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And now it was gone.

She moved her arm, whether to tuck it against her side or shove it out of sight under the pillow, she wasn’t quite certain, but he stopped her, clutching at her wrist.

“You don’t get to be ashamed of these, either.” He pressed his lips to her arm. “They’re battle scars. Wear them with pride.” He kissed each scarlet etching of her veins in the same fierce, hungry manner with which he’d kissed her neck. “You held back the Voidfell. You saved our world.”

“You saved it with me.” She laced their fingers together. Her free hand traced the spiderweb of black scars on his face. “I fought the way you taught me to out there.”

When he slanted his mouth over hers again, it was a raking of slowly burning embers, sending up sparks. She was so far gone, she didn’t want to wait any longer, she wanted to feel something that wasn’t terror, wasn’t the World-Eater’s grief, wasn’t a labyrinth of conspiracy and artifice. She kissed him and she kissed him, her fingers running over new scars and old, and then, wandering lower still, guiding him to her entrance.

Alaric slipped one arm between the mattress and her shoulder blades, his other hand coaxing her knee upward to get a better angle. In doing so, he broke their kiss, and Talasyngrowled, which startled a raspy scrape of laughter from him. His smile flashed in the moonlight, before he brought his lips to her temple as he sank into her.

Skin to skin. Breath and magic. Alive, and no longer alone. She wrapped her legs around him, taking him deeper and deeper still, letting him open her up as he rolled his hips against hers, as he alternated between kissing her mouth and everywhere else he could reach.

“When you brought down your half of the sphere”—he sounded as shattered as she felt—“and when you leapt onto the dragon—I thought for sure—”

“It’s all right,” she said into his hair. “I’m all right, we’realive.” How good it felt to say those words. How exhilarating it was to affirm that they’d cheated death that night. She could still see Bakun’s amethyst breath pulsing in the darkness behind her shut lids every time she closed her eyes. “We’re okay.”

She clung to him as they moved together, as they brought each other higher, as death drew back its hand. It was so achingly gentle, so unlike anything they’d ever been to each other in the past. The metal of his wedding ring rubbed against her hip and she pressed kisses to his temple and it was so—

—sodangerous, that fluttering thing in her heart again, the swimminess in her stomach having nothing to do with arousal, or perhaps heightened by it—

I think I’m falling.

No. She couldn’t.

She couldn’t do this to everyone.

Talasyn didn’t even realize that she’d gone tense until Alaric stilled above her. “What’s wrong?” he grated out. He tucked wisps of hair behind her ear in a careful manner that belied the vibrating tension of his body, almost utterly wrecked by the effort of maintaining control. “Whatever it is, I’ll fix it, I’ll …”

He nuzzled into her neck, and it almost felt like love.

Something they didn’t have a right to, he’d said so himself.

Something that she didn’t deserve.

If he knew—when he finds out—

Scattered thoughts, howling through her mind like a whirlwind. And yet, through it all, refusing to so much as flicker, was the flame of how much she needed him. Of how much she neededthis.

Talasyn raked her nails across her husband’s spine. Alaric hissed, twitching inside her, the mouth at her neck biting down in retaliation. But it was nothing more than a nip, mildly chastising, more playful than anything else.

“Harder,” was all she said.

He raised his head, a slight frown to his kiss-stung lips. She bucked against him, a show of impatience that disguised the growing tightness in her chest. His eyes flashed silver amidst pale skin and black scars, and she bit back a whine as he rose to his knees, slipping out of her.

The separation should have cleared her head, but all she felt was loss. Alaric didn’t keep her waiting long, however; he notched into her again, then lifted her up by the hips and slammed all the way in with a single forceful thrust, knocking an undignified squeak out of her lungs.

Too much,was her first thought, her head lolling back, shoulders flat against the mattress.It’s too much, I can’t—he withdrew by a few inches, only to bottom out again with another jarring stroke that had her clawing at the sheets. Her mouth dropped open to form a tattered groan, and the look that he gave her was feral and heated. The seven moons gleamed on every rippling muscle of his bare torso as he set a harsh pace, just as she’d told him to. He always gave her everything she wanted when they were like this—it was a bittersweet epiphany that tumbled in along with the rush of blood to her head.

A part of Alaric was clearly still there in the crater. His anger resurfaced, the lid that he kept on his emotions loosening with each thrust. “Never put your life on the line like that again, Tala,” he muttered as he took her roughly. “I’ll govern your impulses if you refuse to. Your safety matters, as difficult as it may be for you to believe.”

“You can’t tell me what to do,” Talasyn retorted in between pants.

His scarred features darkened with frustration. And there was something of frustration, too, in the way he slammed into her next, hittingthatspot, the one that made her back arch. A treacherous corner of her heart cried out for the softnessof earlier, but she knew that this was the better option in a never-ending series of bad decisions. The brutal physicality of it a refuge.

Soon enough she couldn’t speak anymore, all shattered gasps whenever he sped up, lewdly drawn-out moans whenever he slowed down, his fingers digging bruises into her hips. Soon enough she had retreated into an intense space where there was only her and her husband and the war between them. The orgasm was building up inside her core, and Talasyn snaked a hand down her body in a frantic bid for more stimulation, for that one final nudge that would send her over the brink.

Alaric’s pace faltered as he watched her touch herself. His eyes burned like starlight, fixated on her ring finger sliding against the bundle of nerves at the apex of her thighs, the sheen of her wedding band’s vulana stone reflected on his face like sunbeams on lake water, like phantom traces of the World-Eater’s tears.