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“I think about how the people who were supposed to love and protect you starved the light and life right out of you just so they could rebuild you however they saw fit…”

I buried my face in my hands and muffled my screams. Because I knew he was right. He had lied. He was wrong, but it had been his twisted way of protecting that scared, weak, malnourished girl he’d found in Warrich. As much as I was angry at him for it…

I loved him for it too.

With a heavy sigh, I dragged my tired feet through the frigid sand. When I reached the path to the inn, I slipped my shoes back on, unsure if the discomfort was any better than bare feet on the hard, stone ground.

Minutes later, I walked into the two-story inn and down the lantern-lit, cream-tiled hallway until I stood in front of our room. I took a few deep breaths before opening the door.

Upon my entry, he rose from where he sat on the edge of the bed. The door closed softly behind me. His eyes tracked my every movement.

“You were wrong to lie to me.” I shed his jacket and the wolf pelt, laid them on the chair beside the door.

“But I know you were trying to give me time to adjust to everything. To gather some semblance of autonomy before going to those Caves. So, you were wrong,” I repeated, reminding myself just as much as him, “but… I forgive you.”

His chest quivered with a relieved sigh, and he was immediately moving, reaching to pull me into his embrace. I outstretched my arms and stopped him with my palms flat on his hard chest.

“I also know there’s more you’re not telling me. And perhaps I’m a fool for it, but tonight, I don’t want to know. Tonight, I want to pretend none of the rest of it exists.”

My instinct roared a warning at me. I shoved it down into those cautious depths. I didn’t care. No, I didn’t want to care .

“Tonight, I just want you.”

There was more than one war unfolding in Nyrida, and despite my status as the prophesied savior queen of these lands, the war I cared about tonight was the war… between us.

“Aryella.” His voice was solid and resolute. He wrapped his strong fingers around my forearms. “I am not going to bed you tonight.”

Hope drained out of my pores like sweat, leaving shallow pools of panic thirsty with need.

“It feels like the only part of myself I have that’s mine,” I breathed.

“And I’m not letting you give that to me,” he answered firmly. “Not tonight.”

“But I have to go to those Caves,” I told him, pulse racing. “And at the springs, just days ago, you told me to allow myself to live , and that is what I’m trying to do tonight, with you. Because I’ve accepted that I have to go to my people and my husband—”

“He’s not your fucking husband!”

The room shook. Trembled beneath his lethal fury.

I shrank back from him—not afraid of him or what he could do to me but afraid of whatever fueled a rage so hot and malicious.

Seeing my shock, he forced an even breath and added, “Yet. He’s not your husband yet , and you are not his wife.

” The words rumbled out of him—a low, malicious growl.

“To him, you’re just an idea, but to me…

” His hands were soft on my face before he twisted his fingers in my hair.

“ You are the air in my lungs. You are light and life. You are the reason I open my eyes every morning and brave this world. You are the tonic to my nightmares, the angel that defies my demons.”

“Then be with me!” I placed my palms on his chest. “You took time, you took moments, so take me !” My fingers wrinkled his clean black shirt. “I know it’s going to hurt to say goodbye, but—”

“No!” he gritted out. “You don’ t know! You have no idea how well I know it hurts !”

My pulse raced, driven by the iron grip that restricted and caressed. Kept me at distance, yet held me close. A push and pull that would shatter me.

“I refuse to make this more difficult for you than it already is.”

“It’s my choice!” I pressed.

“And you don’t know what you’re asking me to do to you by honoring your choice.”

“Yes, I do .” I reached up to cup his jaw, savoring the rough feel of his beard beneath my fingers. “They’ve chosen Elias to be my husband, but right now, I want you . If it’s true he hasn’t bothered to hold anything out for me, I see no reason why I should either.”

He scowled and tried to pull away, but I lifted my other hand to his face, keeping him there.

“I can decide this for myself. I am safe with you.”

He softened at this, gently squeezing my wrists.

“I’m whole, every part of me protected and cared for.” I swallowed though nerves, forcing them back down to my stomach. There was no time for nerves. “I want you to be my first.”

I inhaled sharply at the sight of his rage—that lethal eruption of fury—that blazed in his eyes. “Your first,” he uttered, scowling, like something vile had touched his tongue. He loosened his grip on me and slowly retreated. “Your first ?”

“Yes.”

“No!” he snarled.

I flinched, cowering beneath him, as if the voice of a god had thundered through the clouds to douse my stubborn fire with an even more unyielding storm. “ No. ”

“Please!” Sadness and anger splintered through my voice. “For gods’ sake, tell me what I have to do to make you want to fuck me! ”

Cold anguish stared back at me. Shadows whispered inside his deep-brown gaze, begging to be set free. I had seen that look only once before. Hurt . Rejection. When I first dared to call him my friend.

“Is that what you want, Ella?” He took slow, dangerous steps toward me.

I retreated out of instinct until my back hit the wall.

“Do you want me to fuck you?” Gavin pressed against me, his hands on both sides of my head.

His whole body hard.

“Yes,” I breathed.

“You want me to fuck you so you know what it’s like to be taken before you go to your precious betrothed?” he hissed through gritted teeth and brushed his lips against my forehead. “Before you run off to marry another man?”

I blinked out a tear, fighting the ache in my chest, the need in my core. “Y-yes.”

“And you ask me…” His voice was low and dangerous, rumbling through me. “What you need to do for me to want it?”

“Yes.”

His response was a deep, growling hum. “You need only exist for me to want to fuck you. You don’t have to do anything.

I have to do everything to not !” He slammed his fist into the wall beside my head, and I felt the world around me tremble beneath him.

His breath, hot on my neck, sent goose bumps up my spine, and his violent fist caressed the length of my jaw down to my collarbone.

“Let me tell you what I truly want, Aryella.”

I blinked out a tear. He caught it with his thumb and wiped it away with a gentleness so at odds with his power.

“I want to bury myself inside you.” His voice—dark and lithe like a shadow—cloaked me in forbidden comfort.

“I want you naked and writhing with pleasure beneath me. I want my name— only my name—on your lips while you come for me. I want my mouth, my tongue on every surface of your skin, and while I taste you, I want to hear your moans. Your precious, racing heartbeat. Those sweet little pants —” He gripped my chin, his thumb on my lip, “—so that I can lose myself in those sounds—in you —forever. I want you so full of my cum —” I gasped as his hand slid down my jaw and over my throat, “—that there is no space for your power or this war. No space for the rest of this gods-damned world. No space for Elias fucking Winterton. No space for anything or anyone but me . Not your first, not your last, but your only .”

Quiet sobs wrecked me. He pressed a soft, soothing kiss to my forehead. I fought the urge to press for more even though knowing would hurt me. But I lost that fight, because maybe if I could dream of it—of him —my future as queen wouldn’t be so lonely.

“Would you,” I breathed, trembling under his touch, “would you be gentle?”

“For as long as you needed me to be,” he whispered, his lips against my temple. “But then…” His jaw pulsed with restraint.

“But… then?” I gasped as his calloused fingers flexed around my throat.

He growled and tore his hand away, retreating, shaking his head in warning. “By the will of the gods, Ella, one day I will have you— all of you. But not today.”

“Why?”

“Because of the things you don’t know. Because I refuse to make this worse, when I…” His hand returned, now light on my jaw while the other hand lifted to cup my cheek. He drew a soft, whimpering sigh from my chest and stroked my skin with his thumb. “I love you more than I want to fuck you.”

I squeezed my eyes shut, fighting in vain to fend off tears .

He gently kissed each teardrop away. “Yes. I love you.” He pressed a chaste kiss to my forehead, then my nose, summoning more of my tears. “Gods, I love you , my Ella.”

“You can’t love me,” I cried. Saying it aloud eclipsed any remaining hope. “You can’t.”

“But I do.” He took my chin between his thumb and index finger. “I’ve loved you for longer than you know.”

“If you,” I breathed, infusing my voice with strength, “if you love me, then you’ll honor my wishes. Before I go to those Caves and have to become everything they expect of me. If you care for me, Gavin, you’ll do this one thing I ask.”

Compassion and longing surged through his gaze, seized my heart, and coiled behind my sternum.

“I will not.” His voice was too sure, too stubborn. “I will not yield on this.”

“Gavin, people have sex with each other all the time.”

“Not like this.”

“Yes, like this!” I snapped, as if I really knew. “Gemma and Finn—”

“We are not Gemma and Finn.”