“If I’d confessed, would it have slowed you down?” she presses. “Altered your angle of approach? Or just inspired you to find a more convenient surface to bend me over?”

My cock twitches at the memory. I actually have to clench my hands into fists to keep from grabbing her. But this is a game, a careful balance of want and patience and conquest.

“I would’ve fucked you on any surface I could get. Floor, wall, tree—didn’t matter as long as I got to hear you scream my name.” I step closer, watching her pupils dilate and her chest move a little faster. “But yeah, maybe I wouldn’t have spanked that disobedient ass the first time. The chase through the woods? That would’ve been later.”

“I don’t need soft,” she says with a withering glare.

“Wasn’t offering it.”

“I don’t want rose petals and silk sheets. I wanted—”

“To be devoured, I know. And I don’t deny myself the things I crave. Especially the dangerous, chaotic ones.”

“Of course not. Usually, you just gnaw on them until they stop twitching. Must have been refreshing to have something fight back for once.”

Oh, I like her mouthy. I like her mean. This is the woman who’s scratched her name into my soul with bloody fingernails. The one who cuts with her words and fucks like she’s fighting.

“Careful, sweetheart. You keep up that bratty attitude, and I’ll have to spank you again.”

Bryony swallows hard, squirming a little, but says nothing.

“But from now on,” I say, “when we play? I expect honesty. No holding back. No lies of omission. Are we clear?”

“You want honesty? Fine.” She lets out a hard exhale. “Nothing in Vartena was ever mine. My body, my time, my choices—all of it belonged to other people. My virginity was just another commodity to be traded. Another thing they could take from me. So last night, for the first time in my life, I chose. I wanted you, so I took you. I won’t apologize for that.”

I see it with a sudden, stark clarity—a girl broken for her realm, doomed to be chewed up and spat out by a world intent on using her up. Sacrificed on a god’s altar and expected to smile as she’s stripped of agency. All those people with their hands on her, deciding her fate and bartering her away piece by piece.

Her uncle trying to kill her was just the final insult. The real violence was every day they told her she belonged to everyone but herself.

She shouldn’t have handed me this. Shouldn’t have pressed the shape of her hurts into my palm and expected me not to squeeze until the world fractures. Because now all I want is to peel the skin off every arrogant fuck who thought to collar her, starting with Alexios.

Bryony slants me a look. “Stop.”

“Stop what?”

“That thing you’re doing with your face. The brooding. Men only brood for two reasons: they’re planning something stupid or angsting about their feelings. So which is it? Murder or manpain?”

“I scheme, vicious girl. I plot and plan and sharpen my claws. I dream up new and interesting ways to make people suffer.”

She arches an eyebrow. “What’s the difference?”

“Brooding is for poets and lovesick fools. Scheming is for monsters.”

“A semantic argument at best.”

I grin slowly. “Want me to lay the bodies of your enemies at your feet? Stack their skulls in a monument to your glory?”

What? Destruction has always been my love language, and Bryony Devaliant is a dark and hungry god shaped like a woman. I want to worship at her altar.

A reluctant smile tugs at her lips. “That’s horrifying, dramatic, and unnecessary, but sweet. I’ll pass on the corpse pile, though.” Bryony hops down from the wall and closes the distance between us. The aetherlight filters through her thin chemise, silhouetting the graceful curve of her hips. “You say the loveliest things for a male who claims to loathe me.”

“You make me feel a lot of things. Most of them vaguely homicidal.”

“And the other things?”

Everything I have no right to feel, not for anyone. Especially not for you.

“Irritated. Frustrated. Occasionally murderously possessive,” I say instead. “Right now? So ravenous I can barely see straight.”

I reach for her, ghosting my fingertips up her body. Skimming over her ribs, beneath the curve of her breast. Her breathing goes a little ragged.

“How much of this is Aethertide?” she asks. “Were you like this with Arcadia?”

The question is guarded. There’s a subtle tension in her shoulders, as if she’s bracing herself.

I move closer, until we’re breathing in the same air. “Jealous, nemesis?”

“No.”

“Liar.” I lean in and graze my teeth up her throat. “What if I touched her exactly like this, fucked her the way I fucked you? Made her scream and beg so pretty—”

Her hand shoots out, wrapping around my throat and digging her nails in.

“Mmm.” I give a laugh. “That feels an awful lot like jealousy.”

“When we’re together, you don’t think about anyone else. Understand?” Her voice is almost a snarl, fingers tightening until she’s digging into my pulse.

Then her mouth is on mine, greedy and artless. I sink into it with a groan. She tugs at my hair, fingernails a sweet sting against my scalp as she presses closer. Her scent fills my head—that intoxicating combination of midnight blooms and arousal, and I think, Oh. This. This is what madness must feel like. Wanting the woman most likely to destroy me, and not caring anyway.

I break the kiss and whisper against her mouth, “Jealousy tastes good on you.”

“Shut up.”

“But I like this side of Bryony Devaliant.” I kiss her again. “Demanding Bryony.” I grip her slip and drag it off her shoulder, following with my lips. “Possessive Bryony.” I yank her clothes off the rest of the way. The aetherlight dances over her bare skin in silver-blue patterns—catching on her cheekbones, the hollow of her throat, the dip of her waist. “Greedy Bryony.”

“I said shut up.” She pushes me away. “And take off your damn pants.”

That’s right. So fucking greedy.

You shouldn’t want her like this.

But I do. I’ve had more lovers than I can count, fucked my way through the centuries with males and females, humans and gods. I’ve seen Bryony naked, had her spread out beneath me, mapped her body, taken her over and over.

And she still leaves me breathless.

I strip out of my trousers. Power thrums beneath my skin—Aethertide making everything sharper, more intense, more present. A fever cured only by her.

Bryony looks my naked body up and down, slow and hungry, then drags a palm down her face. “It’s actually offensive how beautiful you are.”

“That’s the trick.” I sink to my knees in the grass. Catching her by the hips, I draw her down until we’re skin to skin, heartbeat to heartbeat. “Monsters are always beautiful. The prettier we are, the easier it is to fool a clever girl into letting us devour her.” I drag my nose along her jaw, biting softly at her earlobe. “Would you want me even half as much if I were nice?”

“No,” she sighs, melting into me. “I really wouldn’t.”

My blood sings at the admission—victory and satisfaction. Because this raw, messy want? Knowing that does it for her, too? That is so much better.

Because I’m exactly what she needs. What she craves in the dark.

“That’s right.” I walk my fingers up her spine, relishing her little shiver. “You don’t need gentle. You need a lover with teeth.”

Tipping forward, Bryony nips at my jaw. “Put your mouth between my thighs.”

I lean down and bite the inside of her thigh, soothing the sting with my tongue. Then I’m shoving her legs wider. I look my fill, admiring the sight of her.

“Such a perfect pussy,” I say. “Tell me I’m the first to worship you here.”

A shiver rolls through her. She nods. Shy, almost.

Fuck, yes.