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.”