Page 53

This was rage.

Pure, raw, blistering rage wrapped in silk and swallowed down past a throat aching from too many things unsaid.

The moment she hit her street, her fingers reached up, yanking the glittering pin from her curls, letting them fall wild and tangled. The protective charm Calla had sewn into the hem of her gown pulsed once with warmth, then dulled as she crossed the threshold of her loft.

She didn’t bother with the lights. Didn’t need them.

The moon spilled across the floor, pale and honest. Unlike the alpha she’d just left behind.

Lyra kicked off her heels, tore at the laces of her dress, and muttered under her breath, “If he knocks on my door now, I swear I’ll hex his mouth shut.”

But part of her didn’t believe it.

Part of her…hoped.

Her fingers had just slipped the final clasp free, the gown sliding down her arms, when three slow, measured knocks.

She didn’t move. Didn’t answer. But she didn’t need to.

“Lyra,” came the voice.

Rough. Hoarse.

Him.

She clenched her jaw. “You’ve got some nerve.”

“I know.”

“You kiss me, walk away, and then show up at my dooragainlike I’m just?—”

The door creaked open.

She forgot she hadn’t warded it.

Forgot everything when she saw him standing there.

Jace filled her doorway like a stormcloud—his eyes darker than she’d ever seen, his jaw clenched, hands fisted like he was holding back a hundred reasons to leave and just one to stay.

“You left,” she whispered, chest tight.

“That wasn’t the place.”

She didn’t know who moved first.

Maybe him.

Maybe her.

But the next second, they collided. Mouths meeting in the space between anger and desperation. Fingers pulling, clutching, tearing at layers of tension that had been building for days.

Her dress hit the floor. His shirt followed.

The air crackled with the ozone tang of uncontrolled magic. Lyra’s back hit the wall, Jace’s mouth hot and punishing againsthers. His hands—calloused, possessive—dug into her hips, lifting her as her legs locked around him. Fabric ripped. A button pinged against the floorboards. She didn’t care. Couldn’t. Not when his teeth grazed her throat, not when the low growl in his chest vibrated through her ribs like a drumbeat.

“Still angry?” he rasped, breath scorching her collarbone.

She bit his shoulder hard enough to taste iron. “Furious.”