Текст книги "The wolf and the crown of blood"

Автор книги: Elizabeth May

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Текущая страница: 15 (всего у книги 33 страниц)

Ice crystallizes in my veins.

She doesn’t know. Of course, she doesn’t know. They’ve scrubbed their history clean, painted themselves as victims while they gorged on our flesh and power, while they strung us up and carved us apart and—

I lock it down, giving her nothing but the flat stare I’ve perfected over centuries. “Aren’t you full of questions today.”

She recognizes the minefield and retreats. Smart girl. “What about Amara?”

I weigh my words. “Amara’s soulbonded. She’ll feel the pull of her Chosen and do whatever she can to avoid it. He was unworthy of her.”

“Her Chosen? Who?”

“It’s rude to pry into someone’s romantic business, Devaliant. Hasn’t anyone ever told you that?”

“Once or twice,” she says with a wry twist of her lips.

“Well, if Amara wanted you to know the details of her love life, she’d tell you. In the meantime, I’ll take off somewhere where I’m less likely to”—fuck you senseless against every surface in this tower—“be in your way.”

“Ah. Well, then.” The Devaliant gives a mocking half-bow. “I hope you emerge with your cock intact.”

“Your concern for my cock is duly noted and appreciated.”

I’m going to bite her. Mark her up—

“Wolf.” The Devaliant’s voice cuts through the haze of lust. “There’s something else. That name you and Amara mentioned earlier—Rhosyn. I think I’ve seen it before.”

I go still. “Where?”

“Hellevig.” She gives a sharp shake of her head. “But I can’t think of the context. Whenever I try, it’s like wading through fog. My mind just goes—”

“To the Duehavn,” I finish, knowing exactly how trauma locks memories away.

She flinches. “Right.”

The mind’s last defense—building walls around the worst moments, keeping them where they can’t do more damage. But those walls don’t discriminate. They take everything, good and bad, and bury it all.

“Do you know where Amara found me?” The question comes out carefully, like she’s bracing for impact.

“Yes.”

The Devaliant exhales, and it sounds like surrender. “Take me there.”

No. Every instinct screams against it. Taking her back to where she almost died, where someone tried to murder her—it’s asking for her to shatter. It’s not worth it. Not even if it could give me answers.

“Listen to me.” I catch her chin in a gentle grip, tipping her face up to mine. “You don’t have to go back. Not until you’re ready.”

Slowly, so slowly, she lifts her eyes to mine. “I need to see it.”

Damn me. When she looks at me like that, I’m powerless to refuse her.

“All right,” I mutter, opening my arms. “Come here.”

She steps into my embrace without hesitation. It catches me off guard—this trust, the way she fits herself against me so easily.

I spread my wings and gather her close, launching us into the sky.

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28

BRYONY

THE WIND ON the Duehavn stings my cheeks as I stare out at the ridge. All around me, the serrated peaks are knitted together by tendrils of mist punctuated by sheer, dizzying drops. There’s nothing green up here. No trees, no flowers or grass. Only the dramatic browns and slate grays of the crags, the interlacing colors of the Shroud shimmering across the sky.

It’s breathtaking—in a brutal, merciless sort of way.

I navigate across the uneven ground, shale skittering beneath my boots. This place hasn’t changed. It’s the same savage, merciless landscape that swallowed my screams. That cut into my back as I struggled against Idris’ hold and took its own bloodletting when the blade did.

I wonder if some part of me is still here, spilled out across the rocks. A memorial for the Anchor. The woman I was.

The memory pierces through me, sudden and violent—struggling against my uncle, the knife as he plunged it in, staring up at the sky as I died.

You’re fine. You’re in control. This is just a place; it can’t hurt you.

One step. Two. I force myself toward the edge. The world pitches, my head spinning as I peer over the drop.

“Careful. It’s a long way down.”

I focus on the distant horizon, not trusting myself to look at the Wolf. “Oblivion’s tempting when the inside of my mind gets too loud.”

Gravel crunches as he closes the distance between us, stepping up behind me close enough to touch.

“Where are you right now?” he asks, so soft it’s nearly lost to the wind. “In your head.”

“Nowhere you want to be. It’s not pretty.”

“I’m no stranger to ugly.”

A bitter laugh scrapes out of me. “Is that a request to take a nice, long look at my scars and watch me squirm?”

“If that’s what you need from me.” The barest shift of movement, and I feel the warm press of his chest against my back.

Hardly daring to breathe, I stand frozen as he reaches out and catches my chin, turning my face to his. Those golden eyes are soft as they flicker between mine, as if he’s trying to figure me out.

“Want to talk it out, nemesis?”

It’s too gentle. Too tender. I can almost convince myself he isn’t the villain of my story. That there’s something warmer hidden underneath—something true. Because when he calls me nemesis, it’s like he’s telling me a secret.

But I’m lying to myself.

“You want a peek inside my head?” My lips flatten, and I turn out of his grasp. “Fine. Go ahead and poke around in all the dark corners. Maybe it’ll help you sleep better when you finally end me.”

The Wolf lets out a slow exhale. Then he turns to a nearby boulder and sits, wings flaring out. “Come here.”

I hesitate. “Why?”

“Just come here.”

When I walk over, he tugs me down into his lap and wraps those large wings around us both—a golden cocoon shielding us from the world.

His breath is warm on my neck. “There’s no prize for suffering,” he says in a low voice. “Pain isn’t a game. Stop punishing yourself with it.”

Don’t.

The sound that leaves me is almost a sob, but when I try to pull out of his arms, he just holds me tighter. Keeping me still.

He keeps talking. “Swallow down enough of that toxic shit, and eventually, you go numb to everything else. Until the only thing that cuts through the static is pain—inflicting it, chasing it. It’s the only way anything feels real.”

Stop, I want to beg him. Stop, stop, stop.

He doesn’t get to do this. He doesn’t get to reach into my chest, pry up all the ugly bits, and act as if he understands. But he’s relentless, digging deeper. Picking at all my wounds.

“So you spread that pain around like a sickness,” he continues, his chest rising and falling against my back, “making damn sure everyone else is as miserable and fucked up on the inside as you are. Because why should you be the only one choking on it? What’s right about bleeding out alone?”

I shut my eyes tightly. “Why are you telling me this? Why do you care?”

“Because I’ve spent three hundred years hurting everyone around me.” He strokes my cheek, fingers as soft as mothwings on my skin. “I know revenge feels good at first. It makes you feel powerful, like you’re the one in control. Like you’re taking back what was stolen from you and rewriting the story so you’re the one holding the blade. But it’s not enough. It’ll never be enough. You’ll tear yourself to shreds, bleed yourself dry, and that hungry void inside you will just swallow it down and howl for more.”

“It’s easy for you to say,” I tell him, my tone sharp. “Have you ever been powerless? Ever had everything stolen from you?”

“Yes.”

Something squeezes hard in my chest. A thousand questions fill the air, going unvoiced.

“Tell me what’s in your head,” he whispers. “It’s okay. I can handle your dark.”

And I—

Break.

I shove away from him and stumble to my feet. The icy wind slaps my face as I stride back toward the cliff’s edge, needing space. Needing air. I can’t let him hold me while I’m falling apart, confessing all the ways I’m vulnerable to my enemy.

But why not? Why not tell someone? Why not spill my ugliness at his feet and see if he still thinks I’m worthy of being his masterpiece?

The rocks where my uncle stabbed me are still rust-stained, even now. I can’t look away. Can’t unsee it. A snarling, vicious thing writhes in my chest, desperate to sink its teeth in and tear the world apart.

“I wanted it to be you,” I say, wrapping my arms around myself. “The one to end it.”

The Wolf remains silent behind me. I’m already in free fall, the truths like broken glass tumbling out of me.

“What I had before… it was never really living. I bled where they told me to bleed. Died how they wanted me to die. My agency was stripped away until I hardly recognized my own reflection.”

The crunch of gravel pierces through the white noise. Then the Wolf is at my back, not pressing or pulling. Just steadying.

“In the end, even my death wasn’t my own,” I say bitterly. “When I was in that carriage—when Idris was bringing me here—I couldn’t stop thinking that if this was really it, if I wasn’t going to walk away this time, I deserved to have it on my terms. The way you and I agreed. One thing that was mine, even if it was the way I went out.”

A shudder rolls through me, my nails cutting into my palms. I should stop. I shouldn’t give him more of me. But I can’t. The words keep tumbling out, each one cutting deeper.

“I fought. Instinct, I guess. The animal part of my brain was too stupid to realize I was already past saving. I kicked and thrashed and clawed until he pinned me to the ground.” Tears spill down my cheeks, and I wipe them away. “And then Idris left me there. Alone, bleeding out in the dirt. Can you even imagine what it’s like, dying like that? Discarded by your own family? It’s not the knife that keeps me up at night. It’s knowing I wasn’t even worth staying for. Not worth making it hurt less. I was nothing.”

Stone scraping my spine through my cloak. Gravel biting into my skin as I thrashed. Hands at my throat.

“Devaliant.”

The Wolf’s voice comes from far away, muted beneath the haze. I can’t tell if it’s concern or impatience. The whine inside my head builds to a screech, and I can’t—

“Devaliant.”

Distantly, I register the quickness of my breath—in and out in and out in and out. Marking my unraveling.

“Bryony.”

I’m sure I’ve imagined it. The shape of my name in his mouth, those three syllables given careful weight and deliberate intent.

“Bryony. Hey, breathe, okay? Eyes on me,” the Wolf commands. He brackets my face in his palms, his skin warm. “Breathe. Feel my chest moving against yours.”

I squeeze my eyes shut and try to match his breathing, expanding my ribs against his on the inhale, moving in sync. Everything else falls away—the wind and the brutal drop and the ugly stain on the rocks. And bit by bit, I claw my way back to myself.

The first drops of rain splatter against my cheeks. I turn into it, desperate for anything to ground me in my body, in the present.

And I don’t let myself think.

Gripping the Wolf’s shirt, I pull him down until his lips hover over mine. Until I can taste the spice of him on every exhale, feel the drum of his pulse everywhere we’re pressed together. The seconds stretch. A moment punctuated by the beat of rainfall, our ragged exhales.

Then I lean up and brush my mouth against his.

It’s barely a kiss at all. Just a tentative graze, a careful sharing of breath. A hesitant question and an equally hesitant answer, full of all the unspoken things simmering between us. His mouth is a revelation. Firm and soft at once, the barest scrape of stubble, the way his breath hitches slightly when I open to him. A gentle, yearning kind of hunger.

The Wolf freezes—a perfect, poised sort of surprise, like I’ve startled him. I brace for rejection, the ridicule sure to follow. Because of course, this beautiful god doesn’t want—

He gentles me back with a hand on my nape. Not a refusal, but a momentary reset. There’s a question in his eyes when they meet mine.

Rain falls harder now, soaking through my clothes, plastering my hair to my skin.

“Do it again,” I whisper, reckless and wild and aching. “Kiss me like I’m not Bryony Devaliant. I don’t want to be her right now. Kiss me like I’m someone else.”

I’m shaking. He has to see it, has to know I’m hanging by a thread.

“Who do you want to be, then?” he asks, soft as a secret. Softer than he has any right to be.

Yours.

What comes out is: “How would you kiss me if I were your lover? If you could take me any way you wanted, no holding back?”

A growl rumbles through him. The hand at my nape tightens, and he hesitates, chest moving faster. “Fuck it,” he says.

Then he slants his mouth over mine.

There’s no room for thought or breath. Nothing exists outside this: our lips meeting, the rain on my heated skin, the way he curls his hands into my shirt to yank me closer. As if he’s starving for it, ravenous. I want to sink into this feeling and never come up for air. There’s no history here. No future or complications. Nothing but the drag of his fingers through my wet hair and the friction of my hips connecting with his. He kisses me as if he’s been dying for a taste and wants to savor it. He kisses me like maybe he wants to keep me.

He kisses me like a liar.

“I shouldn’t be doing this,” he breathes.

“You’re not,” I pant against his mouth. “We’re just pretending. None of this is real.”

Some complex emotion flickers in his features. Then he pushes his lips to mine, shutting me up, shutting us both up. The Wolf’s tongue slides against mine, gentler now. Exploring. Enjoying me. One of his hands cups my nape, gentle as he angles my head to kiss me deeper.

“Confess something,” I rasp, shaking now. Wanting. “A secret you’d tell her, but never me.”

His fingers tighten in my hair. “When you weren’t talking to me, I’d pace outside your room late at night, trying to think up ways to get you to say something. I heard your soft sighs through the door one night. Trying to be quiet, muffling your sounds.” He nuzzles into my neck, whispering, “You make the prettiest noises when you come.”

Oh, gods.

Images flash of all those times he’s healed me—left me aching and wanting. And after he’d leave, I’d lie face down on the mattress, slip my fingers into my pussy, and pretend I was riding him. I’d shout my climax into my pillow, thinking he wouldn’t hear. But he did.

Heat gathers between my thighs as I picture him standing outside my door, listening to all those intimate sounds. Was he ever tempted to come in? To touch? To do all the wordless things I wanted in the dark?

“Tell me more,” I say.

“When you start, your breathing gets shaky.” He kisses along my jaw, his hand grabbing at my shirt and sliding underneath to graze the skin of my stomach. “A little uneven, like you’re holding it in. Like you can’t get in enough air. I wondered how many fingers you use. If you start with one and work your way up to two, then three, as your breathing quickens. If you grip the sheets and imagine it’s me.”

I almost say his name. Evander. But then that would make this real. Shatter the game, force us to confront the reality of who we are.

He’s relentless now, tearing down barriers. “How often? How often do you fuck your fingers in my bed?”

I swallow. “After you heal me.”

He groans, nuzzling my pulse point. I know he has to feel how fast it is, how unsteady. “What would you have done if I knocked? If I came in?”

An exhale shivers out of me. “I would have said yes.”

His eyes flash with heat, and then his mouth is on mine again. I lick the rain off his lips. Savor the taste of him. Lightning streaks across the sky, the rumble of thunder lost beneath the roar of blood in my ears. We’re connected at every burning point, and I can’t think past the heat of his hands, his body caging me in, the taste of rain on his mouth.

I’ve never been touched like this. Rough and reverent, coaxing and commanding. This is madness. Mutually assured destruction. This must be what damnation feels like—wanting the thing that will inevitably annihilate you.

But I can’t stop.

“Tell me what you would have done to me,” I say. Drunk on sensation and aching to see how far I can push. “Tell me how you’d take me if I belonged to you.”

He goes still and pulls back, expression suddenly clear and sober. “We’re just fooling around, right?” The words land like a fatal blow. “Just playing pretend?”

Reality seeps in, dousing the flames. What am I doing what am I doing what am I doing? I forgot myself. I forgot what we are.

If you’re worried about breaking my heart, you shouldn’t be. I’m not in danger of giving it to you.

But I am. I hadn’t been honest because it’s so much easier to feign indifference than to let the Wolf realize he’s burrowing into my vulnerable places and making me forget armor.

My expression shutters, a wall slamming down. “Of course. What else would it be?”

Something flickers across his face, there and gone too quickly to catch. “No getting attached. No catching feelings,” he says firmly. “Just games.”

The reminder twists like a knife. He’s letting me down easy, as gently as he’s capable of. I’m the fool who forgot myself.

I lock down those messy, inconvenient feelings until my voice is steady. “I already told you, I’m in no danger.”

I can lie just as easily. There are no soft places between predator and prey. No kindness to be found in the space between the blade and the killing stroke.

“Take me back,” I say. “Maybe something will nudge loose about Rhosyn later.”

Lightning flashes across the sky, followed by a loud clap of thunder. The Wolf lifts me into his arms, but his touch is perfunctory, indifferent. The rain falls harder.

I’ve never felt so cold.

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29

BRYONY

THE MOMENT THE tower breaks through the clouds, the Wolf’s entire body goes taut, and his arms tighten around me like he’s preparing for a fight.

“Shit.” He banks hard to the left, wings slicing through the air.

“What is it?” My fingers dig into his shoulders at the sudden change in direction.

He lands on one of the terraces, his hands firm on my waist as he sets me down. “Stay inside until I come to get you, understand?”

“Why? What’s wrong?”

“We have company.” He scans the gardens below, jaw tight. “One of Alexios’ Enforcers. Someone who won’t hesitate to cut you open.”

A chill snakes down my spine, but I nod. “Okay. I’ll stay out of sight.”

The backs of his fingers brush my cheek in a fleeting caress, and then he’s gone, vaulting over the railing in a flash of golden wings.

I know I should listen and retreat inside like he ordered, but curiosity itches beneath my skin, a restless tug I can’t ignore. Holding my breath, I creep to the railing and peer over the edge.

A demigoddess perches on the garden fountain with her long legs stretched out in front of her. Her dark hair glints in the fading sun, falling in a long braid down her back, tied off with a pretty red ribbon. She rises when the Wolf lands a few feet away, dusting off the loose, airy dress she’s wearing. This is a warrior? Did she get fancied up for him?

“Hi,” she says to the Wolf. Of course, her voice is pretty, too.

“Arcadia,” he greets. “You look lovely.”

I scowl down at my dirty training clothes and the dirt under my fingernails. Has he ever called me lovely?

She grins. “Don’t I always?”

The Wolf snaps his wings closed, his lips lifting in amusement. “Don’t tell me you came all this way to fish for compliments.”

“Of course not.” Arcadia steps closer, and I can’t help but notice what a striking pair they make: her silver wings to his gold, both of them with that same glittering skin. Like they were designed to match. “I wanted to make sure you were okay after the warehouse. See if you needed anything.”

Warehouse? What warehouse? My scowl deepens.

“I’m fine,” he says, his voice gentling in a way that makes something twist in my chest. “You didn’t have to check on me.”

That ugly burning sensation stabbing through my chest is new enough to irritate me, and clear enough to be identifiable: jealousy. I’m jealous of her. And when she smiles at him, I have to swallow back the growl building in my throat.

Because it’s a smile that says, we’ve fucked.

“Yes, well,” she says, “I worry when you go quiet. An annoying habit I can’t seem to kick.” She takes a deep breath as if steeling herself. “But, listen… do you still want me for the centennial? I’d ask Elias, but I don’t want to share, and his room’s too crowded for my tastes.”

The Wolf arches a brow. “There’s always Gabriel.”

“Sure,” she says with a shrug, “but he’s a decent consolation prize at best if you’re not available.”

He lets out a laugh, shaking his head. “You really know how to make a male feel special, Cady.”

The bottom drops out of my stomach. Cady. Not Arcadia—Cady. The familiarity in that nickname speaks of a long history. Something I can’t compete with. I shouldn’t even want to compete with it, and yet the envy is burrowing deeper, settling alongside the yearning. That ache since he kissed me on the Duehavn. Erasing every reminder that I shouldn’t want him, that he’s no good for me.

“I notice you’re not saying no.”

“Haven’t said yes either,” he points out.

She closes the distance between them, and I grip the balcony railing so hard it bites into my palms. Move, I think desperately. Step back. Don’t let her—

But he doesn’t move. He stays exactly where he is, letting her invade his space like she belongs there.

“Oh, come on. You’ve spent every Aethertide fucking me in the sky, against the wall, or bent over every surface. If you want to try out someone new this cycle, just say so. I won’t take it personally.”

Heat floods my cheeks, my throat working around a sudden surge of nausea as her words register. She wants him for the rut—like she has every other cycle.

Every. Other. Cycle.

In the sky, against the wall—

I can’t breathe through the emotions battering against my ribcage. Can’t reconcile the male who held me in the rain, who kissed me like I was drowning and he was air, with someone who has centuries of history with another woman.

Bent over every—

Arcadia stretches up on her toes, and I wrench my gaze away before her lips find his. I don’t think I could survive seeing him touch her the way he touched me.

It meant nothing. He was just pretending.

The words chase themselves around in my mind as I stumble into my bathing chamber. With numb fingers, I yank off my rain-soaked clothes and sink into water just shy of scalding. The calming scents of chamomile and lavender rise with the steam, but it does nothing to quiet my chaotic thoughts.

Nothing drives out the memory of his hands, the heat of his mouth slanting over mine. The way he cradled my face like I was something precious.

Why did I let him kiss me?

The rational part of my brain knows exactly why—because he was there when I was falling apart. Because he caught me and put me back together, and for a few minutes on that miserable mountain, he made me feel like I mattered.

We’re just playing pretend. Right?

“Fuck this,” I snarl, surging up from the water.

I can’t stay trapped in here with my spiraling thoughts. Can’t keep replaying the press of his lips, the scrape of his teeth, the way his hands—

No. I need to move.

I dry off roughly and yank on a thin shift. I’m not even sure where I’m going until I find myself at the library door. Maybe it’s the hush that draws me in, or the mix of smells—old paper, leather bindings, the perfume of roses. Something to focus on. To calm.

The sunset streams through the towering windows, painting the red roses twisting up the columns in shades of orange and gold.

I wander deeper into the stacks, trailing my fingers along the spines, not focusing on any of the titles. I keep seeing Arcadia’s face reaching for his. With an exhale of frustration, I jog up the spiral staircase to the gallery that overlooks the library.

A large wooden table occupies much of the space, strewn with maps and antique instruments. The far wall is covered in paintings of pastoral scenes with rolling hills, forests with crumbling ruins and castles, others of hunts and battles.

But the one in the middle steals my breath.

It’s a couple locked in a tight embrace. Their wings touch, covered in spatterings of gold and purple. His head is bent into her throat, her hands twisted in his hair as she arches her neck for him. He grips her thighs hard. The details of their joining is lost to shadow, but there’s no mistaking the intensity, the desperation in their hands and bodies.

This is a portrait of hunger. And all I can think is: I want that. I want someone to burn for me like that.

Another image flickers across my mind—the Wolf and Arcadia, her silver wings against his gold feathers. Does he take her like this? Like he’d die if he couldn’t have her? Does he yearn for her?

The crackle of power announces the Wolf before the rustle of wings. I don’t turn, not when I’m this stupid with want.

“The garden’s clear,” he says softly.

I just nod, still staring at the painting. I don’t ask about Arcadia—whether he kissed her, or if he’ll go to her when the rut hits and biology makes the choice for him. I don’t ask if what happened on the Duehavn was real or just another game we’re playing.

I’m afraid of the answers.

“Do you like it?” His voice is hushed, as if he’s unsure. “The painting?”

“It’s beautiful.” My fingernails curl into my palms as I hear him move closer. “Haunting. Like they’re afraid to let go of each other.”

“These were my mother’s,” he says, right behind me now. “She collected art and stories from all over the realms. Most of the books here belonged to her. She had this thing about seeing beauty in anything, no matter how broken or small. This tower was a private sanctuary away from her responsibilities. Where she could just… exist. Be all the messy, complicated parts of herself she had to hide everywhere else.”

My throat tightens. “The roses?”

“Were hers.” There’s something raw and aching in the words. “She loved them. Babied them. Sang to them when she thought no one was around to hear her shame the songbirds.”

Guilt floods me. All those times I mocked the overgrown gardens, it never occurred to me that he was preserving echoes of someone he loved—that letting the roses grow wild hurt less than pruning away her memory.

“I’m so sorry. I didn’t know—”

“How could you have?” He gives a harsh laugh. “You see this tower as a monster’s lair. But even monsters had mothers once.”

What happened to her? Where is she? But I swallow my questions down, afraid of shattering this rare moment of vulnerability.

“This painting is called ‘The Lovers’.” His chest presses against my back, breath hot against the nape of my neck. “It hung in my mother’s sky garden for centuries. A pair of Celestials caught on opposite sides of an ancient feud.”

“Celestials?”

“Primordial gods. The original creators from the stars.” His lips brush my ear like he’s telling me a secret. “There used to be more realms than just Vartena and Scillari, but the ancients fought for power and tore their worlds apart. Some say their dying magic birthed the first Eternals. The gods in this painting were heirs to warring realms. No matter how often their rulers ripped them apart, they kept crashing back together. My mother was obsessed with them. She’d spend hours staring at this piece.”

His palm finds the dip of my waist, fingers splaying wide. I have to remind myself to breathe as heat spreads under my skin. That ache in my chest expands, treacherous and hungry, and in that moment, it’s far too easy to imagine I’m the woman in the painting—powerless against the pull of someone I shouldn’t want.

“They sound like idiots,” I breathe.

A low chuckle. “No doubt about that. Young, dumb, and reckless. They knew it’d end bloody.” His voice drops lower, rougher. “Didn’t stop them from meeting in dark corners to bite and snarl and fuck like the world was ending. Couldn’t keep their hands off each other.”

Like us, I almost say, but I bite back the words. Because there is no us.

“Every night, he’d go to her,” the Wolf says, his hand trailing maddening circles on my hip. “Always in the dark. No lamps, no names. I suppose it let them pretend, for a time, that they weren’t enemies. That it was okay to want each other.”

I shut my eyes, remembering the wind lashing my hair on the Duehavn. The unrelenting rain. His body against mine.

Kiss me like I’m not Bryony Devaliant.

Then who do you want to be?

“How did he touch her?” The question slips out before I can stop it.

He looses a ragged exhale. Then I shiver at the brush of his lips on the juncture between my neck and shoulder, more breath than touch.

“Softly, at first.” He continues sliding his palm over my hip, up and down, up and down, as his mouth wanders. “Cautiously. He’d drag his knuckles over her cheek and let his breath play on her skin.” A graze of his lips over my pulse, lingering. “Like he couldn’t believe she was letting him near. That she wasn’t shoving him away.”

“And then?” I whisper.

“Then he stopped pretending he could be gentle.” His fingers squeeze me hard. “Stopped acting like he didn’t want to wreck her. Like he hadn’t been dreaming about getting his hands on her since the first day he saw her.” One hand drifts lower, dragging my shift up, skimming his fingers over the skin of my inner thigh. “She wanted him to be rough with her,” he says hoarsely. “To be a little mean with it. To grab and take and claim until she was covered in his marks, until there was no mistaking who she belonged to.”

I’m panting now, my nails digging into my palms as I fight the urge to turn in his arms. Each filthy word threatens to pull me under and shatter all my defenses.

“He’d bite her here.” Teeth graze my pulse point. “And here.” A nip at the curve of my shoulder. “Anywhere he could get his mouth on her. So that even when she was alone, even when she was standing in her palace or kneeling at her Celestial ruler’s feet, she’d feel the sting and ache of him and remember.”

I squeeze my eyes shut, sparks dancing behind my closed lids. An image rises unbidden—the Wolf pinning me down in his bed, one hand wrapping around my throat as he thrusts into me over and over and over again.

His whisper drags me to the present. “He had her every way he could—bent over her desk, pressed against the wall, spread out on the floor. He was addicted to her. Her taste. Her sounds. The way she’d sink her nails into his back when he fucked into her.”