My arousal was so instantaneous and overwhelming it almost scared me. It was like a huge wave inside me, a tsunami in the dead of night, pure black, without the reflection of stars, rising and ready to crash. Ready to wipe out everything. I arched and whimpered and begged. Begged for more, and Wylfrael nudged another finger inside.

The stretch was a perfect burn. But I wanted more. In some terrible, clawing way, I wanted him to hurt me.

But I’d already learned by now that he wouldn’t. He kissed along my throat, letting me adjust to the breadth of his two fingers before he started moving them. I bucked helplessly and threw my head back when he added a third finger after a few moments.

Wylfrael’s other hand ripped away from my hip, rising to undo the cloak’s tie at the base of my throat. He eased it open, not enough for it to slide off my shoulders but enough to allow him rough, greedy access to my breasts. He touched me through my dress until my nipples ached and I was close to coming, until I couldn’t stop myself from tearing open the laces, exposing myself to his heat and the biting air. His mouth was ardent fire on my sensitized peaks, a shocking contrast to the winter all around us.

The sleigh hit a slight bump, sending me falling forward, my breasts crushing against his face. Wylfrael kept me there, burying his face in my chest, one hand still pumping inside me, the other splayed across my upper back. His lips and breath were harsh and needy, biting over to my right breast as I fumbled clumsily with the ties at the front of his trousers. Snarling, he pulled his hands away from me to do it himself, and I cried out at the shocking emptiness he left behind.

His shaft arched forward, thick and hard and already glistening blue at the tip, stars running down, illuminating swelling and veins. Wylfrael didn’t touch himself, instead reaching for me, but I moved too quickly for him to get his fingers inside again. Hiking up my skirts, my shattered heart on fire in my chest and in my throat, I pressed my heated core to his tip.

“Torrance.” My name was gruff with both need and warning. A reminder of terms and stipulations and everything I’d used to distance myself from him. But I didn’t want distance anymore. Not now, not when it felt like I was losing him, like I was the reason he’d be lost in the first place.

Wylfrael’s hands slammed down onto the curving crystal bench beneath us. Tendons and arteries jumped in his forearms, and cracks appeared like webbing under the silver surface.

He wouldn’t do it. He wouldn’t break my rule.

So, I broke it myself. What did it matter, now? After I’d already broken my heart?

I didn’t nod. I didn’t speak. I just sank lower and lower, sliding hot and wet until his tip was completely inside. Even after the preparation of his fingers, the stretch was agonizing, but it didn’t hurt enough for me to stop. I rocked, taking more and more of him inside until pleasure began to bite at the heels of pain. I chased the feeling, gritting my teeth and holding my breath as I drove myself downward, filling myself with him.

A vicious cracking sound filled the air, and I opened my eyes. A huge chunk of crystal had come away from the bench under Wylfrael’s grip. He swore and hurled it out of the moving sleigh before turning his burning attention back to me.

“Torrance,” he choked out, sounding like I’d never heard him sound before, sounding fucking broken, “if you want to stop, it has to be now.”

He wasn’t the only one who could use kisses to shut someone up. Legs trembling, pussy pulsing around him, already ready to come, I shoved my mouth onto his. It wasn’t an elegant kiss. It was messy and hungry and inevitable. As inevitable as Wylfrael’s hands rising to my hips, holding me in place as he unleashed himself upon me, slamming upward with incredible force that stole my breath from my lungs.

There was no holding back, no tenderness in his movements. Thank God, because that isn’t what I wanted anyway. I didn’t want his control. I wanted abandon. Oblivion.

Wylf’s mouth closed around the front of my throat, sucking hard, fangs grazing my skin, so close to biting down it made ecstatic fear turn bright and erotic inside me. I quaked everywhere – my arms as I looped them around his neck, my legs, and inside my core. He was so big, filled me so full, that my pussy couldn’t fully contract around him. He barely pulled out with each thrust, as if he couldn’t bear not to be inside me, which meant the pressure never let up, not even for a second. I wanted to come, to clench, but couldn’t, my muscles too overwhelmed by him, until I was sobbing with the need for release. Wylfrael kissed up to my tear-stained cheeks, trying to soothe me even as his cock strained deeper, the stars on his shaft creating tiny vibrations that echoed everywhere.

“Wylf,” I keened between sobs, “I need... I need...”

One of his hands dug beneath my dress, slipping along my groin until his thumb met my throbbing clit. He rubbed it in merciless circles, sliding through the wetness of my arousal as white-hot sensation expanded along the base of my spine. His thumb was as brutal as his cock, which left me wildly disoriented when his half-whispered, half-moaned words filtered into my brain.

“Little bride, beautiful little bride. Cursed stars, you don’t know how I’ve wanted you.”

My eyes fluttered closed as I completely gave myself over to him. I let the tension sag out of my legs, relying only on him to hold me up as he fucked me. I collapsed onto his chest, my forehead in the crook of his neck.

“Beautiful bride, Torrance, beloved, I-”

His words broke off in a snarl. I felt him throb inside, felt him explode, felt the groan that ripped out of him deep in my body. He pumped hard, the rock of his hips timed to every pulse and spurt. His mouth was open against my cheek as he swore, or maybe beseeched, “Save me.”

I’d heard the phrase before. The full saying was, Sionnach save me, an emotionally charged version of the more common saying, Sionnach preserve me. But he hadn’t managed all the words.

It sounded like he was asking me to save him. And I fucking wanted to. Wanted to save him from me and from himself.

But he wouldn’t let me.

I knew it, knew that he wouldn’t let me as I found release, every nerve winding up tight then whirling like tops let loose on a table. My muscles finally gained traction against him, clamping down with a vengeance, sealing him inside. The movement of his hips became less blindingly urgent and more sensual, languid, rolling endlessly, drawing out my orgasm until I cried again, but this time with pleasure.

Soon, everything slowed, until the only movement was the sleigh gliding along. Steadying my breathing and my shaking limbs, I lifted myself until Wylfrael slipped out. I pushed off of him, falling heavily onto the bench beside him, my skirt snagging on broken crystal.

“Torrance-”

“We should go back,” I interrupted.

But even as he turned the sleigh around, I knew that we couldn’t.

Not really.

Not anymore.

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CHAPTER FORTY-FOUR Wylfrael

Torrance didn’t speak on the ride back. She rested her elbow on the side of the sleigh, her chin perched upon her hand, watching the trees go by while I watched her. I thought that I should touch her, but she didn’t seem to want that now. I thought that I should say something, but did not know what.

We arrived at Barra’s enclosure in silence. I detached the sontanna from the sleigh, then helped Torrance down. I would have held her hand the entire walk back to the castle, but she pulled hers from mine as soon as her boots hit the snow.