His mouth is hot and demanding, but there’s a tremor in it too. A question.
I answer with my hands, framing his face, sliding into his dark hair, pulling him closer.
Closer. Always closer.
The kiss deepens, goes molten, and my body melts against his like wax drawn to flame.
Every inch of me is aware of him—the hard plane of his chest pressed to my breasts, the iron band of his arm at my back, the thick length of him pinned between us.
Somewhere between one heartbeat and the next, the room responds.
Candles flare higher on their own, casting liquid gold across the stone walls.
The ever-burning hearth roars like it’s cheering us on.
The air thickens with heat and something sweet, like fire-kissed flowers and caramel.
He groans into my mouth, breaking the kiss just long enough to speak, his forehead resting against mine.
“I brought you here for selfish reasons,” he admits, voice ragged. “I should be thinking of strategy. Of SoulTakers. Of the Vein. But all I can think of is you in my bed, wearing nothing but my flame.”
My breath stutters. “You make that sound like a crime.”
“It is a crime,” he says, eyes burning. “Against my better judgment. Against my vows to myself. But I admit, Shula, I do not regret it.”
His honesty hits me harder than the fire-travel did.
I loop my arms around his neck, my legs tightening around his waist, pulling him closer still.
“Then stop talking,” I whisper. “And show me how much you don’t regret it.”
A low, rumbling laugh rolls through his chest. “As my queen commands.”
He lowers himself onto me with frightening care, like I’m something precious he’s afraid to break.
His gaze drags over me slowly, reverently, making me feel seen in a way that’s almost too much.
“Delia,” he says, like a prayer and a promise and a curse all at once.
My pulse trips over itself. “Yeah?”
“Every time I leave you,” he says quietly, “it feels like I walk into battle without armor. I will not apologize for needing to feel you alive beneath my hands before I sleep in this bed again.”
The words punch the air out of me.
“Okay,” I whisper, my throat tight. “Then don’t leave me.”
My heart is pounding.
I should be overwhelmed.
I am overwhelmed.
By magic. By war. By this impossible realm. By him.
But lying there beneath the heat of his gaze, with my skin humming and my body aching and my chest too full of everything I feel for this impossible, infuriating, beautiful Demon Lord—it hits me.
I don’t want less of this.
