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There was nothing sweet or tender in the way Zolya kissed her.

It was an act of letting go, giving in to what they each knew was forbidden.

Tanwen was on fire as Zolya’s hands left trails of heat as they wrapped around her waist, forging them together, possessing.

She had never felt more powerful, emboldened by the way he desired her.

Tanwen let out an encouraging groan as Zolya pressed her back to the cold stone wall. It was a shocking contrast to his blanketing warmth.

His mouth worked over hers like that of a parched man finally finding water, greedy.

Tanwen let out a startled breath as he effortlessly lifted her legs to wrap around his hips. Zolya’s grip on her backside was supportive and kneading. Tanwen moaned as waves of pleasure pulsed from her core, his need palpable as he pressed against her.

Tanwen’s dress had spilled open, leaving his trousers their only barrier. It was cruel and maddening and delicious.

“ Gods ,” Zolya muttered. “Kissing you again has consumed my thoughts.”

He claimed her lips once more, took long drags that sent Tanwen spinning. If he hadn’t been holding her upright, she would have collapsed to the floor, his ministrations weakening her strength with each caress.

Tanwen splayed her hands against Zolya’s chest, slipped fingers beneath his silken robe to grip his wide shoulders. Zolya curled his wings around where he held her against the wall. The shelter of his feathered canopy heightened Tanwen’s sense of security, enabling her to surrender herself, kiss by kiss.

Zolya slid his mouth to her throat, and she angled her head away, allowing him better access. He hummed his approval before lifting one of her breasts to spill over the neck of her dress.

“You are perfection,” he groaned, admiring her fullness, his gaze the deepest blue.

As he kept her lifted in one hand, he massaged her breast with his other before bending to take her nipple into his mouth.

The hot pinch shot straight between her legs.

Tanwen called out his name, fingers tangling in his hair as she arched deeper into him, rubbing, squirming, wanting.

“By the twin moons,” Zolya growled, spinning them around and quickly carrying her from the washroom into his bedchambers.

The curtains to his veranda were closed, the only light coming from a flaming bowl in the far corner, which sent a warm glow across the room.

Gently, Zolya laid her on his bed, the sheets cool and silky and promising against her skin.

In an impatient rush they both gripped and pulled and tugged at each other’s clothes, soon both bare for the other to appreciate.

And gods was there much for Tanwen to appreciate.

Zolya was carved perfection where he stood at the edge of his bed. His brown skin smooth, his shoulders broad and strong from his command over his wings. His waist was tapered, stomach chiseled. Tanwen’s gaze slid lower, anticipation building in her belly as she drank in his fullness, ready, aching.

She watched him watching her, admiring her as she lay stretched out in his bed. His gaze was liquid heat, glazed with desire as he met her stare. Slowly, he took himself in hand, working long pumps over his shaft.

Tanwen nearly came undone right then.

She squeezed her legs together, trying to quell the painful throb building.

She wanted him.

Badly.

Summoning a boldness she hadn’t realized she possessed, Tanwen gradually parted her legs until they were splayed wide open.

A maddening groan slid from Zolya before he was above her.

Bare skin was deliciously pressed to bare skin as he kissed her and licked down her throat before sliding down to suck one of her nipples and then the other into his mouth. He then continued lower, dipping himself between her legs.

There Zolya hovered, waited, his hot breath teasing her opening.

His searing gaze collided with hers. “May I?” he asked.

Tanwen almost laughed. “Gods, yes.”

His grin was pure evil before he pressed his mouth to her.

Stars erupted in Tanwen’s vision, and she collapsed against the mattress. She moaned as ecstasy coursed through her veins, her fingers gripping his sheets.

There was pressure of a finger sliding inside her before another, Zolya unceasing in his attention to pull out every sliver of her bliss. In a dizzying swirl of groaning his name and tangling her fingers into his hair, keeping him exactly where she needed him, Tanwen came undone. It felt like an eternity until all the pieces of her finally gathered, collecting to re-form where she lay panting on his bed.

As she blinked back to the room, she caught him watching her, looking very pleased with himself. Zolya pressed gentle kisses to the inside of her thigh. “Welcome back,” he rumbled, his smile making him even more breathtaking.

Tanwen mirrored his grin with her own.

Then she was pushing herself to all fours, guiding Zolya back to stand at the edge of his bed. He eyed her curiously before he let out a hiss as she took his length into her mouth.

Tanwen was resolved to bring him as much pleasure as he had brought her.

She cupped his balls as she worked over him, drawing back to lick around the tip of his shaft.

“ Tanwen ,” he gasped. Zolya tore her away, lifting her into his arms. “I need you,” he said, features almost pained with his yearning.

“Then take me,” she demanded.

A dangerous and delicious glint sparked in his eyes.

Zolya eased her back to his bed, draping himself atop her. His weight was a poultice, his kisses a tonic to fight away the years of loneliness that had chilled her heart. Zolya was giving her a memory to keep her warm when she would soon need to disappear, forever.

But those darkening thoughts were pushed aside as Zolya slowly, achingly entered her.

Tanwen held her breath, fingers gripping his shoulders as he stilled, allowing her to grow accustomed to his size.

The sensation was sharp and full at once, until it became a pleasurable pressure before a maddening one. Tanwen squirmed impatiently, but Zolya did not move.

He held her gaze, a wondrous expression softening his features. “This is your first time.” Another of his certainties, but she could hardly lie given what he no doubt felt being inside her.

“Yes,” she whispered, a sliver of uncertainty. Not in wanting to lie with him but for what he might think of her never having done this before.

“Tanwen.” He said her name reverently as he ran a gentle hand against her cheek. “Why did you not tell me?”

“I want it to be you.”

Zolya searched her features, a severity to his stare. “I am honored.”

An ache bloomed in Tanwen’s chest, one that came from realizing her heart was no longer her own. Zolya now claimed a piece of it. In that moment she understood she was in love with him.

“Zolya,” she whispered, nearly begged. For what, she wasn’t certain. She knew only that she needed him to move, to distract her from the depths of her feelings that were surfacing.

Zolya appeared to understand, for he began to rock his hips, gently, as he took her mouth in his. It was a tenderness that was almost heartbreaking.

Here he lay with a Mütra and cherished her like a god.

Tears slipped from the corners of her eyes as Zolya worshipped her with every gentle touch of his lips and caress of his fingers.

It was too much. Too devastating in how right she felt, with him.

Tanwen wrapped her legs around Zolya, urging him deeper, faster, as she clung to his taut shoulders. He pulled back so he could look at her as he continued to move, his blue gaze the hottest center of a flame.

Tanwen lay in her tumultuous mix of heartache and arousal, captivated by the sight of him moving above her, thrusting. Zolya’s wings were partially unfurled, his brown skin glistening in the dim glow, his white hair falling around his face. His expression brimmed with intense desire as he focused solely on her and her needs. In this moment he was a descendant of Ilustra, come to pleasure her to the near brink of her life.

Tanwen gladly offered herself up as a sacrifice.

Zolya ground into her in deep, long strokes, filling her over and over and over until she felt that glorious building again. Somewhere in the haze of her passion she heard herself moan his name. “Please,” she panted. “Yes, there ,” she pleaded.

“Gods,” Zolya cursed, grunted, before leaning back down to suck one of her nipples, hand cupping her breast. She whimpered at the delicious sensation.

Tanwen became untethered.

Zolya was everywhere, his heat and scent and sounds.

But still, she needed more, needed him never to stop.

With a cry, Tanwen crested into her euphoria, soared into the sun that was Zolya’s claim over her body. Tanwen became nothing but light and heat until she fell, liquid fragments hitting his sheets.

Zolya pulled himself free, and she ached with the sudden absence of him.

But then his warmth was felt on her belly as he spilled his seed, the low grunts of his pleasure vibrating through the mattress.

Zolya collapsed at her side, each of them panting, satiated.

He laced their fingers together, his mouth pressed to her shoulder. A soft kiss.

Tanwen smiled, chest swelling with her happiness.

Until a crack of pain splintered the moment, reality setting in.

This is temporary, she had to remind herself. No matter what they felt for each other, they could never be together. And not merely because of who they were but because Tanwen soon would be gone. The next full moons were in a week. Princess Azla’s wedding neared and with it her and her family’s escape.

Zolya slid from the bed, momentarily distracting her thoughts. Tanwen watched him disappear into his washroom, then return with a soft towel he used to clean her. As he did, he met her stare, an endearing smile playing on his lips.

Tanwen was suddenly struck by the strangeness of the moment. Here was a prince attending to a servant. But when they were together like this, alone—no world to shove them into societal roles—Zolya made her feel not just equal but superior.

He rejoined her in the bed, pulling the covers atop them. Tanwen turned and nuzzled into his warmth. They lingered in the tranquil silence of the night, Zolya gently tracing his fingertips over her collarbone.

“Will you tell me about your magic?” he asked, eventually breaking the quiet.

Tanwen shifted to meet his gaze. Zolya’s features were open, calm. He was the most relaxed she’d ever seen him. “What do you want to know?”

“How does it work, your connection with animals?”

Tanwen rolled to her back, looking at the distant ceiling, the intricacies of the carved design. “I can communicate with them,” she answered. “Not only with thoughts but with feelings. I can sense them, and they can sense me.”

“Incredible,” he breathed.

She scoffed. “Despite it being forbidden.”

Zolya slid a hand to her stomach, a touch of reassurance. “Mütra magic is unique in that no two kinds are alike, and my father fears anything he cannot control,” Zolya admitted, drawing her stare. “That is Mütra. The unpredictability of what you each can be is his greatest nightmare, especially when he has maintained power for so long by keeping Cādra exactly as it has always been.”

“But nothing truly ever stays the same,” Tanwen argued. “Life is change.”

Zolya regarded her, adoration filling his gaze. “To Volari that is a radical concept. Change terrifies many of us whose lives move not by years, but by decades.”

Tanwen had never considered that perspective before. Reluctantly, she understood it, though she still didn’t approve of the prejudices it brought. “Does it terrify you?” she asked.

“No,” Zolya replied easily, lifting a hand to tuck a lock of her hair behind her ear. “It excites me.”

Tanwen couldn’t help her smile, her chest filling with an odd sense of pride. This was why she loved him, why he was different from other Volari, and why she knew for certain he would make a great king.

He will bring change, she thought.

But then a prick of uncertainty creased her brow.

“And the High Gods?” asked Tanwen.

“What about them?”

“Don’t they also condemn my kind?”

Zolya was quiet for a long moment. “If they do, I have never personally heard their disapproval.”

Tanwen drew back, blinking at him as shock vibrated through her veins. “So, you mean ... this law against Mütra was solely your father’s and not handed down by the divine like others say it was?”

“The law was made before my birth,” he explained. “The exact genesis of it is unknown to me.”

Tanwen was quiet for a long while, absorbing this information. For her entire life she had been persecuted under the belief that no god had wanted her existence, that it was a form of defiance.

What about you would scare a god? Bosyg had wondered.

But here Tanwen was now told she in fact scared only a man— one man, the king—because of his fear of the unknown. Though perhaps that was what kept the High Gods quiet regarding King Réol’s acts of genocide toward Mütra: they were creatures who thrived on traditions, and Tanwen represented the possibility of change.

“Can I ask you a question now?” Zolya inquired, returning Tanwen’s attention to him.

She drank in his beauty as he leaned up on one hand.

Tentatively, Tanwen nodded.

“What happened today?” Zolya asked softly. “Why were you crying in the orchard?”

Tanwen pressed her lips together as her sorrow slowly resurfaced. “I ... lost a friend,” she confessed. “Who was very important to me, but ... I would rather not talk about them right now.”

Concern creased Zolya’s brow. “Of course,” he said, bringing his arm around her waist. “I’m so sorry for your loss.”

“As am I,” replied Tanwen.

“What would you like to talk about instead?” Zolya asked, drawing circles around her navel. It sent a warmth feathering over her skin.

“I don’t want to talk at all,” she admitted.

His mouth curled sinfully as his gaze darkened. “That can be arranged.”

Zolya leaned in and kissed her.

It started slow, a languid swim in a lake, before they each gave in to their quickly ascending desire. Tanwen was eternally grateful. She didn’t want to think about Eli, or her looming escape, or the uncertain future that awaited them.

She simply wanted to lose herself in Zolya, enjoy him for as long as she could have him.

Zolya seemed of the same mind.

In that moment, they surrendered to each other, forgetting their burdens and responsibilities. Even as Ré’s light began to seep through the curtains, casting an unwelcome illumination on their inevitable paths, neither of them acknowledged the new day’s approach.

They continued to explore one another, committing to memory every sweet exhale and taste and touch.

As if they both understood this could very well be their final farewell.