Please stop.

I scrabble for composure, but I’m unraveling, splitting at the seams, and if I don’t get away from him—

“Just this once, I’m not obeying that word,” Evander says, wiping away my tears. “Because when Alexios comes for me—and he will come—I need you to be untouchable. To belong to me so completely that not even another Eternal can contest it.” He tenses like he’s bracing himself. “I’m impulsive. Cruel. Selfish down to the fucking marrow. But I love you, you chaotic, reckless girl. I love you, and losing you would break me. So let me Claim you.”

And there it is—the killing blow. Like he’s cracked my ribs open and seized my heart in his fist.

Because this is so much worse than him despising me.

“A Claim isn’t love.” I push at his chest. “It’s ownership.”

Something complicated moves across Evander’s face. All the raw, wretched wanting laid bare. “Listen to me very carefully, you impossible creature. I would never demand your submission or your surrender—”

I snort, arching a brow.

“Outside of mutually enjoyable naked scenarios,” he amends. “But I’m not asking for that. I’m offering all of me. Every fucked-up, unworthy piece. It’s all yours.”

He backs up to unfasten his shirt from between his wings, shrugging the garment off. His skin glows in the light, muscles shifting.

And then, in a move that steals the air from my lungs, he sinks to his knees.

My heart rate picks up. “What are you doing?”

“Proving a point. Do you have any idea what it means for a god to kneel? To prostrate himself? To let anyone touch his wings?”

Slowly, he takes my hand and guides it to his wing. My chest tightens as I glide my fingers along the soft arch, marveling at the way the feathers resettle. So many emotions expand through my chest, too big for my body to hold them all.

Evander’s lashes flutter closed as a shiver rolls through him. A faint groan rises in his throat, and the sound tugs at something low in my belly.

“This is the most profound gesture of surrender we can offer,” he says hoarsely as I stroke his feathers. “Exposing our wings is like baring our throats. Giving up everything we are to the one person in the realms we deem worthy. No one’s ever touched my wings before, Devaliant. Just you.”

A small, secret part of me fractures. The part that still harbors impossible yearnings. It fills my veins with light, with the reckless urge to take what he’s offering.

So I do. I keep nudging my fingers through his covert feathers. Evander tips his head back with a moan, wings going loose and pliant as I explore.

“This is a privilege reserved only for Chosen.” His words are raw. “Those we invite to share a soulbond. A reciprocal, permanent Claim. One a human hasn’t shared with a god in my lifetime.”

Slowly, so slowly, Evander withdraws a blade from his boot and presses the hilt into my palm. The metal is warm from his skin, the cross guard inlaid with an engraving of a wolf with its teeth bared in a snarl, wreathed in flame. His insignia.

“You deserve a choice.” He places his hand over mine and gently curls my fingers around his dagger. “There are two paths ahead of you, and I’m asking you to pick. Carve your mark into my skin. Reclaim every shred of agency stolen from you and take me in trade. Be my equal and walk at my side for eternity.” He looses a breath, composing himself. “Or cut me loose right here, right now, and I swear to you I’ll never again burden you with my inconvenient feelings. One word is all it’ll take, and this will be the last you ever see of me.”

I stare down at him, at this god kneeling in supplication for me. Offering up his wings to my touch after everything he told me at the griefwood. Offering me forever.

His eyes meet mine, and he whispers, “Can I be yours?”

It’s too much. My thoughts tangle in a maelstrom of want and shouldn’t and please, please let me have this. Let me keep him.

I’d always thought of gods as marble. Unchanging and impervious, their hearts closed to anything but conquest and the subjugation of the small, soft things. But Evander doesn’t demand I gentle myself into some digestible shape, all my awkward pieces sanded down to fit. He meets the feral thing behind my ribs with bared teeth of his own and calls it lovely. Calls it right.

“You’re thinking very loudly.” Evander’s voice is filled with a quiet sort of longing. “Talk to me, nemesis.”

Slowly, I lower myself to the ground. Until we’re kneeling face to face, close enough to trade breath.

“Tell me what’s going on in that head of yours,” he says, quieter this time. Almost tentative, like he’s bracing for a blow. Steeling himself against rejection.

“I’m thinking you must be out of your damned mind.” My hand tightens on his blade’s hilt. “Because I need you to be absolutely sure that you want me bound to you for eternity.”

Something flashes across his features—impatience and hunger and desperation. “Bryony…”

“Let me finish. Please.” I force myself to hold his gaze. Let him see all the longing. The hurt. “I have to give you an out. Because there’s no coming back from this, and I don’t think I’d survive it if I felt your regret through a soulbond. Knowing I was the worst mistake you ever made. I don’t know anything about soulbonding with gods, but I’m not like you. I’m just—”

“A human. I know. I don’t care.”

“I’ll never be able to fly with you, Wolf.”

“Then fall with me.” His expression softens. “I don’t know anything about this kind of bond either, but if it’s anything like two gods, you’ll share my lifespan. That’s enough for me.”

I blink hard against the sudden sting in my eyes. “Please be sure.”

A low sound leaves him. Then his mouth is on mine, soft and searing all at once. His kiss is like a whispered confession. A vow sighed against my skin as he tips his forehead to rest against my own.

“I’ve never been more sure of anything in my very long existence.” His thumbs stroke over my cheekbones, catching the tears that escape. “There’s no part of me that doesn’t crave you, no part of me that isn’t already hopelessly, stupidly yours. The thought of touching anyone who isn’t you makes me want to tear the world apart. You’re it for me, nemesis. It’s only ever been you.”

I swallow against the sudden thickness in my throat. “But I don’t have a godmark. I’m not—”

“Then give me whichever mark you choose. Cut it into my flesh, carve it into my bones, I don’t give a fuck. Just make me yours the same way I want to make you mine.”

My heart feels like it’s going to slam right out of my chest. With shaking fingers, I press the edge of the dagger to Evander’s chest above his pectoral. Flesh splits beneath the steel, and I form the jagged lines that spell out my Claiming.

The eight-pointed star symbolizing the first that lit the sky at my birth.

I lower the blade. “What comes next?”

“I taste your blood, and I’ll open my power up to you. Decide where you want my mouth.”

Where don’t I?

I shrug out of my coat and pull off my shirt. Cool air meets my naked torso, but I barely feel the chill. Snatching up the dagger again, I choose a spot just below my collarbone and score a shallow line before I can second-guess myself.

Evander makes a low sound. Then he’s surging forward, hands grabbing my hips as his mouth seals over the cut. Pleasure lances through me at the sting. The slick drag of his tongue. I twist a hand in his hair, and he keeps going, groaning against my skin. His power thrums through my veins as the Claiming begins to take hold.

“Your turn,” he says.

He brings my wrist to his lips and brushes a feather-light kiss to the frantic thrum of my pulse as more of his power rushes into me. It gathers beneath my skin until a new mark takes shape over where Alexios’ used to be. Luminous gold limning my flesh in delicate filigree.