Page 91 of The Crown of Moonlight

That hand and the things he’s doing with it.The way his fingers curve inside me, the way his thumb moves.

“Good,” I whisper.“So good.”

My hips buck towards him.My breath shortens.I twist my wrists—not to escape, but to reach him, to take his head between my hands, to lift higher or pull him where I need him most.

But he doesn’t set me free.

“You’re still in control,” he says.“Tell me to stop.Tell me to be gentle.Tell me what you want.Anything.”

I shake my head.I don’t want gentle.

What do I want?I want to rewrite history, that’s what I need.What we all need.

Chyr sheathes himself inside me, pushes in slow enough to make me feel the stretch, fast enough to steal my breath, shaking me to my core.He isn’t sweet or tender, not like the last time.His magic isn’t warm; it’s fire followed by a breath of cold, a hundred points of pressure pulsing and driving and pounding while his tongue glides between my breasts and down to trace the outline of his fingers across my stomach.The magic is wild, and his tongue is maddeningly thorough until it’s almost too much to bear.

The pressure builds.

Chyr moves faster, harder, his gaze locked on mine.

I shatter, pleasure rushing through me in wave after wave.It’s too much, and I try to retreat.He holds me like he’ll never let go.And I tip over the edge again—climbing, falling, floating.

I feel Chyr’s heat, his weight.The stone is rough against my back, the wind cooling the sweat and water along my skin, the sun reaching down in fingers as thin and sharp as needles to ignite fire somewhere deep inside me.

I lose myself in all of it, allow myself to drift until I’m not sure where I stop and the earth and sky begin.

Chyr thrusts harder, and I climb one peak after another.Then he spills himself into me, and I plummet off the edge of the world, determined to change the very shape of it.To reforge it into something new.

The water hushes to a silver whisper, and sweetness rises from the yellow furze and damp wool drying on the bank.In the distance, smoke is rising.

Whatever the rules of the Compact were more than 1,600 years ago when it was written, they seem less clear than what I’ve always believed.I refuse to accept there’s no solution.Surely the gods wouldn’t be so cruel?Why would the Cailleach mark a Maiden after 400 years and give me no chance to help my people or myself?

Somehow, I will find a way to bend the rules into a shape that gives us justice.

The thought that doing so might require me to choose one of the other Riders is one I firmly push aside.After Chyr, how could I bear it?

Chapter 34

Take the Steel

Chyr

M

ist coils along Loch Seil’s calm surface, and the night is chill.After the hour spent outside with Flora, I miss the sun and the warmth all the more, but Flora comes to life in the moonlight, magic shining from her.

We ride single file, silent save for the rhythm of hooves and the creak of leather, our way lit by scoutlights and the glow of the swelling moon.Rua threads through the woods above us, her tail low, and the Shadehounds pace behind Flora like soundless shadows.

The wind brings the scent of smoke now and then.Beneath the thick plaid she has pinned around them, Flora’s shoulders tense every time.Her attention shifts from the woods to the hills or the trail ahead as if she hears things that we don’t.

A mile out from the camp beneath the beacon site, she stiffens in the saddle, and Eira flattens her ears in response.Up ahead, Ronan gives a soft whistle and halts under a cluster of slender birches.The Shadehounds melt up the slope, and we all dismount.

Bent nearly double, Ronan ghosts forward, a dark shadow slipping between pale trunks until he’s out of sight.The rest of us crouch where we are, our swords already out, until he comes back to report.

“Six humans and a Grey,” Ronan says.“Likely a picket of sentries for the camp.If that’s the case, there will be at least that many in the camp itself, and likely another group of sentries farther on.”

“Did they hear us?”Flora whispers.

“No sign of that.Which doesn’t mean they can’t be waiting for us.”He turns to me.“How do you want to do it?You stay here with her, and the rest of us go?We can’t risk having her taken.”