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This female, with whom he was irrevocably in love with, had saved his life.

He watched with reverence as she unpicked the bone-stud buttons down the center of his jacket.

Flickering firelight cast a glow on her face, softening her features. He found himself becoming breathless from her beauty. She felt her dark-rimmed eyes were too wolf-like, but he found them stunning. She hated the black smudge of color at the tip of her nose, but he wanted to lick it. She tried to hide her extra arched ears by wearing a leather cord around her head, but he smiled where the ears stubbornly poked through the fall of black hair.

It was all Anise. It made her unique. It made hermore, and it made her the one he loved.

She frowned as she peeled his jacket from his arms and shook it out. “It’s so heavy and soggy,” she murmured and then searched for a place to hang it. She found a hook on the back of the front door.

When she returned, she caught the heated look in Caraway’s stare and blanched.

“What?” she asked. “Why are you staring?”

His lips curved on one side. “Because you’re beautiful.”

She ignored him and pointed at the rest of his wet clothes, his white shirt, and pants. “You should probably take it all off.”

His grin widened and his laugh boomed out from deep in his belly. “You know, if you wanted to get my clothes off, there were easier ways of going about it than to get a witch to steal my soul.”

It was meant to be a joke, but the pain in her eyes was real.

“Oh no,” he murmured and reached for her hand. “I didn’t mean it like that. It was a joke. Stupid.”

Her lips flattened and she looked away. “I almost got you killed.”

“I’m fine, Anise,” he whispered. “And I’m not blameless here. I should have told you the truth about why I was with you. The Order may have given me the mission to follow you to the Ice-Witch, but it was because a prisoner had mentioned her name during interrogation. I was too much of a coward to come and find you myself and, for that, I’ll never be sorry enough. But let me be clear, I’m not sorry the mission brought me back to you.”

After his words were done, silence hung in the air. Then she slowly lifted her gaze to his.

“You said ‘sorry’,” she said.

He nodded. A spoken apology, or thank you, from one fae to another was an acknowledgment of debt. It gave a legally binding reason to forge a bargain to repay the debt. Caraway was essentially putting his life in Anise’s hands. It was also known that debts were not acted on between family because they would do anything for their loved ones anyway.

How she responded would determine their future with each other.

“I’m sorry too,” she said. “I should never have placed the blame on you for my capture two years ago, but you were the closest friend I had. You were the safest avenue. And if I didn’t blame you, then I had to blame myself.”

She flared her lashes in a way that made Caraway think she was trying not to cry, and when a tear spilled free anyway, it broke his heart.

He trailed a thumb across her cheek to wipe the moisture away. “Anise, what happened to you could have happened to anyone.”

“But none of the shifters were caught.” A sob wracked her body. “If I had the power, I could have protected myself.”

“But youcanprotect yourself.” He shook her gently. “You lived on your own in Cornucopia for years. You killed a troll and saved a baby. You bloody-well killed the Ice-Witch!” His eyes widened with the realization. “You’re incredible, Anise. And you can’t shift. You can’t use mana to cast spells. So Well-damned what? You’remoreamazing for it.”

He ran his hands down her arms and circled to her back where he let his touch glide down over the tail poking from her pants. She startled and looked up at him.

He grinned. “You can touch my horns.”

It was meant to be a joke, to show that they were the same inside and out, but his voice came out low and rough, and once it emitted, he couldn’t stop the train of his thoughts. Yes, he wanted her to touch him. Everywhere.

She licked his lips and then raked her heated gaze down his front. “That’s not where I want to touch you.”

His cock hardened instantly.

“Anise,” he croaked. Begged.

Her fingers curled beneath the hem of his shirt and lifted slowly. He sucked in a breath, abs curling inward, as her fingers brushed his stomach. She kept lifting. He raised his arms so she could remove his shirt, and then she started working on the drawstrings of his pants.

“Anise,” he murmured.

“Shh,” she scolded. “I’m enjoying this.”

He was too, but desire raged inside him like an inferno. He was hard, tense, and coiled tight. When she slid his pants down his thighs, her hair brushed his skin. He threw his head back and cursed loudly. Every time she touched him, his senses sparked like fireworks. She lifted each of his feet to slide his pants free, and when she was done, he scooped his hands under her arms and lifted her clear off the ground.

With a molten, golden gaze, she wrapped her legs around his waist and cupped his face to snarl against his lips. “Last chance, Car. Once I start this with you, I won’t stop. I’ll mark you as mine.”

The wolf-shifters marked their mates to prove to the world they were together. The thought of her teeth on his neck ripped a growl of approval from his throat and he slammed his lips on hers, only pulling back to say, “I’ve always been yours. I’m ready.”