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Didn’t step back.

Didn’t leave.

Instead, Jace leaned in and kissed her like a dam breaking.

Lyra barely had time to register the feel of his mouth on hers—firm, desperate, hungry—before her hands fisted in his shirt and all thought dissolved in a haze of fire and magic.

She gasped against him, and he deepened the kiss, one hand cupping the back of her head, the other gripping her waist like he’d been waiting years for this exact moment.

And maybe he had.

Because whatever this was, it wasn’t soft. It wasn’t careful. It waswild.

Their lips crashed, teeth grazing, breath stolen. Her magic pulsed between them, sparking in little flashes against his chest where her fingers pressed, dancing like embers through her hair.

She didn’t think. Didn’t question. Just felt.

Hot. Needed. Real.

“Jace—” she whispered against his mouth, but he swallowed the sound with another kiss, slower this time. Reverent.

Then, just as quickly, he pulled back.

His chest heaved. Eyes storm-dark. “I shouldn’t have?—”

But Lyra didn’t let him finish.

She surged forward, kissed him again, pulled him down to her by the collar of his shirt.

“Youshouldhave,” she said, voice breathy, flushed. “You absolutely should.”

They tumbled through her door, barely making it inside.

The second the door closed behind them, he had her against it, hands framing her face, thumbs stroking her jaw, mouth trailing fire down her neck.

She moaned when he bit gently at her collarbone.

Her sweater hit the floor. His shirt followed.

She marveled at the feel of him,solidand real, built like someone carved out of every growl he never said out loud.

He kissed her like a man losing control.

She answered like a woman who’d been waiting to finally do the same.

Clothes came off in rushed movements, fumbled buttons and breathless laughter, curses muttered when something snagged.

But when he laid her back on the bed, the world stopped.

Jace’s fingers skimmed her ribs like he was memorizing the shape of her. His lips followed—a slow, deliberate path down her sternum, each kiss a brand. Lyra’s breath hitched as his teeth grazed the curve of her hip.This isn’t the man who growled at me over territorial disputes last week, she thought, her nails digging into the muscles of his shoulders. The same shoulders that had been rigid with tension when he’d accused her of “hexing the perimeter stones into singing show tunes.” Now they trembled under her touch.

“You’re thinking too loud,” he muttered against her stomach, the vibration rippling through her.

“Says the wolf who howled at me forexistingnear the eastern ridge.” Her retort dissolved into a gasp as his mouth found the sensitive dip below her navel.

He lifted his head, storm-grey eyes glinting. “Youwereexisting…exceptionally loudly.”

She laughed, a breathless, tangled sound and pulled him up to crush his mouth to hers. The taste of him flooded her senses: pine resin and midnight air, the faintest hint of bourbon from the flask she’d seen him nursing earlier. His hands slid under her back, pressing her into the mattress as if he could fuse their shadows together.