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“Astoria.” His husky growl flooded the halls and caressed me from head to toe.

I almost stumbled as I fled.

A predatory snarl reverberated off the walls and flipped on the prey instincts sitting dormant in the back of my mind.

Bare feet slapped on marble, slipped on threadbare rugs.

I slammed into side tables, dust-coated suits of armor, and nicked the corners when I darted down new corridors.

Each rough breath sawed in and out of my lungs and my heart pumped electric energy into my limbs.

Irrepressible, rampant urges fueled my body and carried me along like a marionette dancing to a frighteningly unfamiliar song. Rational thought drowned under the tide of wild delirium propelling me into the unknown. A pulse in the air made my hair stand on end and lightning skittered over my skin.

I hadn’t run this vigorously when I fell into Infernus.

Not since I was a young, wild thing flying from prehistoric dangers on Earth had I felt so viciously, vibrantly alive.

The air filling my lungs, the energy powering my limbs, the kiss of the wind on my face.

And the danger, the fear and threat of being caught, spurred an animalistic impulse within me that no mortal flesh could erase.

“Astoria!” Mavros roared. His heavy steps thundered behind me. The frenzy in his voice and the huffing growls as he chased only encouraged my disobedient escape. “Where are you going, sweet creature? What sort of games are you playing?”

I whipped around a corner, barely registering my location. In a blur, I bolted through the double doors to the garden. Cool air and darkness slapped me in the face, a puff of air lingered in a fog on my lips. One moment, one delirious second, I paused to regain my bearings and strategize.

The beast charged after me. Mavros ran on all fours, appearing every bit the lord of monsters as he stormed out into the night like a wolf rushing from its den on the hunt.

All dark fur and broad framed, claws shredding through stone and dirt, tail lashing in his wake.

A vision of horror and savagery hunting me in the night.

A feigned fight for survival, but in those desperate moments, it felt horribly, wonderfully real. It was… exhilarating.

A shroud of hysteria enveloped me. I sprinted with all my might, trying to hold the ground I gained. Once I entered the maze-like hedges and trees of the garden, an intoxicated quality overtook me. A haze of madness warping my reality into a haunting dream.

The beast prince gave chase like a wraith in a nightmare.

Hedges pressed in, their shadows shifting and playing tricks on my mind.

Skeletal trees reached overhead like the dead digging their way out of their graves.

And I was caught in the darkness, lost in the silence.

In my mind, a hallucination reigned supreme.

There in that make believe dream I was myself again, the true version, as if I’d never lost her.

A dainty yet powerful creature gleaming brighter than the silver moon. An entity of magic and wonder, possessing the oldest wildest grace of the world. A sylph in all her glory, flying free and untamed.

“Run all you want, Astoria!” His booming voice exploded over the garden. A shivery thrill went down my spine. “I’ll find you. I’ll catch you.”

The warning made me slip on a patch of moss. I crashed into a hedge and the rustling leaves were louder than they had any right to be. A horrifying sound crossed between a bear’s roar and a wolf’s growl echoed far closer than his voice had a moment ago.

I halted, shoving myself between two hedges.

Each breath punched from my lips and my heart beat louder than a drum against my ribs.

Liquid heat pooled in my center, coursing fast and hot with the ache of running straining my joints and muscles.

This mortal body couldn’t keep up with my determination.

Movement on the other side of the green wall sent my heart into my throat. I tensed, holding my breath as paws prowled and claws scraped grooves in the dirt. The low rumble of Mavros growling provoked a shudder from my head to my toes.

Silence sliced through the garden. Only the pounding of my blood in my ears filled it.

“You know—” Too close. His voice was too close. Almost like he was whispering directly in my ear. “—I can smell you, Astoria. Your scent, it drives me mad. I try to resist it, I promise I do. But how can I when the scent of your fear is an alluring perfume? Gods, it’s like a drug.”

I covered my mouth with my hand to stifle the whimper rising in my throat.

A hot brush of air on my neck sent a tingling shiver through me.

“All day, all night, all I think about is you.” I dropped my hand and couldn’t help leaning into the heat radiating through the hedge into my side. “You are a shining light, a star I wish to possess. And at my worst, my most depraved, you are a sweet creature I want to hunt.”

“Would you hurt me?” I whispered.

A low, slow growl preceded his answer. “No. ”

I turned my head, finding his red-orange eyes through the brush. One second, with our eyes locked, and it felt like an eternity.

“Do you want to?”

“Sometimes,” he admitted.

My breath hitched sharply, and I took a step back.

Mavros pushed through the hedge, emerging through leaves and limbs like an eldritch horror rising from the depths of the sea.

“You’ll have to catch me first.” A hint of a smile twitched at my lips before I sprinted.

A bone-chilling roar followed, and soon, so did the beast.

One of us wanted to hunt, to eat. One of us wanted to run before being devoured.

It rubbed on the feeling inside of me that grew with each little interaction between us.

Something nauseatingly close to obsession.

A rotten thing inside me that I thought came with the curse of a mortal body, but maybe it was something that had been festering within me for centuries.

Lifetimes of loneliness giving way to an abominable craving to be known, to be chased, to be desired.

Life in the umbral garden held a collective breath.

Time slowed to an infinitesimal halt. I floated, I ran, moving like my limbs were pushing through mud.

The beast coiled tight, hot on my heels.

Every sculpted, toned muscle under his dark, downy fur sprung.

I was cornered at a dead end in the garden. Mavros pounced .

The beast prince crashed against my back, knocking the air from my lungs.

Thick arms belted around me, one at the waist, one at the neck.

Tangled in a mass of limbs, we rolled over one another and time caught up with us.

We speed through the garden in a writhing, wrestling mass.

I pushed and shoved and kicked, pretending to fight back as Mavros caged me beneath him.

“I caught you, Astoria. Now you’re mine.” My insides throbbed, and a whimper slithered up my throat. “All mine.” His eyes burned with the intensity of a thousand suns, and he snapped his jaws like a slavering wolf inciting fear. And I was.

I was afraid.

Mavros was hunger and darkness, and I would embrace him with my throat exposed.

He licked up the column of my throat, and a wanton cry belted from my lips.

One clawed hand collared my throat as he licked up my cheek to my mouth.

The other shredded through my nightgown, ripping through flimsy silk like a blade through mist. The material slipped from my skin, leaving me bare as it pooled in the damp earth beneath me.

Only the enormous heat of his imposing body chased away the chill of the night, but not the illicit shiver through my blood and bones.

I reached up with shaky hands and pushed open his shirt.

I tangled my fingers in his fur and arched into the radiant heat of his body.

Mavros growled, licking and sucking at the side of my neck and a tingling spot behind my ear.

There was a level of intimacy I had never crossed before, and it horrified me how I wanted to beg for it.

And when his sharp teeth grazed the delicate skin of my neck, I realized the beast might tear out my throat.

He might sink his jaws into me and feast. Swallow me down while I bled out in his arms.

Instead, he placed his mouth on mine and kissed.

The first, and likely not the last, judging by the way he claimed with an unprecedented fervor.

More than a kiss, it was a greeting, a summit, an introduction.

His mouth on mine said hello , and his tongue slipping through my lips said I see you, I know you .

And the growl he breathed into my lungs sang you are mine .

I could have existed in that moment forever.

Desire slipped unchecked into the foundation of my being. No longer a creature of na?ve innocence, I knew at once what would follow if I submitted my body to the beast’s hunger. Every bright, vibrant cell of my body and soul thrummed with a pulse of its own as I came alive in a carnal, primal way.

Mavros nipped at my jawline, and I keened.

“Do you like that?” he mouthed at the spot behind my ear, and a visceral shudder skated through me. “Oh, you do. That’s good. I’ll make this so good for you.”

“Mavros, please.” A guttural groan on my neck made me arch into him .

“That’s it, sweet creature. Beg for me.”

I didn’t know what I was begging for.

“Please. Please. Please.” Yet I submitted anyway.

Mavros leaned back, sitting on his haunches as his hands rubbed over my thighs. He was so large and imposing. A sentinel of dark power feasting his eyes on his quarry. Domineering triumph glinted in his eyes, as did an afflicted sort of devotion.