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Finally, my feet touch sand. I stumble forward through shallow water, collapsing onto the small strip of beach hidden from view of the main compound by a jutting cliff face. Konstantin emerges beside me, dropping to his knees on the sand, his chest heaving with exertion.

For a long moment, neither of us moves. We catch our breath, chests heaving, fingers digging into sand as we look at the smoke rising into the air, the sounds of fighting growing more sporadic. I look around, but I don’t see anyone else.

“What about the others?” I ask, and Konstantin shakes his head.

“Alexei had orders for what to do if we got separated. They’ll rendezvous with a boat on the far side of the island. As soon as we’re ready, I’ll radio for contact with them." He turns to look at me, his eyes intense. "Are you hurt?"

I almost laugh. I’m hurt in so many places that I don’t know where to begin. But I’m alive. We both are. And that’s all that matters.

“Nothing that won’t heal,” I reassure him. “In the grand scheme of things, I’m fine.”

He doesn't look convinced, his gaze traveling over me, cataloging every visible bruise and injury with growing anger. "Kane did this to you," he says, his voice low and dangerous.

“Kane’s dead,” I say softly. “It’s over. I’ll heal.” The meaning is twofold, and I know Konstantin knows it. I can see it in his eyes.

Konstantin shifts toward me, reaching up to touch my cheek. I lean into his touch without thinking, grateful for it. Grateful that, somehow, we’re both alive.

“Is it over for you?” he asks quietly. “Can it be?”

I know what he’s asking. If I can put all of it behind me. If I can find a future that isn’t what I was, but instead what I could be.

The problem is… I have no idea what I could be. I can’t only be his wife. I need to be something of myself, too—but there’s never been ameseparate from what Kane wanted from me.

“I don’t know,” I whisper. “But I know that I love you, too.”

He moves at the same moment that I do. One moment we’re sitting side by side in the sand, and the next his mouth is on mine, kissing me with a ferocious intensity that’s unlike any kiss I’ve ever had before. His mouth tastes like salt, and water, and blood… and it tastes like home.

I don’t ever want to let him go.

His hands card through my hair, tangling the wet, salty locks in his fingers, tugging my head back as his mouth devours me, dragging down my throat and up again to find my lips once more. He spills me back onto the sand, his hands yanking at the front of my jeans as I fumble with his, neither of us able to get undressed fast enough.

The last time we were on a beach, I was worried about the sand. Now, I couldn’t care less.

“I love you,” I whisper against his mouth, tasting blood. He growls, deepening the kiss, yanking my jeans down at the same moment that I get his thick, hard cock free, and he bats away my hand, shoving my thighs apart as he angles himself downward and drives into me.

There’s nothing slow or romantic about it, and yet, nothing has ever felt as much like making love. Konstantin fucks me, hard, driving into me again and again with the desperation of a man who thought he’d lost me, but with every stroke, I can feel what this means to him.

How afraid he was of losing me. How certain he is that he can’t lose me again.

He whispers my name against my lips as he drives into me, the friction of his body against mine driving my pleasure higher, cresting as his tongue tangles with mine and he groansI love youinto my mouth, his hips rocking against mine as I feel him spill into me. I cry out as my orgasm washes through me, my entire body tightening around his as I cling to him, the call of seabirds above us echoing with my scream of pleasure as we come together. Konstantin moans my name, pulsing inside of me as he thrusts, dragging every last bit of our climaxes out as long as he can.

He looks down at me, our bodies still joined, his gaze locked with mine. “This is real,” he murmurs. “This was always real, for me.”

I look up at him, my fingers tangling in the damp hair at the base of his neck. “It was always real for me, too,” I whisper. “This part… what I felt when you were inside me, how much I wanted you. And it turned into something else.”

Konstantin’s gaze flares dark, his eyes never leaving mine. “I love who you are,volchitsa,” he murmurs. “I love every part of you. I want the truth from you, and nothing else. If you want to leave, I won’t stop you. But you don’t have to become something else to be with me. Your darkness doesn’t frighten me. It calls to mine.”

He leans down, kissing me again, hard and hot and insistent. I feel him harden inside of me, feel his hips shift as he rocks against me, not chasing another orgasm, but just savoring the feeling of our bodies still locked together. “You can be a killer,” he says softly. “You can be a monster, too. You can be whatever you wish to be, Valentina. As long as you’re my wife.”

The promise washes over me like a wave, like the sun rising fully above us, bringing a new day where I’m free. Where I can be his, and still mine too—where I can be myself, and the only man I’ve ever loved wants me just as I am.

“Is that your wedding vow?” I whisper, tangling my fingers with his. “I can be myself, and your wife?”

“Will you do the same for me?” he murmurs, and I nod, overwhelmed with love, with need, with everything I feel for this man that I never imagined was possible.

“I will,” I whisper, and I feel him move against me as the water laps at the shore, his mouth finding mine again.

“I will,” he murmurs, and we whisper those words, again and again, our vows to each other, in the light of a morning that I wasn’t sure either of us would ever see.