Page 73 of Crown of Ashes and Desire

I stared at her, the shadow spirits loosening my tongue.

“You,” I admitted, the word torn from somewhere deep and raw. “It was always you, Ada. My father would have destroyed you if I hadn’t left. The ritual would have happened five years ago, with no chance of an alternative.”

Confusion flickered across her face. “What are you saying?”

“I’m saying I left to protect you,” I growled. “I staged that scene, broke your heart, made you hate me so you would stay away. So you would be safe from what I was becoming.”

She shook her head in disbelief. “You’re lying.”

“Am I?” I released her throat to grab her shoulders. “Why do you think my father cast a memory spell on me? Because heknew I would never willingly harm you. Because my feelings for you were a liability he couldn’t afford.”

Tears welled in her eyes. “Stop it,” she whispered. “Stop playing with me like this.”

“You think this is a game?” I demanded, my voice breaking. “You think I wanted any of this? To bind you to me knowing I might have to sacrifice you? To feel this”—I pressed her hand to my chest where the constant pain resided—“every fucking day since our binding?”

The admission hung between us, raw and undeniable. Her eyes searched mine for deception, finding only tortured truth.

“You’re drunk,” she repeated, but her voice had softened. “You don’t know what you’re saying.”

“I know exactly what I’m saying,” I insisted, my hands gentle on her shoulders. I wanted her in my bed tonight; the potent desire surged through my shadows. “Tell me you feel nothing,” I challenged, my lips hovering just above hers. “Tell me you don’t want this as badly as I do.”

Her breath hitched, but she didn’t move. “I hate you,” she whispered, but the words lacked conviction.

I sensed the lie through our bond, and it was exhilarating. The heat from her body did something to my stone-cold heart—it melted it.

“That’s not an answer.”

I traced her lower lip with my thumb, and she shuddered. I smiled, knowing how to make her body play my tune. I had never forgotten.

“Do you want me, Ada? Despite everything?”

Instead of answering, she surged forward like she was possessed, her body colliding with mine while her mouth crashed into my lips in a kiss that tasted of desperation and five years of buried fury. This wasn't tenderness—this was warfare, a battle fought with lips and teeth and tongues. Her teethsank into my lower lip with vicious intent, hard enough to draw copper-sweet blood that she licked away with the savage satisfaction of a predator claiming her kill.

The metallic taste should have shocked me, should have made me pull away, but instead it ignited something primal and hungry that had been clawing at my chest for years. I shoved her back into the stone wall with a force that sent her gasping, the sound half pleasure, half pain while I lifted her effortlessly, grabbing her ass cheeks, digging my fingers into her flesh. Her legs wrapped around my waist with desperate urgency, clinging to me even though she hated herself for needing me.

My hands moved with violent impatience, tearing at her dress as if the fabric itself had wronged me. The delicate silk gave way with satisfying rips that echoed in the charged air between us. She wasn’t gentler—her nails raked down my back through my shirt like she wanted to mark me, to make me bleed the way she had bled for years. She fought with the buttons of my shirt, her movements frantic and desperate, as if she could tear away the barriers between us through sheer force of will.

“I hate you,” she gasped when I moved my mouth to her throat, biting hard enough to mark.

“Show me,” I challenged her. Sliding one hand beneath her torn dress, dragging my fingers over her soaking slit, and I groaned with satisfaction. “Show me how much you hate me, Ada.”

She moaned as I slid my fingers inside her, my cock soaked with pre-cum. Fuck, she was so wet for me, so ready to take my cock.

“I hate that I want you,” she admitted, her voice breaking. “I hate that no one else has ever made me feel this way.”

The admission sent a surge of primal satisfaction through me. “No one else ever will,” I promised darkly, carrying her to the bed.

“Prove it,” she demanded, her chest heaving with each breath. “Show me I’m yours.”

I stripped slowly, deliberately, watching her eyes darken with hunger. Each piece of clothing fell away. The firelight danced across my skin, casting shadows that seemed to pulse with my heartbeat. My mouth was on hers again, kissing and probing, then devouring like I’d been starved for five years.

“Last chance to run,” I warned, my voice rough with barely contained desire. “Because once I start touching you, once I claim every inch of you, I won’t stop until you’re completely mine—until you’re trembling and crying my name.”

Her response was to reach for me with deliberate intent, her fingers wrapping around my shaft with a confidence that hitched my breath. She stroked me with firm, measured movements, her touch both reverent and demanding.

"I'm not running anymore," she whispered into my lips, her voice heavy with want. "Not from this. Not from you. Not tonight."

I captured her lips in a searing kiss, then lowered my head to her breasts, taking her nipple between my teeth and sucking it hard. Ada's body writhed beneath mine while I bit the left nipple until she cried out. The surging heat filled my chest while I licked her skin, then swirled my tongue around the right nipple before drawing it in. She gripped my hair tightly, and I pulled away, panting.

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