Page 26

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NARANUS

T he taste of death is still in my mouth. The ghost of it lingers on my skin, seeps into my bones. I almost lost her.

I stare at the woman cradled in my arms, her breath shuddering, her body trembling against mine. She is alive. But I don’t believe it. It’s not enough that I’m holding her.

My hands tighten around her, claws digging into soft, bruised flesh. Proof. I need proof that she’s here. That she is real. That the raging torrent didn’t rip her away, didn’t shatter her fragile body against the jagged river rocks.

Her lashes flicker, damp from the water, dark strands of her hair clinging to her face, her neck, her lips. Those lips, parted slightly, lips that have defied me, cursed me, threatened me. Lips that are still warm.

I should let go.

I should force distance between us, keep that damnable chasm of control between what I am and what she is.

But I can’t.

Something inside me is unleashed. The thing I have kept buried beneath layers of brutality, of restraint, of relentless, iron-fisted self-control.

She almost died. I went feral.

My thumb brushes her cheek, over the purpling mark forming there, the wound where she struck the rocks. She could have died. I see it again, the way she fell, the soil crumbling beneath her feet, her expression caught in that single, heart-wrenching second of terror before she vanished into the abyss.

I see her falling, over and over.

I hear the ragged scream I tore from my own throat.

She doesn’t look away from me now. Her hands press weakly against my chest, not pushing, not resisting, just there. Just touching.

“Say it,” I growl. My voice is guttural, ripped raw from my chest. “Say you almost died.”

Her throat moves in a swallow, her pulse fluttering, frantic beneath my fingers.

“Eryss.” I murmur her name like a curse, like a prayer, like a thing I want to own. “Say it.”

She parts her lips, but no words come.

I bare my teeth, low and dangerous. “Coward.”

Her eyes blaze, igniting like embers catching fire.

“There you are.” I murmur the words as I tilt her chin higher, forcing her to meet my gaze. She isn’t broken. Even with the bruises, the exhaustion, the remnants of near-death still clinging to her skin, she is still her.

I want her. I have always wanted her.

From the moment she stepped into my stronghold, spine straight, eyes burning with fury, hands shackled, I have wanted to shatter her. Break her down, watch her struggle, watch her fight me.

I never wanted her to fall.

Her fingers tighten against me. “You’re hurting me.”

I don’t let go.

I pull her closer. Close enough to feel every tremor rippling through her body, the way her pulse races against my skin, the way her breath stutters, just once.

She glares. And it does something to me.

“You’re hurting me,” she says again, slower this time, deliberate.

I release her wrist, but not her. I never let go of her. My hand slides up, over her throat, to her jaw.

“Good,” I whisper, low and dark. “Maybe you’ll finally learn.”

Her eyes flash. She hates that I speak to her like this. That I touch her like this. That she responds to me like this.

But she does.

Her breath catches. Not in fear.

In anticipation.

I don’t let myself think. I don’t let myself hesitate. Hesitation is weakness. And I will not be weak with her.

I crush my mouth to hers.

Eryss gasps or maybe it’s me. Maybe it’s the both of us, the collision of two forces that should never meet.

The taste of her is fire, defiance, survival. She is alive beneath me, against me, with me. My hands tighten in her hair, pulling her head back, forcing her to take the kiss I give her.

She responds with rage.

Her fingers clutch my shoulders, nails digging into flesh, dragging, pulling. Her body molds against mine, heat and fury, tension and resistance.

She doesn’t surrender.

She fights.

It makes me hungry.

The kiss turns vicious. Tongues tangling, breath stolen, bodies pressed so damn close I could consume her.

She shoves me back.

I let her.

Barely.

We break apart, both breathing hard.

She stares at me, stunned, wild, shaking.

I bare my teeth, voice a dark snarl. “You almost died, Eryss.”

Her chest rises and falls, lips swollen, breath ragged.

I take her jaw again, tilting her chin, forcing her eyes to stay locked on mine.

“If you ever fall again,” I murmur, my voice like a blade sliding through flesh, “I don’t know what I’ll do.”

Her breath is a shudder against my lips.

She kisses me back.

This time, it is inevitable.