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“I wanted you,” I cried. “I always wanted you. Even when I did not know it.” I whimpered, feeling as though he would break me open. “Even when I hated you, I wanted you.”

“It was always you, Evie,” he groaned against my neck. “You were always mine.”

“Yes.” My fingers clawed into his back, and I hissed in a breath. “Oh god, slow down, please.”

“You want this to last, do you?”

I bit my lip and nodded, and Azriel carried me back to the fire, kneeling before the flames, keeping himself inside me. I eased myself all the way down his length, steadying myself on his shoulders, and looked down between us.

“Do you see, wife?” He asked, and groaned as I rolled my hips. “Do you see who you belong to?”

I raised my eyes back to his, and rolled my hips again. “And who do you belong to?”

He hissed, his hands digging into my hips. “You, beloved.”

“Only me?” I rammed myself down on him, and we both moaned loudly.

“Yes, beloved. Only you. Only ever you.”

I fucked him slowly, delighting in the pinch of his brow, the way his mouth fell open as he panted, the way he lookeddown to where we were joined and back again at my face. My husband. My lover. The one who had set me free.

He skated a hand down my body, pressing his thumb against my sensitive nub, and heat coiled in my belly. I bit my lip, shaking my head, my hands shaking as I held on to him.

“Oh god,” I gasped. “Gently. Not yet. I don’t want to…Oh.”

“Do not fight it, Evie. We have time.”

The words made my eyes sting, and a solitary tear rolled down the side of my face. We had hours, only a few until dawn. Until the carriage would come and take Azriel away. It could not be that now I loved him, that he would be taken from me.

I could not believe the world was so cruel.

But perhaps this would be my punishment.

As I came undone on top of him, I moaned and sobbed, wrapping my arms around his neck and holding him close.

“I won’t let you go,” I whispered, trembling. “We will run away. We will run away from here.”

Azriel clasped his arms around my waist, laying me out on the ground. He ground himself into me, groaning loudly. “I will come back to you, beloved. I swear it.” With one last, hard thrust, he came inside me, breathing heavily against my neck. “I will come back, just to hear you say you love me.”

I clasped a hand to my face, willing the tears to go away. “If something happens to you-”

“Nothing will happen to me.” He took my face in his hands, gazing down at me. “Nothing. Do you understand?”

“I do not want to live without you.” I blinked away my tears, reaching up to stroke his cheek. “I cannot. Not now.”

“And you shall not. I am not dying, not now, not when I have everything I ever desired right here in front of me.”

29

THE DUEL

Azriel had no desire to sleep, although I was sure he should have, and that he needed his rest. But we spent the next few hours entangled in one another, and I saw in 1866 with my husband buried deep inside of me.

When we did finally stop, I slept only fitfully, nightmares haunting me, waking every time to scramble for the feeling of Azriel’s skin, to reassure myself that he had indeed not died as he had in my nightmares.

Until the last time I woke, reaching for him frantically, only to find myself alone in the bed.

He had not even said goodbye.