I tug off the Devaliant’s veil to smell her better, to drown in that addictive scent that’s driving me mad. The Devaliant buries her face against my neck, and a shiver goes through her, her fingers tightening on my shoulders. So close to the most sensitive part of my wings—the erogenous covert feathers closest to the skin. No other lover has ever touched me there, and it’s madness that I’m even considering commanding her to.

The night sky splinters around us, stars shattering into ribbons of color that twist and dance through the darkness. It catches in the Devaliant’s silver hair and dusts her skin in shimmering opal. She’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen.

I should say something. An assurance that she isn’t about to be fucked within an inch of her life by the animal wearing my skin. That somewhere beneath the rut-fever, I’m still capable of sanity.

But that would be a lie, and if nothing else, I’ll give the Devaliant the dignity of honesty.

In no time at all, the tower comes into view. I aim for the garden, touching down on silent feet. Carefully—so carefully—I set the Devaliant on her feet and force myself to step back.

“Get inside.” I’m amazed the words emerge as anything close to intelligible. “Now. Before I forget how to be careful with you.”

She hesitates, and I think, Yes. Fucking please. Just give me an excuse to snap. To push you down and take what I want—

The Devaliant must see something in my face because she’s moving before I can act on the impulse. I follow her through the halls, staying close enough to hear her rapid exhales. It’s only when we reach her chamber that my control finally shatters.

I’ve got her caged between my body and the door before she can so much as gasp. The sound she makes incinerates the last scraps of rational thought. The Devaliant tips her head back, baring her throat—an offering and a surrender.

Here, it says. You can have it. I yield.

“Evander.” A ragged whisper.

Of course she’d use my name right now when I’m out of my mind with want, and that’s all it takes to push me over the edge.

So I take her mouth the way I will take the rest of her—with tongue and teeth. Starving and reverent. I’ll worship every inch of her until my name is etched on her bones. Until there’s nothing left of me but what she chooses to keep.

She makes a sound that’s half prayer, half plea. Begging me to have her. I imagine myself tangled up in her limbs, inside her. Imagine how wet she’d be, how she’d sound when I moved. Would she grasp me like now? Would she want me to take her harder?

“The symbol on your neck?” I whisper. “It’s asking for someone to Claim you tonight.”

She swallows hard. “And would you? If I hadn’t ordered you not to?”

I can’t. You aren’t for me.

So I toe open the door and nudge her gently across the threshold. “I think the marks on your body are making promises you don’t want to keep, and I’m not in my right mind.” I step away. “Lock yourself in. Wash the paint off. Don’t come out until this passes.”

Please. Please just obey me for once in your contrary existence.

She studies my face, and I brace for her refusal. For the inevitable, disastrous moment she throws herself against my discipline to see how far it bends.

But then the Devaliant dips her chin in a nod.

It takes every shred of my control to slam the door shut. Panting, I slump against the surface, tip my head back, and just breathe, and breathe, and breathe. I try to claw back some semblance of sense and sanity.

We want what we want. Even when we know it’ll destroy us.

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32

BRYONY

I CAN’T STAY in this room for another second.

The Wolf told me to lock myself in here—what, a day ago? More? I haven’t eaten since before Amara flew me to Caelestis, and I’ve tried every distraction I can think of. I’ve picked up books and tossed them aside. Tried to sleep. Watched the aetherlight dance across the ceiling.

Nothing works.

Pressing my ear to the door, I listen hard, but there’s only silence on the other side. The sort of eerie quiet that settles over old places at night. For all I know, the rut-fever could have driven the Wolf to the other side of the tower, as far from me as he can get.

My stomach growls, insistent now. If he thinks I’m going to spend three days in here wasting away to nothing, he’s out of his mind.

I unlock the door and ease it open. The hinges let out a groan, and I pause, pulse racing. Nothing. So I hurry down to the kitchen.

The table is a mess of half-prepared food left abandoned. Platters of cheese, bowls of apples and pears, some bread. I make quick work of the cheese and bread first, then I snatch up an oatcake, slather it with berry preserves, and devour two. I lick each finger clean, so distracted that I forget why I shouldn’t be in here.

Until a soft groan shatters the quiet.

Slowly, I turn. And there, filling the doorway, is a very large, very beautiful, very naked, very aroused god.

The Wolf’s black hair is tangled around his face. He clutches the frame, breathing hard. I can’t help but drink in the sight of him—his bare, muscled chest, the lines of his abdomen, the tantalizing cut of muscle framing his hips. Those appealing V-shaped lines that guide my gaze downward.

Oh. Oh my.

“Eyes up, Devaliant.”

Heat floods my cheeks, but I force myself to meet his stare. This isn’t the Wolf I’m used to. Not the cold, calculating male with an assassin’s control. This god is more lethal than the executioner—stripped down to his most base self, with no civility to blunt his edges. He’s staring at me like a feral animal in the woods.

He looks like he wants to eat me alive.

He looks like he might enjoy it.

Somehow, I find my voice. “You’re looking rough, Wolf. Trouble sleeping?”

A muscle in his jaw tics, the only sign that he’s heard me. That he’s even fully present. “What part of stay in your fucking room was unclear?” His fingers flex on the doorframe like he’s fighting the urge to grab me.

“Even prisoners get fed,” I argue. “I was starving.”

I step back as the Wolf moves closer.

“You want to talk about hunger? Starvation?” He cages me against the table, palms flat on either side of my hips. “I’ve been in my room for the last sixteen hours with only my hand, your scent, and the most depraved fantasies for company.”

I suck in a sharp breath. Images flood my mind. The Wolf, naked and glistening with sweat, working that big cock with urgent strokes. Moaning my name as he finds his release.

“You have no idea how many times I’ve imagined fucking you,” he continues mercilessly. His palm skims up my side to the curve of my breast. “Spread out beneath me. Bent over my desk. Shackled to the wall with my cock buried deep inside you. This entire tower is saturated with your scent, and it’s driving me fucking insane. I can’t think about anything else except this clawing desperation to have you. That, Devaliant, is starvation.”

His hand curves around my nape, and some long-buried instinct shrieks at me to go limp. To run. To do anything but stand here and let him put his teeth so close to all my soft parts. Because the Wolf is a weapon, and I’ve seen what those brutal hands can do.

I know with a blinding certainty that he wants to take and take and take until there’s nothing left.

And maybe I want him to.

The Wolf’s head dips, and I feel the drag of his parted lips. He nuzzles into my neck, making a low, hungry sound as he breathes me in. Scents me like the wild thing he is.