I grin slowly. “Let me show you how a god prays.”

Starting slowly, I taste and tease with barely-there kisses. Stroking, exploring, getting her used to it. Learning her taste. She makes these sweet little noises, fingers curling into my hair.

“More,” she moans.

“Patience,” I say with a light nip on her thigh.

I thrust my fingers into her. She arches off the ground with a sharp cry. I grin, running my tongue over her in a long, slow lick. Then I press my mouth to her clit and suck, light at first. A moan shudders out of her. I do it again, harder this time.

“Oh, fuck,” she gasps.

There it is.

Her hands grasp my hair as I eat her out. I pin her hips, holding her still for every swipe of my tongue and plunge of my fingers. I could feast on this pussy for days.

Drawing out her pleasure is the sweetest torment. I crook my fingers just right and feel the tension singing through her, begging for release. But I’m patient. I take my time, memorizing which licks make her moan. What pace makes her shudder. The way I slide my tongue inside her pussy and her hand grips my hair hard enough to sting. I work her through it, letting her savor me on my knees for her. Worshipping her just like I promised.

“That’s it,” I murmur. “Ride that high for me.”

Her breathing is shaky. She lifts her hips, chasing my mouth, fucking herself on my tongue. I grip her thighs hard and shove them wider, ruthless now.

She climaxes with my name on her lips. Her nails dig into my nape as I give her a few more little licks, ending with one last tender kiss to her inner thigh.

“I love the sounds you make when you come,” I whisper, nipping up her body.

I pause to cup her breasts, flicking her nipple with my tongue. A gentle bite before licking a path to the other. She moans, fingers scrabbling against my shoulders.

“Fetch the dagger from my trousers.” I nudge my hips forward, letting the head of my cock drag against her. “Side pocket. Mind the spring-loaded hilt.”

She fumbles for my discarded clothes and drags the weapon free. Before I can blink, she has the point beneath my jaw. I have to bite back a groan. She’s so damn beautiful.

“Leave it there until I tell you otherwise,” I say.

Bryony lifts a brow, head tilting. “Does a knife at your throat turn you on, Wolf?”

“You with a knife at my throat turns me on. And it’s a reminder of what we are to each other. We’ll always exist on either side of this blade. No catching feelings, not even when I’m inside you.”

I surge forward in a rough thrust that has her head slamming back into the grass. The edge of the dagger kisses my neck as I set a relentless rhythm. She’s not pressing hard enough to cut me, but enough to remind me of the cost. Of the price I’ll have to have her.

“Come on,” she says between panting breaths. “I know you can fuck me better than that.”

My hands tighten on her hips. “You want harder?”

“As hard as you can give me. Make me feel it for days.”

A distant part of me knows I should stop before I’m past all saving. I could love her, I think. I could let her crack my ribcage and curl her fingers around the misshapen lump I call a heart, hold it gently. Sift through the scar tissue until she finds something worth salvaging.

But she won’t find it. Because anything worth holding got burned out of me long ago. So instead, I’ll give her everything else.

I fuck her harder. Mean. I want to make her hurt for me. My teeth find her breasts, her ribs, her stomach. Marking her up, branding her with the shape of my need. I chase our mutual destruction until everything narrows to ecstasy and pain.

“Evander,” she gasps out.

“Say it again.” I punctuate the words with a dirty grind. I hitch her legs higher around my waist, hitting that spot that makes her tremble. “I want to hear it.”

“Evander.”

“Louder. Scream it for me.”

“Evander!” Her nails draw blood. “Fuck, right there, don’t stop!”

“What would the people of Luceni think,” I rasp in her ear, never easing up, “of their princess begging a god to fuck her good?”

She whimpers when I slide my hand between us. Circling her clit, pushing her higher.

“You think they’d still bow if they knew?” I pant. “If they saw the marks on your thighs? The way you came apart for me? That their perfect, pure Princess of the Blood wanted it so hard she let me bend her over, lay her down, bite her, bruise her. Let me desecrate every fucking inch of her body. That her pussy gets wet for me before I even touch her. Come on, tell me. What would they think?”

Her nails dig into my shoulders. She doesn’t answer.

“Do you even care?” I press.

“No.” She locks her ankles around me to pull me deeper. “They didn’t treat me like I was real.”

She’s right. Because the woman writhing beneath me isn’t the one who stood before her subjects with that empty smile. This is Bryony—wild and demanding, the one who takes what she wants.

She’s the fierce creature demanding more, harder, now.

“Know what I think?” I find a merciless rhythm that has her gasping with each thrust. “I think they had it all wrong. You never needed to be protected. You need this. To be dirtied up. Fucked out. Screaming my name.”

She bites her lip. She’s close. I can feel it in how she tightens around me.

“You don’t belong on a pedestal,” I manage between breaths. “You belong right here. Getting fucked beneath the stars. In the wild. In the dark. With me.”

I grab her thigh and hitch it higher, watching her mouth fall open when I hit that perfect spot inside her. The knife digs in a little deeper. Climax hovers just out of reach, my veins heating. Sparks crackle along my skin. My wings ignite, and flames lick along my feathers.

Bryony’s grip on my shoulder tightens. “Evander!”

She comes with a strangled cry, her body arching off the ground. The blade slips, slicing burning lines into my throat, and the sting makes everything sharper. Brighter. Blood trickles down my chest, spattering onto her pale skin.

I’ve never seen a canvas so beautiful.

I follow her over the edge. My hands grip her tight as I spill inside her, thrusting shallowly. My magic explodes outward and slams into the earth around us. A concussive wave of flames that burns the grass beneath us.

Then there’s only silence. Just our breathing, the groan of branches around us, and the crackle of fire.

I tug the blade gently from Bryony’s slack fingers and toss it aside to lift her into my arms. She makes a soft, contented sound. Only then does she notice the surrounding foliage.

“You’ve singed your garden,” she says with a laugh.

I chuckle as I survey the damage. “I spared the roses.”

Her lips skim my neck, right over the thin lines where she’d marked me. Our breathing is harsh as I carry her inside.

“I can’t decide,” she finally says, “if I’m going to kiss you or kill you when this is through.”

“As long as you’re the last thing I see in this fucked-up eternity of mine, I don’t really care which one you pick.”

As we pass the door with the obsidian seal, I reach out and brush my fingers over the carvings in a familiar ritual—a habit as ingrained as the instinct to grab for a weapon when threatened.

“Are you ever going to tell me what’s behind that door?” she asks.

My jaw clenches. “No.”

“Gory trophies? Jars of viscera?” She’s prodding now, looking for weak points. Gaps in my armor she can worm her fingers into and pry apart.

I don’t smile, not even to maintain this delicate illusion of tenderness. That place is as sacred to me as this realm.

“That room is not up for discussion.”

I brace for her to argue. To pry and dig and excavate like she always does.

But Bryony just… settles. She rests her cheek against my shoulder and winds her arms loosely around my neck, a gesture so simple and sweet that it cracks my chest wide open.