PROLOGUE
LYRAE ANTARES
100 years ago
Ryland Storme kissed the same way he did everything.
Like he was waging his own, personal war on the world itself.
My lips, my body, my very soul became a battlefield—where his weapons were nipping teeth and clever fingers that knew exactly how deep to plunge, how hard to rub, how deep to bite.
And I was the enemy who couldn’t wait to be conquered.
I wanted him to crush me to stardust between his hands, then kiss me better when this frenzy ended. Because I knew when this was over, after Ryland pieced me back together, I’d still be boneless and breathless and wanting for more.
“Gods, Lyrae.” His tongue drove into my mouth, possessive and claiming, and I let him have me. I always let him have me. Giving myself to Ryland was one of life’s few pleasures, and if I could make a nightly habit of this, I would…but pleasures like these in the slums of Southwell were few and far between.
“How can you always taste so fuckingdelicious?” Green eyes flashed like emeralds, followed by that quick, wicked smile as he abandoned my mouth to work his way down my body, teeth nibbling my peaked breasts, tongue dipping into the well of my stomach before he pressed his face between my legs and breathed deep.
Gods. That tongue.
I could write an entire ode to his tongue and the wicked ways it shredded my self-control.
“Like fresh tangerines dipped in honey,” he groaned, sliding his arms beneath my legs, lifting me to his mouth, heated breath skating over my open pussy long enough my toes curled.
“This is no time for talking, Ry. Clock’s ticking, remember?” I reminded him, though the reason for urgency was quickly becoming as unimportant as our clothes, lying on the floor around us. “Hurry.Please.”
“So fucking impatient, my little fox. So fucking needy.”
I frowned at the top of his dark head, bent between my pale thighs. “I’m needy? You’re the one who dragged me into a fucking closet, during an actual heist, for a quick fuck.”
“Well, I’m not the one who started this by saying, ‘Oh, Ry, your cock would feel so amazing inside me right now.’”
“Fuck you, Ryland,” I muttered, but my hands were already tangled in waves of silky brown hair, already pulling him closer, my pussy a bundle of slick, swollen flesh quivering in anticipation for that first brush of his eager mouth.
“Yes, you will,” he agreed, and the moment he licked through my folds, I forgot all about this dusty closet, the safe full of money upstairs, the utter foolishness of the chance we were taking. No, all I knew in this world was Ryland Storme, branding a trail up through my center, his dark groan of needy pleasure as he feasted, the way thatmasterful tongue whipped across my clit until I bit my lip to stay quiet.
I panted for air, a churning tempest building inside my thrashing body, hips bucking when I came, Ryland wringing the orgasm out of me with practiced ease, making the pleasure last long enough to almost hurt, dimly tasting blood where my teeth bit through my lower lip as I shattered.
This.
This was better than anything else in the world.
Flying apart in his capable hands.
Knowing he’d be there to catch me when I fell. And as I crashed back to earth, when his fingers traced my face like he was trying to commit me to memory, I knew one truth.
I never wanted this to end.
In fact, I couldn’t fathom us ever being apart for a single moment.
No. I wrapped my fingers deeper into his silky hair. Ryland Storme was as essential to my survival as breathing and I would hold onto him for the rest of my life.
He rocked back, laughing green eyes meeting my pale blue ones across the landscape of my trembling stomach, my heaving breasts. Something simmered there, a flicker of what I yearned to call love…
But people like us didn’t love.
Love made you vulnerable, and vulnerable people didn’t survive long in Blackcastle, especially not in Southwell, the deepest pit of the slums, where even the king’s most brutal soldiers seldom ventured.
