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Tears burn my eyes. Everything is so messed up, and just when I think I know what I want, something else twists me the other way.

“Stop caring about everyone else, Alessia.” He’s close enough to touch me now, close enough that I can feel the heat radiating off him, smell that dark, intoxicating scent that is all Kylian. “Stop trying to manage their feelings and decide for yourself. What do you want? Not what Arlo wants. Not what I want. What do you want?”

My mouth opens. Closes. No answer comes.

“If you aren’t going to admit what we both know, just leave,” Kylian snaps, turning back to walk around his desk.

“Wait.”

Every nerve ending screams to life. The bond between us pulls taut, making me want to drag him back.

He turns slowly. When he speaks, his voice is rough with everything he’s holding back. “What do you want from me?”

I swallow hard. “I don’t know. Everything is wrong, Kylian. This isn’t how things were supposed to work out.”

Wrong.

The word seems to detonate something inside him. He moves before I can react, crossing the distance between us in two strides. His hands find my waist and he lifts me, shoving me back against his desk with enough force to send papers scattering to the floor. I gasp, my heart hammering against my ribs, but I don’t push him away.

“Wrong?” he growls against my mouth. “This?”

He kisses me.

The moment our lips meet, I ignite. My hands fly to his hair, gripping tight, pulling him closer as I kiss him back with a desperation that scares me. He pours every ounce of frustration, longing, and fury into the contact, and I take it all, greedy for it, starving for it.

His lips move to my neck, and I arch into him instantly, offering myself without hesitation. The submission in the gesture should terrify me, but it doesn’t. It feels like coming home.

He tears my shirt open. Buttons scatter across the floor. His mouth finds my breast, and I groan, the sound tearing from my throat, my fingers tangling in his hair to hold him there. He moves back to my mouth, kissing me deeply, thoroughly, until we’re both breathless and shaking.

Then he pulls back, gripping my chin to force me to meet his eyes. His gaze is heated, searching, demanding.

“Did that feel wrong, little mage?”

I swallow thickly, my lips swollen, my chest heaving. No. It felt like the only right thing in my life. It felt like the only thing that has ever made sense.

I open my mouth to say something, anything—

“Don’t lie to me.” His thumb traces my jaw. “You can lie to him. You can lie to yourself. But not to me.”

I try to look away, but he holds me firmly.

“You keep thinking it’s all the bond,” he continues, his voice dropping to something almost gentle despite the fire raging between us. “But there’s one thing you haven’t noticed. Or maybe you refuse to.”

“What?” I breathe.

“Why doesn’t your magic put me on my ass every time I touch you?” He leans in, his lips brushing my ear, and I shiver. “Your magic hasn’t attacked me. It hasn’t in weeks. Not when I grab you. Not when I feed from you. Not when I kiss you, not even when your power was out of control.”

He pulls back to watch my face, to see the truth settle on my features.

“Your magic recognizes what you want,” he says. “And that’s why it doesn’t stop me.”

I look away, feeling the tears burning in my eyes, spilling over, tracking down my cheeks.

“Deny it,” he challenges, his voice a snarl. “Go on. You want to. For his sake.”

I glare at him, tears blurring my vision. Arlo has sacrificed so much, but the loyalty I owe him is at war with, the truth I can’t escape with Kylian.

“Say it,” he demands. “Say you don’t want me. Say my touch repulses you. Say the bond is the only thing pulling you toward me, and I’ll walk away. You can return to Purgatory with him.”