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“You feel me?” I growl. “Deep inside you.”

“Yes!” She loops one of her arms over mine, linking our fingers together.

Sabelle wants to be closer to me. That renews my frenzy. Squeezing her fingers, I block out my need for orgasm, reading the cues of her body instead. Just once more. Then surely, I’ll be satisfied that she’s held nothing back from me.

My fingers sweep across her wet flesh as I hammer her with rapid strokes, thrilling to the feel of her tensing beneath me, her gasps and moans.

“Who’s deep inside you?” I demand.

“Ice!”

She bucks and screams, and I sink even deeper inside her than ever.

Bloody hell, it isn’t enough. But my control is fraying, my blood screaming for release. The ache building in my cock is eroding everything but the need to mark her in the most basic way—with my seed.

Withdrawing again, this time to the sound of her weak protests, I roll her to her back once more and slide between her relaxed thighs. Pushing inside her swollen sex requires patience I don’t have and nearly shoves me over the edge. She isn’t done yet, not without me. One more climb to the pinnacle of pleasure…

Again, I link our gazes and hands. The connection is electric and shudders down my spine. My steady strokes turn urgent, and Sabelle, my sweet princess, rises up to meet me thrust for thrust, no longer just receiving but claiming. Her stare locks with mine, and I read her growing pleasure, the rising need, then the dawning of surprise. I clench my jaw. Yes, the explosion is big. Huge. Monumental.

Sweat breaks out across my back, my forehead, as I push my way inside her ever-tightening body, and eager acceptance glides across her face, as welcome as a cool breeze on a broiling summer day. Perfect. Then she’s chanting my name hoarsely and falling over the edge. She clings to me with her hands, her lips, her gaze. I fall down into her as the need crashes past the last of my resistance, and I soar into a pleasure so intense, so sublime, it shakes me to the core.

She undoes me.

I swore that tonight would change Sabelle and her feelings for me. Instead, being with her changed me forever. I was already convinced that I loved her. Now it’s clear my feelings are an abiding, enduring devotion. As I’d said when I spoke the Call, there is no other for me but her.

“Princess?”

Sabelle’s drowsy, half-open eyes and her tilted smile focus on me. “Hmm?”

She sounds drowsy, dreamy, and I can’t hold back an answering grin as joy whips inside me.

“You should do that more,” she whispers.

“Make love to you? Oh, I plan to.”

Biting her lip, she closes her eyes, suddenly shy. Have I ever seen a more beautiful woman? Aye, she’s gorgeous in pleasure…but positively stunning in satisfaction. The fact that I put that satisfied look on her face awes me.

“Smile, I meant,” she corrects.

I haven’t had much to smile about in two hundred years, since Gailene’s death. But now…I widen the expression. For her. Yes, happiness is fleeting, and Sabelle will likely never be my mate. But no one—least of all her brother—can take this moment from me.

And I plan to savor it for the rest of my life.

Sabelle

Before dawn the next morning, I stretch, eyes closed, feeling peaceful yet brimming with energy. I’m well rested for the first time in days. Despite the December wind howling in the darkness outside, a sense of warmth and protection settles and soothes me.

I roll over and encounter a hard body radiating furnace-like temperatures. My eyes fly open.

Ice.

Oh, heavens. Everything we did last night rushes back to me in stunningly clear memories. I’ll never forget looking into his eyes as he penetrated deep inside me, sending me hurtling into pleasure. The memory of the tenderness etched onto the hard lines of his face melts me. And the pleasure he drove me to, over and over. He was relentless, unyielding, demanding…and competing with a wizard who wasn’t even in the room.

After last night, Ice more than proved that whatever I felt for Lucan whilst I cared for him during his mate mourning was a pale imitation of the vibrant, white-hot need Ice rouses. He treated me like a woman, not a fragile doll. And I’ve never experienced such ecstatic bliss.

Slowly, I open my eyes to the harsh lines of his cheekbones, the black wings of his brows over closed eyes, his strong jaw. My heart skips. Actually skips.

After last night, something changed between us. I’ve always been curious about Ice. But this…is more. He not only showed me a version of myself I didn’t know existed—wild, desperate, and so willing to surrender—he’s gaining a foothold in my heart.