command. Should put him in his place with the edge of my blade or the back of my hand.

Instead, I ask the question that's been burning in my chest since the claiming: "Why aren't you more afraid of me?"

His laugh is low, bitter. "Who says I'm not?"

"The bond—"

"The bond shows you what I feel, not what I should feel." He lifts his hand, and I tense, but he just touches the collar at his throat. "I should be terrified. Should be planning escape. Should hate you for what you've done." His eyes find mine. "But all I feel when I look at you is... curiosity. And hunger. And this terrible certainty that you're as trapped as I am."

"I'm not trapped."

"No?" He tilts his head, studying me like I'm one of his maps. "Then why did the claiming bind us? You said consorts are common here, but I've been watching you. This—" he gestures between us, "—this isn't common at all, is it?"

My silence is answer enough.

"Tell me," he presses. "Tell me what you did to us."

I should refuse. Should walk away. Should do anything but stand here and give him the truth he's demanding.

But the bond is pulling at me, and I'm so tired of carrying this alone.

"The claiming ritual is old," I hear myself say. "Ancient. It used to create true bonds between warriors and their chosen—soul-bonds that linked them completely. Made them stronger together than apart." I force myself to meet his eyes. "But that magic faded generations ago. Now it's just ceremony. Pretty words and blood offerings that give consorts status but nothing more."

"Except with us."

"Except with us." The admission tastes like ashes. "I don't know why. Don't know what I did differently. I just... I needed someone. Needed a political advantage before Iara could move against me. And you were there, and you were strong, and you looked at me like I was something more than a weapon."

The bond floods with his understanding, his awe, his fear.

"So you claimed me," he says slowly, "expecting a political prop. And instead you got—"

"A soul-bond that won't let me hide anything from you. Yes." I laugh, and it comes out jagged. "Congratulations, consort. You're bound to a woman who doesn't know how to be anything but alone."

He's quiet for a long moment, and I can feel him processing, feel the weight of realization settling over him through the bond.

Then: "Teach me."

I blink. "What?"

"Teach me." He steps closer, and now there's barely a breath of space between us. "You say you don't know how to be anything but alone. So let me learn with you. Teach me your language, your customs, how to survive in your world. And maybe..." His hand rises, hovering near my scarred cheek. "Maybe you'll learn something too."

"This isn't a negotiation."

"Isn't it?" His fingers brush my jaw, feather-light, and the bond explodes between us. Want. Need. Terror. "You need me presentable for the gathering. I need to understand what I've become. We're both trapped in this, Ximena. We might as well stop pretending otherwise."

His touch is fire against my skin. His scent is drowning me. And the bond is screaming that this is right, this is what I've been missing, this is—

I grab his wrist, yanking his hand away from my face.

"Don't touch me without permission."

"Then give me permission."

The words are barely a whisper, but they hit like a blow.

I should say no. Should remind him that he's mine to command, not the other way around. Should put distance between us before this spirals into something I can't control.

Instead, I kiss him.

It's not gentle. Nothing about me is gentle. I claim his mouth the way I claimed him—with violence and hunger and desperation. My free hand fists in his hair, yanking his head back, and he gasps against my lips.

The bond detonates.

Pleasure crashes through me—mine and his, tangled together until I can't tell where I end and he begins. He tastes like smoke and defiance, and when his hands find my waist, pulling me closer, I feel his desire like a physical thing.

This is madness. This is weakness. This is everything I swore I'd never allow.

And I want it so badly I'm shaking.

His mouth opens under mine, and I take full advantage, deepening the kiss until we're both breathless. His hands slide up my sides, mapping the muscles I've built through years of violence, and everywhere he touches burns.

The chain clinks between us, a reminder of what he is.

What I've made him.

The thought crashes through the desire like cold water.

I shove him away hard enough that he stumbles, the chain snapping taut.

"That's enough lessons for tonight," I force out, my voice too rough, my breathing too fast. "Get some rest, consort. Tomorrow we continue."

He's staring at me like he's seeing me for the first time, his lips swollen from my kiss, his chest heaving. The bond is screaming with his confusion, his hurt, his lingering want.

"Ximena—"

"I said enough." I turn away before he can see how badly my hands are shaking. Before he can feel through the bond how much I want to go back to him, to finish what we started, to let myself have just one moment of surrender.

I grab the end of his chain and loop it through the iron ring embedded in the floor—close enough to reach the sleeping furs, far enough that he can't follow me to my own bed across the room.

"You're chaining me?" His voice is carefully neutral, but the bond bleeds with betrayal. "After that?"

"Especially after that." I don't look at him. Can't look at him. "You're still my prisoner, Rafael. Still my consort. What just happened changes nothing."

"You don't believe that."

He's right. The bond makes it impossible to lie to him, impossible to hide that I'm terrified of what I'm feeling, of how much I want him, of how easily he could destroy me if I let him in.

But I can still try.

"Believe what you want," I say, forcing ice into my voice. "You're mine until I decide otherwise. That's all you need to know."

I walk to my own sleeping furs, putting the length of the room between us, and try to ignore the way the bond aches with his hurt.

Try to ignore the way it aches with my own.

I lie down with my back to him, every muscle tense, and listen to the sound of his breathing in the darkness.

The bond pulses between us—a living thing that won't let me forget he's there. That won't let me hide from what just happened.

I kissed him. Claimed his mouth the way I claimed his body. Let myself want him for just a moment before terror took over.

And now he knows.

Knows that beneath the cruelty and the scars and the walls I've built, there's a woman who's desperately, terrifyingly lonely. A woman who wants to surrender to someone who sees past the weapon to the person beneath.

A woman who's absolutely certain that wanting anything that badly will destroy her.

Through the bond, I feel him settle into his own furs, the chain a cold reminder between us. Feel his desire warring with confusion. Feel his determination to understand me, to break through my defenses, to make me see him as more than a tool.

Feel his absolute certainty that I already do.

I close my eyes and try to sleep.

But the bond won't let me rest. It keeps pulling at me, showing me everything he feels—the ghost of my kiss on his lips, the ache of wanting more, the fear that I'll never let him close again.

The fear that mirrors my own.

Tomorrow I'll teach him more words. More customs. Will prepare him for the gathering where Iara will be watching for any weakness.

Tomorrow I'll rebuild the walls he's already started to crack.

But tonight, in the darkness, with the bond singing between us like a living thing, I let myself admit the truth:

I'm not afraid of Iara's machinations or the gathering's politics.

I'm afraid of this. Of him. Of how much I want to cross the room and curl into his warmth and let someone else be strong for once.

I'm afraid that if I surrender to what the bond is offering, I'll lose myself completely.

And I'm terrified that I might want to.