“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.”