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The bolt of raw desire returned, pounding through me. Gods, what I would’ve given to get my mouth between those thighs. More than what I’d do for a shower because I bet she tasted as sweet as she smelled.

If we hadn’t been interrupted, I would’ve shown her that if allowed. I groaned, thinking of how I would’ve tasted her, sipped from her—not her blood, but the dampness I knew had been gathering between those lush thighs.

I should be finding another way to slake my need, either through violence or with another—those willing were easy to find in Masadonia. But neither appealed to me as I stroked myself.

Staying with my memories appealed. Those minutes in the chamber where I wasn’t Hawke Flynn. When everything about me wasn’t a lie, and I hadn’t become a phantom of darkness and madness made real. Where I was only living in the moment, not in the past or the future. And good gods, I hadn’t existed in the now—I hadn’t been interested in that in…in fucking decades.

I’d be out of my mind to want to leave that.

I’d be mad not to recognize the dangers of remaining.

But still my hand tightened, my thoughts needing little effort to return to that chamber and to see myself there. To conjure up the image of her, those berry-hued lips parted, and green eyes bright with desire as my mouth closed over the tip of her breast, the silk a decadent barrier.

My head fell back again as my hand pumped. I swore I could hear her voice—that surprising, cutting mouth of hers that was just as arousing as her soft curves. The way she’d grabbed that bloodstone dagger, yanking the blade free of the mattress. She’d handled it like she knew how, which was another surprise that should be concerning yet had the absolute opposite effect.

That tight, curling sensation came out of nowhere and hit me hard, whirling down my spine. My hips reared, splashing water onto the stone floor. I gritted my teeth as I came, the rush of arousal an intense wave, taking a bit of my breath with it as pleasure rippled through me.

Breathing deeply, I lay there, heart slow to calm. Damn, I hadn’t come that quickly or hard in…

Fuck if I could remember.

Opening my eyes, I stared at the dull white ceiling, body too lax to even attempt getting out of the tub. The release had eased the tension in my muscles, quieting my mind.

It was only temporary, though.

No different than when the warmth of another brought me pleasure. Because my thoughts were already firing up, drifting back to the same shit. This was precisely what happened when I tried to sleep. Why I lay in bed for hours, doing exactly what I was now: staring at the godsdamn ceiling as if it could answer what I couldn’t.

But that didn’t stop me from trying to remember the last time a release hadn’t felt mechanical. Just a thing my body wanted to be done with when the need hit. When was the last time it didn’t feel like anything more than simply getting off? An all-too-brief escape? Was it before I’d so foolishly thought I could end the threat of the Blood Crown all by myself and got taken? Had it been when I was with her—Shea? My hand fisted in the water against my thigh.

I didn’t want that to be true as I searched my memories. Sex was both nothing and everything to Atlantians and the wolven. Intimately sharing oneself with another was something to be celebrated. The pleasure came from the closeness and not so much the actual release.

But that had become all kinds of fucked up while the Ascended held me, hadn’t it? Taking something that was an expression of mutual lust and sometimes fondness—or even love—and turning it into an act to be dreaded. I wasn’t sure what had been worse about my time in that cold, dank cage. The numerous cuts made along my body as they stole my blood from me, pouring it into vials and chalices and then into mouths. Knowing they were using a part of me to create more Ascended. The bites while that bitch Queen and the bastard King watched, getting off on my pain. Or was it how the King forced me to watch while he killed, but not before committing every atrocious act one could do to another? He’d let them turn and have at me until one of them finally ended the poor soul’s life. There were the half-Atlantians they found, and the full-blooded ones who’d remained in Solis after the war, those they’d kept in other cages since before I was even born. The things they did to them. The blood I had to drink to stay alive. Or was it the touching? The caresses that started off cruel and then became tender with no warning.