His eyes soften. Slightly.
“No. This iswar,” he says.
And I realize—he doesn’t just want my body.
He wantsme.
CHAPTER 6
FREYA
The moment his lips brush mine, everything inside me combusts again—hotter this time, deeper, like he’s kissing oxygen into a fire I’ve been hiding my whole life.
His kiss is a claim. A declaration. He kisses me like the last second before war and I’m the only thing worth surviving for.
I fist my hands in the warm ridges of the bone crown along his collarbone, dragging my nails down the carved lines. His growl vibrates through my chest, through my ribs, through the points where his body cages mine.
His thigh wedges between mine, parting me open without effort. I gasp, clutching him harder. The pressure of him—everywhere, overwhelming—makes my heart beat too fast.
“You feel that?” he murmurs against the corner of my mouth, voice low and sharp as a blade made of heat.
I nod, barely breathing.
“That’s all for you, little thing.”
His hips roll, slow, deliberate, and his cock presses against my lower belly—huge, hot, pulsing with need. The hardness of him makes me tremble. I feel impossibly small under him, but not fragile—never fragile. He makes me feel like something rare. Something chosen.
His hand drags down my side, claws grazing lightly. Just enough to make me gasp, to paint little streaks of sensation that bloom into heat. They don’t break skin; they break something else—my restraint.
He pauses at my waist, fingers splayed wide.
“You are too small for me,” he rumbles.
“Then be careful,” I whisper.
His mouth curves into something violent and fond.
“I won’t be careful,” he says. His breath ghosts my lips. “I’ll be mine.”
He lifts me with one hand under my thigh like I weigh nothing. Instinct takes over—my legs wrap around his waist, my arms around his shoulders. Bone spurs graze my hips and sides, cold where his skin is searingly hot.
He jolts slightly when one spur snags gently on my thigh.
“You’re not hurt.”
He says it as a fact, a command, a promise.
“I’m not,” I breathe. “Don’t stop.”
His grip tightens. His chest swells with a ragged breath.
“You want this.”
“I need you,” I whisper, voice trembling. “Like this.”
Something inside him snaps.
He carries me to the bed—not thrown, not rushed. He lays me down like I’m a sacred relic. Like the fight outside these walls doesn’t matter. Like all that matters is this.
