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No part of me is able to do that.

Allie is every inch the siren, the temptress, the lure keyed to my blood.

Even if I wished to keep my distance, I’d be helpless. I tried. I tried for one miserable day and I failed. If she’d been unwilling, if she’d been cold or afraid or tentative, I would have kept my hands and my fangs to myself. There’s nothing more distasteful to me in this world than my mate’s reticence, and nothing more enticing than her enthusiasm.

“I’ll take every moment of surrender I can from you, witch,” I tell her, leaning in to press a line of kisses up the side of her neck. “Everything you’re willing to give me, I’ll take.”

Allie sighs, the words enough to soothe her for the moment. Her body is pliant against me, a beautiful, yielding thing that fits its contours into mine instinctively. She winds her arms up around my neck, clutching tightly and pressing her lips into the pulse point at my throat.

Here is my mate. Here is my fated one, and she doesn’t accept it.

Yet.

Pulling away, I meet her befuddled expression with a smile. “Let’s head back home, love.”

Whether it’s the tenderness in my voice or the endearment used, I’m not certain. What I do know is that Allie rises from the forest floor immediately. She comes to her knees and pivots toward me, looking down with a little frown on her face.

“I’m naked.”

“You are,” I agree.

“And what do you suggest? Are you just going to fly me back with all my bits hanging out?”

“As tempting as that sounds,” I tell her, getting to my feet and helping her up. “I thought a portal might be a better option.”

She shakes her head in mock-exasperation, but reaches out and accepts the hand I offer. It takes only a moment of concentration here, so close to the center of power in the realm, to open a portal in front of us. Wrapping both my arms around her, I step us forward and hear her small gasp as we travel through it. It’s immediately followed by a yelp when a sharp mountain wind whips around us.

“Eren!” she squeals. “You couldn’t have portaled usinside?”

Laughing, I scoop her into my arms and carry her toward the mountainside portal leading into our chamber. Another small wave of magick breaks over us as we step through into the waiting warmth.

“Forgive me, wife,” I tell her, leaning my head down to catch a cold-hardened nipple between my lips. “I couldn’t resist.”

“Not an excuse,” she complains, wiggling out of my arms. “You’re the one who’s still fully clothed.”

While she goes into the bathroom to clean up, I lay on the bed to rest for a moment, every cell of my body still flushed with the pleasure of our joining.

Goddess, I’ll never tire of it.

It’s just a few minutes later when Allie reemerges with her hair brushed out and all the smudges of dirt from our romp in the forest washed away. She’s dressed in a light, gauzy gown of emerald green.

“If we don’t have any more plans for the day, I thought I might go back down to Vayla’s workroom and…”

Allie trails off, and just as I’m about to ask her what’s wrong, I feel it.

Somewhere deep, deep in the stone beneath us, an ancient-sounding, ominous groan rises through thousands of feet of mountain. When I stand from the bed, I can feel the echoes of it through my boots. It’s followed a moment later by a great rumbling shake, like the mountain itself is threatening to come down on us.

Horror lances through me. For my court and this keep, yes, but also for the woman standing wide-eyed across from me. In that moment, it’s Allie’s own wellbeing I consider first.

“Eren?” Allie asks in a voice laced with fear. “What is that? What’s going on?”

Instead of answering, I cross the room and pull her to me. An instant later we’re out of the mountain, standing in the middle of a cabin some twenty miles away. It’s a place of peace and respite my parents built for when they needed a little time away from court matters, and the first place I thought of to tuck Allie safely away.

Whatever’s just happened, I don’t want her anywhere near it.

“Stay here,” I tell her, already summoning a portal to take me back. “It’s safe. I’ll send someone shortly to guard you.”

“Eren,” she says, still clearly shaken. “What was—”