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It didn’t matter that he’d barely spoken to Elain since Winter Solstice, when he’d attempted to give her a necklace only for her to return it to him. After the shit he’d been through in the caves with Nesta and Bryce, after Truth-Teller had been taken from him and Nesta’s idiocy had threatened everything, after what he’d learned during the Hybern War—nothing fucking mattered.

So after Nesta had given Bryce the Mask, he’d walked up to Elain. Taken her beautiful face in his hands, waited for her whispered yes, and then kissed her. Deep and thorough, the way he’d wanted for so long now.

He’d instantly wondered if he could die from it—that kiss, the touch of her tongue. The way she writhed against him, the softness of her breasts. He’d decided to taste her mouth as he pleased, and when he was done with that, he’d taste her sex, and he’d been halfway through formulating his list of all the things he wanted to do with her when soft steps had scudded beyond the kitchen.

He’d vanished into shadow, leaving her breathless, with barely a moment to right herself before one of the kitchen staff stumbled in, bleary-eyed.

Never again, he’d promised himself. She was another male’s mate.

And yet he’d gone back a week later. Again, in that hour before dawn. He hadn’t touched her—not the way he wanted to—not yet. It had been just a few moments of stolen kisses before the morning shift arrived.

Then the next week. The next. Swift, almost brutal encounters that he never let venture beneath their clothes, though he did grasp handfuls of her breasts through her gown, did kiss the tops swelling over the neckline.

Yet that driving need couldn’t blind him to the tinge of the mating bond within her scent. A marking in the blood, not welcomed by Elain, but a marking nonetheless. He loathed it. Forced himself to ignore it that first time, and every time since then.

And here they were once more. Only now it was past three in the morning, and dawn was a long, long way off. He’d stayed the night at the river house, intending to wake at the usual hour—but he’d smelled bread. Deep in his dreams, he’d smelled bread baking, and he’d woken to it. Had followed it, a hound to a scent, down here. To where the smell of bread mingled with the jasmine and honey scent that was Elain herself. She’d been waiting. Baking . . . and waiting. For him.

Elain’s hand slid down his front, angling toward his cock, but he halted her with a light grip on her wrist. “Not yet,” he mumbled against her neck, then lifted his head to gaze at her face. So beautiful. So trusting and open and everything good in the world. So good that his shadows were still nowhere to be seen. They’d fled the moment he’d stepped into the kitchen.

He couldn’t get enough of it, of her. His salvation. That’s what she was. He might be a monster, might be a worthless, soulless demon, but here, in his arms—here was his salvation. His lone chance at joy. From the flush in her cheeks, the feverish gleam in her eyes, he knew she felt the same.

And that was enough to embolden him to voice what he’d never said to anyone before. He wanted her to know him. “When I was a boy . . .” His throat closed up, but he battled past it. “I lived in hell. Every single moment, of every single day. And . . .” He fought to find the right words to explain—not just what had happened then, but why it mattered that he tell her now.

Elain laid a gentle hand on his cheek, thumb brushing over his feverish skin. “We—could find a bedroom,” she said, shyly.

All thoughts of talking about the past vanished as he swallowed his groan. He knew exactly where the nearest bedroom was. How many steps it would take to get them there. But to cross that final line—“I need you sure,” he said, kissing her throat again and again, where that necklace should have been. They’d talk later about his life in his sire’s dungeon. Or perhaps never. “I need you certain.”

“I am,” Elain said, running her hands down his spine, avoiding his wings. She’d never touched them, and he honestly didn’t know what he’d do when she did. Spill in his pants, most likely. “I am,” she repeated, fingers digging into his lower back, pulling him against her again. He gave her a hint of what she wanted, pushing his hardness against her, a promise of what was to come. Elain writhed, and the heat of her seared him even through their clothes.

“Elain,” he ground out, but merely saying her name threatened to undo him.

When she reached for his cock again, he didn’t stop her. Timidly, tenderly, she brushed her fingers down the front of his leather pants. Mother spare him.

Az gritted his teeth, panting through his nose. “Elain,” he growled.

She flattened her palm against him with a possession that shocked him, nearly took him to his knees. His eyes rolled back in his head.

He needed her naked, needed to taste every inch of her, to lose himself in the pure bliss of her body—

“This ends now.”

It took him a heartbeat to understand. To process the icy command rippling through the room. To understand that Elain had also heard the voice.

Rhys’s voice.

Elain gasped, yanking away, leaping apart from him.

Azriel braced his hands on the counter, willing his brain to reorder the world. No more sex, or the promise of it. Rhys was here. His High Lord was here, and had seen them, and Elain was—

Shaking. She was shaking, gaping at the High Lord looming in the doorway, wings folded and face stormy.

Rhys only glowered at Azriel. As if Elain was no more than a whisper of spring against the dark winter of his rage. Without Az’s shadows nearby, he hadn’t had any warning—certainly not from Rhys, who could sneak up with feline stealth if he wished.

Darkness blotted out the stars in Rhys’s eyes as he said, “This is the last time. You want to fuck each other, go do it somewhere other than my house.” Rhys finally slid his attention to Elain. “Or have the decency to formally end things with your mate first.”

Elain trembled. Az’s rage roared to the surface, ready to bloody, to protect—but he’d left his Siphons next to his bed, and without them to filter his power, he wouldn’t have control over it—

But Elain shook her head, a startled deer, and bolted from the kitchen. Here, and gone. That whisper of spring vanished into the night.