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“How?”

“When you decided to stay here, I had a shiver of suspicion. That oath should’ve forced you to do anything to keep it—even try to escape from this place.”

“Clever princess,” he said, a touch unnerved. Was shetooclever?

“My uncle was once bound by a vow. He even tried to kill himself to escape it, but it wouldn’t let him. Yet you . . . you are free from that unbreakable hold. Extraordinary.” Her brows drew together. “Why tell me now?”

I don’t want loss. Idowant access to you so I can extinguish this obsession and prove that you aren’t everything.Voice gruff, he said, “I don’t know.”

Her gaze searched his expression for more—that he couldn’t give her. Yet whatever she found there made her say, “This changes everything.” She caressed his jawline with her tender hands.Gentle. A communication.

The dimension seemed to spin. With a single gesture, this vampire was making him imagine an oasis growing amidst nothing. Off-kilter, he searched for solid ground.

Before he could find it, she murmured sadly, “But it’s still not enough.”

Mina allowed herself to truly look at Silt without the stain of his vow. She’d reached a watershed moment, the mountain of this new information separating two rivers.

The river of hating the sorcerer.

The river of deeper feelings for him.

Much deeper.She accepted that this would be the course and flow she followed forever.

Before, she hadn’t allowed her own possessiveness. Now, imagining him as hers alone brought on a wave of arousal. As she gazed up into his eyes, she comprehended three things.

One: If she was going to reach the divine, it’d be with this man alone.

Two: He might not ever be capable of love.

And three: Even if he learned to love, that didn’t guarantee a successful relationship.

So? She would still make a gamble on this male—which meant she needed to raise the bar with him. Mina wasn’t going to settle for his initial offer ofwon’t murder your loved one. She had some ideas for how he could prove himself, but they’d get to that. “No, it’s not enough,” she repeated. “Yet for tonight, it will do.”

He exhaled a pent-up breath and moved even closer to her, his scent making her lids heavy. “I want you. Been thinking of nothing else but you for days.”

Wanting to get lost in him again, she said, “Then kiss me, sorcerer. I’m aching for more of what you gave me the other night.” Would she be able to control her thirst for him? Her nightmares gave her pause, but this new development spurredher optimism. Right now she felt like they could do anything together.

“The thought of you aching for release lights a fuse in me.” Yet then his eyes gleamed with jealousy. “Did you burn for the demon? Or theIdeal?”

She smiled up at him. “Make me forget them, enchanter.”

Silt moved his hips against her, letting her feel his hardness. “Once I’m done with you, you won’t remember your own name.”

When he pressed his mouth to hers and groaned at the contact, she believed him.

Thirty-Three

Kosmina’s lips called to Silt to deepen the kiss. His tongue dipped between them, seeking hers.

She gave a muffled cry as she met him with an eager lap, so clearly out of her element.Innocent vampire . . .

Yet what he experienced with her was so different from what he’d known thathemight as well be a novice. Pleasure mingled with confusion, both heightened in turn. So he channeled all his jagged new emotions into this kiss. Slanting his mouth across hers, he took and gave.

Her arousal soon melted away any inhibition, and she met him stroke for stroke. She fisted his tunic, her hips grinding against him in a tantalizing dance.

Too good.Between her response and her sensuous curves, his cock surged precariously, and he drew back.

Her lustrous gaze locked on his mouth. “Don’t stop. Why are we stopping?”