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“Don’t flatter yourself,” she rasped as a rush of heat flooded her. His growl let her know that he’d scented it. Arrogant assknew exactly how flimsy her temper was becoming. “Who says I’m thinking about you?”

Skye chuckled, dark and low. She felt it in her ribs, her stomach, her thighs—everywhere. “Whenever you look at me, your pulse jumps, your breathing goes shallow, and you smell like heat and want. Lie all you want. Your body always tells the truth.”

Her cheeks blazed. “You’re an asshole.”

“Yes,” he said, smug as sin. “But I think you like it. You like when I push you. When I play rough.” His lips brushed hers, taunting. “I think you like getting exactly what you’re too afraid to want out loud.”

Then, quieter, his mouth moving against hers, every word a breath she could feel. “I think you’re so in love with me, you feel just as crazy as I do most days.”

He nipped her bottom lip, pulling away before she could close the distance. “Iknowyou, Taly,” he said softer, meaner now. “Every instinct. Every tell. Which is why I know you want this bond the same way I do. You’re just too much of a coward to admit it.”

Too many truths she wasn’t willing to face. “Em—”

But the next thrust of his hips filled her—actuallyfilledher.

Taly cried out as the ache between her legs clenched around a phantom force.

“For someone who claims to hate bloodcrafting, you sure seem to like this,” he said, the edge of control wearing thin.

She didn’t know how he did it. Some manipulation of his aether or hers. She could still feel him—hard and straining behind his trousers—at the same time that she could feel the slide of something warm and solid.

She managed to wrench one hand free, gripped his hair tight, just to feel him growl against her throat as he thrust again.

“Fuck, you’ve got some nerve, Tink.I’mthe hypocrite? Like you don’t have secrets.” He pulled back to look her in the eye, his breathing as heavy and uneven as her own. “Were you ever going to tell me? About the voice?”

Taly went still beneath him, her hips no longer chasing his. “Who told you about that?”

“You did.” There was no humor in his eyes. “Corinna.”

It took a moment for the realization to click.

CV

She’d seen the abbreviation in his notebook, the mysterious third spotter helping Skye with his bloodcrafting experiments. Ivain and Aiden had been designated by name, but CV…

Corinna Venwraith.

The truth slid in like a knife—and lodged.

She’ddone this. She’d helped him.

Or rather… some version of her had.

A person who was no longer Taly. Who had worn that name like a costume and shed it when it no longer suited her. Because that’s what you did with things that were never meant to exist. You buried them.

It built too fast—too wild.

Not just fury. It was everything.

A tangle of rage and grief, loss and shame, and the choking, frantic terror of realizing that she’d been right all along—that she would be erased. That she was already disappearing.

Her lungs seized. Her pulse pounded. Aether rippled through her, thickening the air like a thunderclap waiting to land.

She lifted her head so they were eye to eye, nose to nose. Her voice came low and shaky. “You want to stop fucking around? Fine.” Her lip curled. “Let’s stop fucking around.”

Her magic surged.

One second, she was beneath him—