Enosh held on to me, trying to steady me on wobbly legs. Eventually, he gave up and let me gently sink to the ground, lowering himself with me as he kept hugging me, hushing me.

“I hate you.” For holding me the way I’d needed him to—instead of being his cold, indifferent self—turning me into a needy, trembling mess.

“I would rather have you hate me for eternity than not have you at all.” His lips brushed the corner of my mouth, kissing me as he brought one of my legs over his, positioning me astride him. “But at least allow me to love you.”

The way he pushed me down onto his growing erection sent a jolt through me. “No!”

“Shh…” he hushed me once more. “Is this not what you want? Not what you long for? My kiss? My attention? The heat of my cock between your legs?”

Squirming in his hold, I lashed out at whatever came into reach as my mind descended into violence. Red lines streaked his neck and chin where I scratched him while shrieking like a banshee.

Maybe I’d made it out of the grave, but my sanity had not. Or maybe I needed him to retaliate—to strike me, spank me, bury me. Anything to contain how I longed for him, ached for him to hold me tighter as I rocked my hips toward his.

But Enosh neither dodged my assaults nor made me stop. No, what he did was much worse. So much worse.

He let me.

Enosh tolerated it all, shoving a finger beneath my dress, pushing my braies aside before he ran a knuckle over my clit. “Keep going, little one. Scratch me. Strike me.”

I did.

My core heated with every scraping attack, each slap of my palm, burning away the sorrows that had worn me down for too long. Too long. Everything, from the gossip I’d endured and the judgment, to the unfairness, I released into my balled hands.

And it felt good.

Freeing.

A sudden swath of warmth against my cunt told me Enosh’s breeches had vanished. Leaning slightly back—his palms braced against the grass on either side—he lifted me up with his hips, increasing the delicious pressure against my sex.

That felt good, too.

Losing precision and vigor, I kept dropping my little fists against his chest with hollow thuds. All the while I shifted my hips faster, rubbing myself on his rock-hard shaft until my nipples grew to aching points, but… oh, it wasn’t enough.

“No, my wife would not want to escape me, would she?” He stared at me, the red lines on his face already vanishing. “For I am the beat in her heart, the blood in her veins, and the heat she desperately clings to.”

My insides clenched at the smugness hiding in his undertone, nothing but the trace of his arrogance simmering beneath the surface of his baritone. I observed the faintest twitch on his upper lip, as though his mask tried to return.

But I wouldn’t let it.

Refused to continue this madness.

I would shatter that mask tonight.

Instead of wasting time on another attack, I shifted my hips until his crown nudged my entrance. When I pushed back onto his cock, he clenched his eyes shut, letting his groan mingle with my whimper.

I quivered at the mercy of feverish heat and how I rocked him deeper into me. Mmm, how his cock pulsed inside me, hot and hard, warming me in ways he’d denied far too many times.

Enosh stuttered out a breath and let his forehead drift against mine. “Mmm, how nicely your needy cunt grips me.”

I thrust against him, joining in our shared rhythm as I succumbed to the warmth it provided—a shred of wicked comfort in a hell of eternal cold and heart-rending solitude. I chased every spark that tingled around my clit, every convulsion in my lower belly.

I shoved his chest until his back hit the grass, loving how it made him lengthen inside me. His hands wandered to my waist, pushing me down with each of his upward thrusts, letting my clit press against his hard body.

When Enosh’s breathing quickened, he expelled a guttural groan. “Say my name!”

I bore down on him, grinding and rubbing, until an all-consuming burn erupted between my legs. “Enosh—”

Scorching, sweltering, red-hot heat rippled across my core, spreading into every limb, into the tips of my fingers, my toes, and even into the roots of my hair. Everything tingled, sending a whole-body shiver across me, leaving my skin a landscape of pebbles and raised hairs.

Enosh sucked in a breath, stiffening beneath me. His hips stalled—they always did before he reached his peak. Gods were unpredictable; men were not.

I slipped off him and scooted up to his chest.

Behind me, his unfinished cock slapped against his stomach, but it was his agonized groan that brought a smile to my lips. Enosh stared up at me with widened eyes. He bucked underneath me uncontrollably, dug his hands into my waist, frantically shifted me toward his cock once more.

But it was too late.

He grunted and jerked underneath me as he spilled his seed over his stomach. Or onto the train of my dress? Who could say?

“Friction.” I leaned over, letting the tip of my tongue lap at his earlobe. “It is in your nature to move, buck, and rub in search of it. But remove it while you succumb to pleasure, and it hurts. You might be a god, my master, yet that won’t keep your cock from making you look rather mortal in this moment.”

His hand shot to my crown but a second later. “It seems as though you are begging for punishment.”

“It seems as though you stopped begging for my forgiveness.”

A beat of hesitation.

For the first time, my husband seemed positively stunned, choking on this damn arrogance of his. His face blanked, leaving every parting and closing of his lips utterly exposed with nothing left to hide behind.

With a sigh, he eventually released my crown, and a hint of pain moved in the depths of his irises. “Will you forgive me?”

That would depend on what forgiveness bought me. “You nearly buried me alive.”

“Only nearly, and not quite alive.” When I said nothing, letting the silence stretch thin between us, he finally nodded in defeat and raked a nervous hand through his hair once more. “I was… convinced you were scheming to escape and find refuge with my brother.”

“And you weren’t entirely wrong.”

He stilled, and even his chest stopped mid-inhale. “Explain.”

“You want my forgiveness for tossing me into a grave?” I sat straight, reacquainting myself with the man beneath the mask and how out of sorts he looked. “I will explain, but you will listen until I am finish—”

“Little—”

“No interruptions!” I ignored the snarl coming to his lips, the flash of teeth as though he were close to biting my mouth off. “Then you will take me to Yarin so he can confirm what I’ve told you is true.”

His lower jaws shifted and his eyes narrowed. “You have a great many requests.”

“And you have a great many things in need of forgiveness.” And it was time that he learned exactly why. “Do you want it, yes or no?”

“I shall be so quiet while I listen,” he ground out. “For your forgiveness, I shall do this.”

And I blurted it right out.

“Njala has been in love with Joah even before she came with you to the Pale Court. The affair brought Lord Tarnem no political benefit, so he broke it up and gave her to a god in exchange for an army.” I watched first confusion, then old misery crack through Enosh’s face in the shape of wrinkles webbing from the outer corners of his turbulent eyes. “She continued to see Joah whenever she left the Pale Court—something Orlaigh tried to talk her out of but could not. And so, she helped keep it a secret.”

His features hardened. “You sound rather certain.”

“Because I can prove it.”

Maybe. Hopefully.

I told him about the day I found Orlaigh scolding Lord Tarnem, how I couldn’t keep any food down in Elderfalls, and how the grains had sprouted. The more I told him, the more his body stiffened against mine. When I told him of my chat with Lord Tarnem, Enosh tilted his head back until his throat bobbed as he stared at the black sky.