Not aloud. Not whispered.
It ripped through her mind like lightning down her spine.
“Mine.”
Her nails curled into the pillow, her body arching despite the way he held her down. She could feel how close he was—could taste it in the heat at the back of her throat, in the molten ache pooling between her thighs.
“Viktor—”
Her voice fractured, breathless.
“Say it again,” he rasped, hips slamming harder.
She gasped, her cry breaking on his name again and again.
His head dropped to her shoulder, his voice wrecked and desperate against her skin.
“I love you, Amerei.”
The words burst inside her, hot as the lightning sparking down her spine.
She sobbed her answer against the pillow, half-cry, half-moan.
“I love you—I love you—”
And then it snapped.
Tight between them, that impossible tether—his release tearing through him as hers broke open around him, their voices colliding in the same breath, the same fire, the same unending loop.
Her body trembled beneath him, her release crashing so deep, so strong, until the sobs broke loose before she could stop them.
She turned her head enough to see him, tears spilling hot down her cheeks.
“I’m yours, Tory,” she whispered.
He buried his face in her neck, spilling the last of himself into her like it could hold him here, with her, against the pull of every shadow that wanted him gone.
For a long, aching moment, they stayed like that—her hand at the back of his neck, his heartbeat pounding against her palm.Their breaths found the same rhythm, uneven and breaking, then slow and quiet.
When he finally shifted, he didn’t pull away. He gathered her against him, turning them onto their sides, his arm a fortress around her waist.
Her voice cracked the silence, wrecked and trembling through her tears.
“I can’t go to Amethyst.”
“Ami—”
“I can’t love anyone but you.”
The words broke out on a sob.
For a breath, he only looked at her, like the truth in her voice had stopped his heart.
His chest tightened.
“Then you’d better prepare yourself,” he said, brushing a tear from her cheek, “for me to live.”
Her breath caught.
