A single muscle feathers along his sharp jawline. He steps closer, his towering mass engulfing me entirely.
"My world is built on blood and rot," he murmurs, the sound rough and barely recognizable as his own. "I do not know how to be gentle. Do not be blinded by what you perceive as kindness. I am a creature of the Undercity. I am using your intellect to secure my borders."
Tilting my chin up, I refuse to retreat. "And I am using your steel and gold to save my people."
The silence crashing down between us turns absolute.
The atmosphere thickens, charged with a searing, undeniable friction that burns the oxygen from the room. I track the pulse jumping at the base of his throat, watching his lips part as his breathing turns shallow. The sheer, overwhelming reality of him—the biting tang of crushed ash, the lethal powerradiating from his skin—obliterates every logical rule the streets ever taught me.
Rising onto the tips of my toes, I grip the thick lapels of his coat and pull his mouth down to mine.
Zhetrin freezes for a singular, fragmented second. Then, the apex predator breaks his chains.
Clamping his hands onto my waist, he lifts me entirely off the stone floor. His mouth crashes against mine—a savage, desperate collision of heat and teeth that devours my breath. The taste of spiced wine and raw magic floods my tongue. Tangling my fingers into his thick hair, I gasp against the sheer, dominating force of him.
Walking me backward through the gloom, he drives my back into the desk. The impact sweeps the dense vellum maps and shattered inkwells onto the floor with a loud crash. Setting me upon the smooth timber, he immediately steps between my parted thighs. His thumbs trace my cheekbones, slanting his mouth over mine again, demanding everything I possess. My chest heaves against his unyielding armor, frantic for oxygen.
Tearing his mouth away, he rests his forehead against mine, his breath searing my skin.
"Do you want this?" The guttural growl vibrates against my lips, the feral restraint in his muscles palpable.
"Yes." I drag my nails down the thick hide of his coat. "Take it off."
He complies with terrifying speed. Shedding the outerwear, he tosses it carelessly onto the broken glass. He reaches for the hem of my linen tunic, hauling the fabric upward. I help him, pulling the garment over my head until I am completely bare in the dim, sputtering light of the remaining lamps.
My fingers, clumsy with adrenaline, hook into the collar of his silk tunic. The fine material resists for a fraction of a second before I grip it with both hands and pull, ripping the fabricstraight down the center to expose the hard, heavily scarred muscle of his chest.
Staring at the ruined silk in my hands, a dark, wicked sound vibrates deep in his throat.
"You are feral." His large palms slide up my bare thighs, the branding heat burning my skin.
Arching my back to press my chest closer to him, I throw the challenge back. "Show me what happens when you let the beast off its leash, Zhet."
He answers by dropping his head, his hot mouth closing perfectly over my peak.
My head falls back against the desk, a desperate, fractured moan tearing from my throat as he sucks hard, his tongue laving the hyper-sensitive flesh with ruthless precision.
Trailing open-mouthed kisses up the column of my neck, his fangs graze my collarbone.
"I have never taken a mortal," he whispers against my pulse point, his breath sending violent shivers across my ribs. His massive hands span my waist entirely, his long fingers wrapping completely around to my spine. "You are so fragile. I fear my weight alone will shatter your bones."
"I will not shatter." Wrapping my ankles around the backs of his muscular thighs, I pull him flush against me. "Ruin me, Zhetrin."
Standing to his full, towering height, he unfastens the iron buckle at his waist. The dark trousers fall away.
The breath vanishes from my lungs entirely.
The Lowtown stories spoke of the monstrous proportions of the Khuzuth, but the reality is staggering. He is thick, heavily veined, and terrifyingly large, triggering a primal flutter of panic in my chest.
"Zhet," I breathe, my eyes tracing the rigid length of him before snapping up to his face. "I can't take all of that."
"You will accommodate." The dark, velvet rumble carries authority as he traces the flushed skin of my inner thigh. "I will prepare you."
Coating his long, pale fingers with the slick moisture already pooling between my legs, he presses a single digit inside my tight heat. I gasp, my hips bucking upward instinctively. Adding a second finger, he stretches me, his thumb circling the sensitive cluster of nerves above with devastating rhythm.
"Can you take more?" His eyes track every shift in my expression.
"Yes," I sob, my fingers digging into the desk.
