“Do you wish that you were dead instead of with me?”

She did not answer, only stared up at me, all hurting honeyed fire.

“Answer me, Torrance!” My voice grated. I sounded desperate, delirious. I sounded mad – I heard myself, and I knew I did – but I kept on going. “Answer me, now! Would you rather be dead than with me?”

Something in her expression cracked. I thought that she might weep again, but with remarkable steadiness, she just said, “No.”

Relief spun dizzily inside me. Until she added, “Tell me the real reason you won’t find your mate.”

And when she dies it will be by her husband’s hand and blade.

I couldn’t tell her.

I couldn’t even say the words. So, I settled on something that was true even if it was not the main reason.

“It would take too long,” I said. “I don’t know where she is, who she is. She might not even be born yet!”

I was not sure that Torrance looked convinced, her eyes scanning me, her mouth tight. Her long hair was in a wild disarray about her shoulders, her cheeks showing tracks from her tears. Some of those tracks went right down her neck, leading my gaze to her delicate collarbone, down further to where the red silk of her robe parted, showing the space between the luscious curves of her breasts. Heat flooded me, and I gripped the headboard, denying my body its sudden need to lower, to bury my face in that opening. Her scent was stronger than it had ever been, winding through my limbs, warming my spine until my tail twitched and my wings snapped. Her legs were bent and spread, creamy white lines with their apex obscured by the silk.

This time, I could not stop myself. My body moved as if governed by another master, one whose name was not Wylfrael, one who had no discipline, no power, no control. One of my hands drifted downward to her bare knee, my thumb skimming inward, up her smooth thigh.

Her breath caught. “What are you doing?”

“Tell me to stop, and I will stop,” I said hoarsely.

I hated that even my voice was affected by her. My breath coming ragged and harsh just from touching her knee. I wanted to blame her for it, to make it all her fault, but I knew that I could not. Something in me had weakened, had worsened. I saw her hopes and desires for the future and wanted to strike them down. To kill them. Until there was only me, standing among the ruins of her life.

But perhaps I was not the only one. Because she did not tell me to stop. Even as my hand moved upward, my thumb nudging at the silken place where her thigh met her groin, she did not say the word. My entire body was taut. I gripped the headboard so tightly I feared it may crack, merely so that I didn’t unleash my crushing desire upon her small body.

I lifted my hand from her skin and flung apart the robe.

She was bared to me, strange and human, small and lovely. New colour flushed along her chest and up her neck into her cheeks, a heated redness. Her breath was as quick as my own, her breasts rising and falling, her nipples pretty little pink-brown circles. I brushed one of them with my fingers and it went taut. As did Torrance’s spine as she arched into the touch.

“Tell me to stop,” I groaned, pressing my hand down until I kneaded her breast. I knew that I was begging, not commanding. She had to tell me, and tell me now, before I looked lower, touched lower.

She made a choked whimpering sound as my palm dragged roughly across her nipple.

“Don’t,” she said softly, and I froze.

Good. Good, someone needs to end this madness, someone needs to-

“Don’t stop.”

My heartbeat got so loud and fast inside my own head it became a buzzing. I began to move again, slowly, as if in some sort of trance. My hand caressed her breast, rolling the nipple until Torrance moaned. That sound was a bolt of pure power to my cock, lightning in the dark. It snapped some cord inside me, made my movements quick and jerky and...

Shaky.

Shaky!

I was Wylfrael. An immortal stone sky god. I’d lain down with females from across the cosmos. And never once had I shaken.

I shook now. I shook when I took in the dark, erotic thatch of curling hair between her legs. When I brushed my fingers there, then lower, to a swollen nub at the top of her folds, she jerked, her hips rising to meet me.

“Right here, little bride?” I asked, dark fire burning through me, taking away the shakiness until there was nothing left but possessive, all-consuming hunger. Torrance watched me through heavy-lidded eyes, as if in a fever, in a dream. As if this were not quite real.

I stroked the swollen spot again, and the sound that came out of her throat was one I knew I would not forget until the endless end of my immortal days.

Having been with females of different species with varying anatomy, I’d grown used to watching closely and learning quickly about which places were sensitive, which places brought pleasure. Undoubtedly, this was one of Torrance’s. I touched the nub experimentally, blood heating when I found a circling rhythm that made her eyes fall shut and her head roll back against the headboard. I moved, putting both my knees between her thighs, forcing her legs wider.

The need to be inside her was vicious. Bludgeoning. Like someone had hit me over the head and the only way I’d survive the blow was to rut her. But even in the haze of that feeling, I knew I could not. Not yet. I had no knot, but still, she was small. Some females took time and preparation for my cock, and I had no doubt that Torrance would be one of them.

I slid my fingers away from the swollen place that made Torrance whimper and moan, then pressed down, down, down. Down through hot wetness that made my balls ache and my fangs clench. I thanked my past self for trimming my claws this morning. I normally kept them short and blunt – it was only because I’d been asleep for so long that they’d gotten so sharp. I’d cut and filed them all before leaving for the village. I’d told myself as I did it that I was just getting things back in order. Restoring things to how they’d always been, as if thoughts of accidentally cutting Torrance’s delicate skin had not plagued me into picking up the blade and file.

I had not been picturing this skin, though. This slick, soft, hot skin, shimmering and sucking my middle finger inside. Tight. The word was a hiss inside my skull.

Some cunts were smooth all the way inside. Not Torrance’s. I stroked deeper, exploring every shallow notch and fluttering ruffle of flesh, groaning when I thought of what her softly textured channel would feel like gripping my cock.

I got my finger far enough inside that I could angle my palm against her, grinding the little nub that made her jump and moan. Her eyes flew open as I pressed my palm there, hard, and began to slide my finger in and out.

A new tension entered her body, something different from before. Something lithe and luscious that made her hips flex against me.

My other hand left the safe anchor of the headboard. I buried my fingers in her hair and fisted it until her throat was bared to me just like the rest of her body.

“See this, little bride?” I demanded gutturally, my mouth against that pulsing column. “Feel this? Feel how much you need me now?”

She mewled in response.

Skies of stone, she smelled so good, felt so good, her frantic heartbeat against my lips, her hips rocking helplessly, her cunt swollen and throbbing as I stroked her from the inside.

“Only me, little bride,” I hissed. I drew my tongue along her pulse between the words. “Only this.” My mouth found the impossibly soft slip of skin at her ear, and she shuddered, wet walls tightening around my finger, when I sucked it. I released her ear with a rasping, splintered breath, then gritted out, “I don’t care if you hate me. As long as you want me.”