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Cicely—Cicely . . . A different voice echoed off the slipstream and my wolf shifted. I pressed my hand against my stomach and almost cried, the desire and hunger were so great.
Grieve . . . are you there? I need you. I need you now.
Come outside. I’m here for you. I can feel you. Hurry.
I pushed to my feet and staggered to the window, where I shoved it open. There, in the far corner of the backyard, I could see the figure of a wolf, huge and silvery-gray, gorgeous and wild. He was staring up at my window, waiting.
I shuddered as the blast of air met the prickling of my body. My breasts quickened in the wind, nipples stiffening as I raised my nose to catch the scent of ozone and snow. Even the chill couldn’t dampen the heat flowing through me—I was a wild horse, aching to be broken, and nothing could stop the fire that burned through my veins.
Except . . . except . . .
I crawled onto the sill and, with only my pendant hanging around my neck, closed my eyes and dove. I came up, pulling aloft, spiraling over the yard, reveling in my flight. And then I dove toward Grieve, pulling up short to land gently on his back.
He glanced over his shoulder, his wolfen eyes glowing, and as I held tight with my talons, he loped into the bushes with me astride him, not into the Golden Wood, but to the other side of our property. As soon as we were out of the yard, I hopped off his back and shifted back into myself, as he did the same.
Grieve was full Fae; he could fashion his clothes out of magic if he wished, but I was naked and shivering under the slow drift of flakes that floated down to blanket the yard. He was wearing a fur cloak, and he pulled it off. As he wrapped it around my shoulders, I lost all caution.
“I don’t care, I don’t care if you kill me. I just need you—now, forever, in my life. I need you to be with me, to touch me, to love me.” I burst into tears. “I can’t stand this—I’m in pain.”
“I felt you call. I heard your shriek on the wind. What happened to you?” He turned me around, lifted the cloak, and crumbled to the ground. “How—how did your back get marked up?”
“I felt you being whipped. The blows transferred.”
He pulled off his shirt and turned. There were no marks on his body. “Myst was furious. The blows did not take. She couldn’t figure out how, and neither could I. Oh, Cicely, you took my punishment into yourself. I can’t let this happen anymore. I can’t chance hurting you again. We have to break the connection.”
“No,” I whispered. “Please, don’t. I can’t stand the thought of life without you. Myst is out to torture me—I know, Grieve. I know she was my mother when you and I were together before. I know she remembers and hates me for it. She’s trying to destroy everything and everyone I love.”
He gathered me in his arms, pulling the cloak around my shoulders to protect me from the cold. My breasts pressed against his body and I sought his lips. His teeth were sharp, needle-like, and he let out a soft gasp as I wrapped my arms around him and kissed him, deep and soulful. He tasted of dark wine and burnished leaves, and cinnamon and the promise of haunted moons rising high in the sky to light the ancient autumn.
Our kiss turned darker, and I dropped my neck back as he burrowed his face in my hair, trailing his lips along my skin, gently tugging at the skin with his teeth. And then I moaned and sought his belt.
“Please, I need to feel you inside me. I can’t stand this pressure any longer. I almost . . . I can’t go back to the house without release. Please, fuck me, Grieve. Make me forget about Lannan, about Crawl, about Myst . . . about the darkness that haunts both of our lives.”
And he laid me down on the fur cloak, and was naked in a flurry of sparkling light, and then he was over me, touching me, running his hands across my breasts, down my sides, sliding his fingers into my secret recesses. I let out a moan, opening my legs, hungry for him. Hungry and aching as the waves pounded against the shore, I reveled in the feel of his back under my hands as I pulled him between my thighs.
He gasped, kissing me again and again like he was a drowning man and I was his life preserver. “Cicely, it’s only you. I service Myst because I must, but it’s only you. I can’t touch her again—I hate her. I hate the rage that hits in the morning light. I hate the taste of blood in my mouth, but I crave . . . oh, how I crave.”
He slid into me, smooth, a perfect fit, and we rocked on the ground under the long winter’s night. I began to cry.
“Grieve, I have to get you out of there. If I can find a way, please, let me rescue you. I can’t stand that she perverts you day after day—you are not Vampiric Fae. You are Cambyra and that she turned you sickens me.”
A flash and there was a feral grin on his face, dark and clouded. “But I do crave, Cicely. I hunger for your blood even now. I want to drink from you.”
I shivered. I’d been drunk from far too much already. “You can’t,” I whispered. “I’m still low.”
“Low?” He pulled back, looking both angry and afraid. “What do you mean, low? What happened to you tonight, Cicely?”
And so I told him—almost everything. I did not tell him it was Crawl who had drunk from me, but that an elder vampire had gotten his fangs in me, and that Lannan had forced me to drink from him. I didn’t tell him that I’d let Lannan inside me, though. That would be a truth too far.
“You have blood fever,” Grieve whispered. “No wonder you’re so dry and parched. I won’t drink from you—not tonight. But I swear to you, one day and it won’t be long, I will personally rip Lannan Altos’s throat out and stake his heart and hand it to you on a silver platter.” And he began to fuck me hard, like I needed, thrusting deep and long and rough.
“Oh please, don’t stop,” I begged, reveling in the feel of his body against mine, of the grind of his hips against mine. We rolled over, and I was atop him, straddling his body. I threw his arms back, holding him against the snow, and he did nothing to stop me.
“I want you,” I whispered. “I want you forever, I want you in me, around me, with me. You are my beloved, no matter what Myst says. I will have you back.” And I drove myself down on him, head thrown back, letting our motion take me higher and higher. The heat in my body was channeling through me like a serpent, rising up to coil and strike.
“Myst can never hold a candle to your light,” he said, his arms wrapping around my waist as he moved to my rhythm. “It has always been you.”
And then the burning within rose to a head and I thought I was going to die, gasping for breath as I came, screaming like a wild creature in the night, letting out all my pain and anger and frustration in one rush that spiraled me up toward heaven, then dove back down into the depths.
