She claws at the headboard, wood splintering under her grip. "Oh, gods?—"
"Wrong." I drag out, then slam home. "No gods here." Her breath hitches as I lean over, lips grazing her ear. "Just me."
She cranes her neck, eyes blazing defiance even as she shakes. "Azrath..."
The moan snaps my control.
I keep her onto her side, knee hooked over my shoulder, but force her deeper into the bed with the weight of my body as I pound into weeping heat. Her every gasp fuels the inferno—this mortal who dares match me thrust for thrust, whobitesmy wrist when I try to muffle her cries.
"Let them hear," she pants, grinning wild as a storm. "Let them know whatrealpower fucks like?—"
My hand closes around her throat, cutting off the taunt. "Careful,little flower." I squeeze just enough to watch her pupils blow wide. "Lest I ruin you for any other purpose."
Her hips stutter, walls fluttering around me. Shesmiles. "Promise?"
The plea undoes me.
I release her neck to grip both thighs, spreading her obscenely wide as I batter that sweet spot deep inside. Her shouts turn ragged, nails drawing blood from my forearm.
"Come." I snarl against her pulsepoint. "Let me taste your surrender."
She arches with a shattered scream, back bowing as her climax riots through us both. I follow—burying my roar between her shoulder blades while filling her to the brim.
Collapsed atop her, I trace the bite marks littering her spine. "Still defiant?"
Her laughter shakes against my chest. "You’ll have to try harder next round."
My teeth find her earlobe. "Challenge accepted."
ILYRA
The garden blooms with violent abundance this morning—roses climbing wild over the stone walls, lavender spilling purple across the pathways, mint threatening to choke out the more delicate herbs I've spent months coaxing from reluctant soil. I kneel between the rows, scissors working methodically through overgrown vines that twist around my wrists like they're trying to hold me here.
Three hundred and sixty-five days. I don't need to count them—my body knows. The contract hums beneath my skin, a constant presence that has grown familiar as breathing. Today it feels different. Heavier. Final.
The air shifts around me, temperature dropping despite the summer heat. Shadows deepen where they shouldn't, pooling beneath leaves that moments ago caught full sunlight. My hands still on the vine I'm trimming.
I feel him before I see him.
Rising slowly from my crouch, I brush soil from my knees and turn toward the trees that border the garden's eastern edge. Azrathiel steps from the shade like darkness given form, his expression carved from stone. No warmth in those gold-fleckedeyes. No hint of the man who whispered my name against my throat last night.
"The year is complete." His words are weighed by cosmic law, each word precise as a blade. "The covenant requires collection."
I nod once, throat tight. "I know."
We always knew this day would come. Spoke of it in whispers during stolen moments, when his arms wrapped around me and I could pretend the calendar held no meaning. But pretending changes nothing. The contract was sealed in blood—my blood, freely given.
"I owe you my life." The words taste like ash, but I speak them clearly. "The terms were accepted."
"They were." No softness in his confirmation. No mercy in the set of his shoulders.
He extends one hand toward me, palm up. "Walk with me."
My legs feel unsteady as we move deeper into the garden's heart, where the roses grow thickest and no curious neighbor might glimpse us through the gaps in the stone wall. The scent of blooming jasmine hangs heavy between us, sweetness that makes my chest ache.
Here, surrounded by everything I've built from nothing, he stops.
My hands shake. I clench them into fists, but the tremor spreads up my arms anyway. Still, I don't step back. Don't run. I made this choice—summoned him in desperation, accepted his terms, lived this borrowed year knowing how it would end.