“Then show me.”
Everything inside me shattered.
The storm roared awake, the shadows surged, and the tether between us pulled taut, hungry, and inevitable.
I reached for her?—
—and the world obeyed.
Chapter 25
The Taking
CAELIRA
He looked at me like he was starving, like I had already ruined him just by standing here, flushed and breathing hard with my pulse hammering beneath the surface of my skin.
I knew what he was thinking because I could see it written in the tension of his jaw and the way his hands flexed at his sides. He wanted to devour me, wanted to take and take until there was nothing left in my head but the echo of his name and the burn of his hands on my skin. And gods help me, I wanted that too, even knowing what it would cost me.
Outside, the first rumble of thunder rolled low across the sky, deep and distant, like a creature waking up. I felt it vibrate through the floorboards and through me, as if the storm could sense what was about to happen.
He closed the distance slowly and with certainty, like he knew I wasn't going anywhere, like he'd already tasted this moment a thousand times in his head and found it wanting compared to the reality standing before him now.
I didn't move. He stepped into my space entirely, and I felt it all at once. The heat rolling off him, the tension coiled beneathhis skin, the way his hands gripped my hips like they had been waiting for this exact shape, this exact weight. Then he leaned in, his breath hot at my ear, his voice low like thunder wrapped in silk.
"Tell me," he said. "Tell me that you want to forget everything but me."
My lips parted and the words barely made it past them, but he heard, and it became his undoing. He pressed me hard against the wall, both of us still clothed, but none of it mattered because I could feel everything.
The strength in his arms caged me in and the way his body fit to mine felt like a promise I wasn't sure I should be making. His mouth found my throat, not kissing but claiming, dragging heat and hunger down my skin, open-mouthed, teeth grazing just enough to steal my breath and send fire spiraling through me.
Outside, the thunder answered, closer now and angrier, like the storm felt what was building inside me. I dug my fingers into his back, to anchor myself, because I could already feel it,I was unraveling.
"You don't need to think anymore," he growled into my skin, his voice rough against my mouth as though the words had been dragged up from somewhere deep in his chest.
"Let me take over. Let me ruin every thought that isn't about this, about me."
The heat of it moved through me instantly, slipping under my skin and settling low in my body before my mind had time to argue with it. For a heartbeat I held on to the fragile edge of control that had steadied me for years, the instinct to brace against whatever storm tried to rise inside me, but Atlas was already there, solid and immovable, his presence closing around that gathering chaos with a steadiness that made resistance feel pointless.
My pulse kicked harder beneath my ribs as the storm inside me surged, restless and alive, and something deeper than thought recognized him in the same instant, like the pull of gravity or the inevitability of lightning finding the ground.
I let him take the lead, let him take the weight of the moment and the wild power thrumming beneath my skin, and instead of holding the storm back the way I always had, I let it rise and meet him, trusting the strength in his hands and the steady authority in the way he held me there.
Because in that moment I wasn't power or fire or war. I was something simpler. I was instinct answering instinct, and every part of me moved toward him. My body arched into his, hips pressing up, pulse pounding hard enough to match the thunder now cracking overhead.
His hands pushed beneath my shirt, dragging up over my ribs, slow and deliberate, like he was learning a language only my skin could speak. My breath stuttered as his mouth found the soft place just under my jaw, and then he bit—not cruel, not gentle, just enough to make my knees buckle.
He caught me like he knew it would happen, and a growl vibrated from his chest into mine. A second later, lightning flared outside, white-hot against the windowpanes.
"You have no idea how long I've wanted this," he breathed into my neck.
His thigh slotted between mine, pushing me open, deliberate and unapologetic, and I let him. My head fell back against the wall, lips parted, barely breathing. He kissed me hard, like he was trying to crawl inside me, like he was starving to taste everything I'd ever been afraid to give. And I gave it. I opened for him, mouth and body and soul, my hands in his hair, my legs shaking, all of me.
His fingers trailed down my ribs, my stomach, the line of my pants, and they hovered there. Then his eyes found mine, and Ilet him see it all. No shields, no mask, just a girl on the edge of a storm, asking to be taken. He undid the button and slid my pants down, and his fingers slid inside me.
I cried out, and a flash of lightning cracked through the sky in sync with the sound, sharp and unfiltered. It was too much and yet not enough.
My hips chased the pressure, my breath fractured, and the wall was the only thing holding me upright. He was the only thing holding me together.
