“And he—” I swallow thickly. “He wanted that? The pain?”

“Oh, he lived for it.” He takes my hand, guiding it under my shift. “There’s truth in pain when you mix it with pleasure. In the way we hurt each other. The sounds we make when we stop pretending to be anything but what we are.”

The Wolf’s fingers twine with mine, shoving them into my undergarments. A broken moan spills from me as he pushes my fingers into my pussy, the angle perfect. He starts working in and out in shallow thrusts, his other arm looping around my waist to anchor me against him.

“Wolf…” I bite my lip, the pain a sharp counterpoint to the pleasure.

He groans softly. Shoves our fingers deeper, more insistently. I lean back into him, riding our hands, pressing the heel of his palm against my clit.

“They whispered confessions in the dark that they’d deny come dawn,” he rasps, his breathing harsh. “Told lies that felt like truth and truths that cut like lies. I don’t need you. I could walk away. You’re not under my skin. And then came the truths, the things their bodies couldn’t deny. More, and harder, and right there, fuck.”

I love his voice. The low register like warm liquor, the way his lips shape the words against my skin. Heat coils low in my belly with every ragged breath, every plunge, every filthy word he breathes into my skin. I reach back to tangle my fingers in his hair, needing something to ground me. He grips my hip in a silent encouragement to keep fucking myself. Keep chasing.

“He’d keep her on the edge for hours.” We’re both panting now, my bitten-off moans filling the space between us. “Pleading so pretty, just how he liked it. In the dark, their hate burned just like need. And it felt so. Fucking. Good. To forget who they were supposed to be. To lose himself in that sweet”—his lips sear the curve of my nape—“tight”—his fingers push in deeper, faster—“pussy. He fucked her so good she felt it for days.”

Oh gods oh gods oh gods—

“Come on,” he growls. “Show me. Show me how good it feels when you stop fighting it. When you let yourself have what you want.”

The tension snaps. With a final thrust, I climax with a sharp cry. He keeps working our fingers through the aftershocks, wringing out every bit of pleasure until I’m gasping. Until I can’t feel anything beyond this moment—this surrender. The heat of him against my back. My chest burning to get in air.

His touch gentles as I come down. Lips graze my shoulder, my neck, my jaw. A nuzzle of his cheek to mine. My heart slams as I sink into him.

For a long moment, there is only the rasp of our breathing. The drum of the rain against the windows, the wind through the trees.

Slowly, carefully, he withdraws from me and straightens my shift with gentle hands. “Every touch between them,” he whispers, stepping away, “was an act of betrayal.”

My chest caves. I squeeze my eyes shut against the sudden sting. “They died, didn’t they?” I ask, unable to turn and meet his gaze. Afraid of what I might see there. “In the end.”

“Of course they did.” Flat. Final. Like a blade between the ribs. “What else could happen?”

I swallow past the tightness in my throat. “Then why do it? Why risk everything?”

“Because sometimes the pain of having someone for a few hours is better than the agony of not having them at all.” He inhales, then lets out a breath, slow and ragged. “Desire doesn’t give a fuck about should or shouldn’t. We want what we want, even when we know it’ll destroy us.”

The words hang between us like a death sentence. Like prophecy.

Before he leaves, I force myself to ask the question I’ve been dreading: “Are you going to take that demigoddess up on her offer to get you through Aethertide?” When he stays silent, I add mockingly, “In the sky, against a wall, bent over any surface?”

There. Now he knows that I watched them in the garden. That I heard everything she said. Did you kiss her after I left? Did you make plans to meet her? Do you want her? Would you ever want me?

I hold my breath, waiting.

“I’ll be alone,” he says softly.

The soft click of the door is like thunder in the silence he leaves behind.

OceanofPDF.com

30

BRYONY

I HAVEN’T SEEN you eat shit this enthusiastically since day one,” Amara says with a smirk, twirling her blade.

I’m on the ground again. Today has been an impressive test of perseverance—and by that, I mean enduring the humiliation of Amara kicking my ass for three hours. I don’t think I’ve managed to get a single hit in.

A snarl builds behind my teeth. “Don’t strain yourself with the compliments. Wouldn’t want you to pull something.”

She snorts, shaking her head. “Why don’t you just… take a minute. Gather up the shredded bits of your pride.”

I flop back into the grass, too wrung out to even think of a good retort. I let my eyes drift closed, and the Wolf’s face rises to the surface of my mind like it always does when things are too quiet. I wonder where he is right now. If he’s out on one last slaughter in Vartena before the rut hits, or locked away preparing for the onslaught.

I’ll be alone, he’d said, and those words haven’t stopped repeating in my head since he walked away and shut the door behind him.

“So. Anything you want to talk about?” Amara asks. Because, naturally, she can’t let me have even a second of respite.

Desire doesn’t give a fuck about should or shouldn’t. We want what we want, even when we know it’ll destroy us.

Something twists hard in my chest. I shove the memory down deep and chain it up where it can’t cut me open.

“No idea what you’re getting at,” I say, playing stupid.

“Uh-huh. Well, you were making puppy eyes at tall, dark, and dickish during drills yesterday.” She points her dagger at me for emphasis.

I smack the dagger away. “I did not make puppy eyes.”

“Please. Your whole face went soft and dopey when he tossed you that little scrap of a compliment. Classic puppy.”

Heat crawls up my cheeks. “Are we done with the interrogation portion of today’s ass-kicking? Let’s move on to something more productive. Like me punching you repeatedly in the face.”

Amara just laughs. “Please. The way you’re moving right now? You’ll be in your grave before I take off tonight.”

Wait. What? I push up on my elbows. “You’re going somewhere?”

“Caelestis. The Aethertide Festival is the only time I get to lose myself in a crowd without Alexios sniffing me out.”

Why would Alexios be looking for you? I almost ask, but then a flicker of memory fights to surface—cracked leather spines, gilt-edged pages, beautiful illustrations of a place in the clouds. Stacks of forbidden books in my father’s study that I wasn’t supposed to touch but pored over anyway, hungry for a glimpse of the world beyond our borders.

“Caelestis is… a city?” I ask, chasing that wisp of memory—the maddening sensation of almost grasping it.

“Yep. Picture one big citywide orgy, but with great wine and even better food.” Amara watches me chew my lip in thought. “I can hear you thinking too hard. Spit it out, Devaliant.”

“That name the Wolf mentioned yesterday,” I say. “Rhosyn. It’s familiar, and I think…” I shake my head, straining to call up the particulars. “I could swear I saw it in one of my father’s books when I was little. Something about Rhosyn and Caelestis. If I could see it, I might be able to recognize something from the illustrations—”