She woke to the sensation of being full. Not the familiar, aching emptiness between her thighs, not the hollow throb in her well-used cunt that had become her constant companion since Lord Vikram first laid claim to her body. No, this was something deeper, stranger, infinitely more terrifying and infinitely more exquisite. A coiled presence nestled in her womb, a serpent of shadow and starlight curled around her heart, a low, constant hum of him in her blood, in her bones, in the silent spaces behind her thoughts. His soul, pressed into the cracks of her own, as intimate and inescapable as his seed had been.

She stretched on the silk sheets of his vast bed, her body still naked, still tender, the ghost of his cock a phantom ache in her cunt and her ass. The sheets were cool where he had lain beside her, but the imprint of his body remained, the scent of musk and minerals and the faint, ancient spice that was purely Lord Vikram. She pressed her face into his pillow and breathed him in, and the serpent inside her stirred, sending a ripple of pure, liquid heat straight to her clit.