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BONG.

The deep note shattered the air as my momentum betrayed me. I turned the next corner entirely too fast, my bare feet losing all traction on the freezing slate as I slammed hard into the granite wall. The impact sent a sharp jolt of pain flaring through my shoulder, but the Vesper-wine burned too hot in my blood for me to care. I pushed off the rough stone, my breath leaving my lungs in a ragged gasp, and threw myself down the next passage.

BONG.

The thunder rippled through the inner keep just as I crossed into the final corridor. My vision was blurred at the edges from the dark magic of the leaves, but at the far end of the hall, the heavy stone archway loomed in the shadows. Beyond it sat the thick timber door that led directly into the guards’ courtyard. I was running out of breath, running out of time, driven entirely by an unyielding need.

BONG.

The heavy vibration tolled right as I hit the timber, slamming my hands flat against the iron hinges to hurl my weight into the wood. The door flew open with a violent crack, bounding off the stone wall as I burst out into the freezing midnight air. The snow was falling heavier now, swirling in the dark, but my eyes locked instantly onto the center of the courtyard. Caspian was there. He was sitting high atop the stone weapon rack in the middle of the training ring, one powerful leg draped over the edge of the timber frame. A half-empty crystal decanter hung loosely from his fingers, his head tilted back as his piercing gaze stared up at the swollen silver faces of the triple moons.

BONG.

The chime fractured the quiet of the yard. Caspian’s head snapped toward the sound of the door, his frozen blue eyes locking onto me through the swirling flakes. For a fraction of a second, he didn’t move. Then, his massive frame followed his gaze. He rolled off the high weapon rack with effortless, predatory grace, dropping to hit the frost-dusted ground with a dull, heavy thud. He didn’t stumble. He didn’t look away.

BONG.

The sound vibrated through the courtyard as he began to move, his long, deliberate strides swallowing the distance between us. The raw, heavy white silk of his festive tunic was damp from the snow, clinging to the hard contours of his chest and the dark tattoos winding across his collarbones. As he drew closer, the stoic mask of the High Captain finally fractured completely. A potent cocktail of desire and sheer confusion twisted his sharp features, his eyes raking over my translucent, water-soaked gown and the silver chains framing my hips before locking back onto my pupils.

BONG.

The resonance struck directly against my ribs just as his towering frame blocked out the winter wind, trapping me entirely in his shadow. The sheer volume of the Vesper-wine and whatever vintage he had been draining took total control of the space between us, burning away the last remnants of our guarded armor. Caspian leaned in close, his scent of mountain pine overwhelming my senses. He reached out, his large, calloused fingers wrapping gently around my jaw to lift my chin, forcing me to look up into the volatile storm of his eyes. He dipped his head until his lips brushed the shell of my ear, his breath a scorching heat against my skin.

“What I would give to map the topography of your body,” he whispered, his gravelly voice rough and completely undone. “Just so I could memorize every single part of it.”

BONG.

The note hung in the freezing air, a heavy weight against my bare shoulders as I stared up at him, entirely defenseless. My cheeks were deeply flushed with a feverish heat that had nothing to do with the winter wind, and a desperate anticipation sent a tremor straight down my thighs. I gripped the soft silk of his tunic, my fingers burying into the white material to keep myself upright as the carnal craving pulled at my center, demanding total surrender.

BONG.

The final chime sealed the midnight hour, unlocking the absolute lawlessness of the solstice night. Caspian’s eyes darkened to a dangerous, midnight blue as he tracked the desperate stutter of my pulse.

“You are going to ruin me,” he growled against my mouth.

He wrenches me into his chest, his large hands anchoring onto my waist as he pulls me in for a breathtaking kiss of pure, uninhibited carnal passion.

TWENTY-FOUR

The final, echoing resonance of the twelfth bell was violently swallowed by the bruising, unhinged heat of his mouth.

Caspian didn’t just kiss me; he consumed me, his large hands locking into my hair to tilt my head back as he drove his weight forward. He walked me backward in a feral, impatient stride until my spine slammed hard into the jagged stone wall of the courtyard. The rough granite cut straight through the thin, damp white silk of my gown. Biting into the bare skin of my back, but the sharp sting was instantly incinerated by the absolute furnace of his body pressing into me. He couldn’t keep his hands off me. His fingers ripped through the delicate pins remaining in my copper-red waves, scattering them into the frost as he claimed my mouth over and over with a desperate fury.

A ragged growl ripped from the depths of his chest, a sound so raw and undone it made my entire lower stomach tighten in a violent spasm of need. His hands slid down my torso, the cold silver chains clicking frantically between us before his calloused palms gathered the translucent silk at my hips. He hooked his fingers under my thighs and lifted me cleanly off the ground.

My knees locked automatically, my legs wrapping tight around his broad waist as he slammed my core flush against the hard, unyielding ridge of his center. The primitive contact made a loud, breathless gasp break from my lips, a rush of fire tracking straight down to my marrow.

More. I needed infinitely more. The Vesper-wine was a lawless storm in my blood, but the craving tearing through my veins right now belonged entirely to the male holding me against the stone. I needed all of him, buried so deep inside me that the rest of this brutal realm ceased to exist.

Caspian tore his mouth from mine, his breathing a frantic, scorched plea against my skin as he buried his face into the crook of my shoulder. He kissed down the column of my neck fiercely, his lips hot and bruising, his teeth grazing the sensitive skin right over my pulsing vein before locking onto my collarbone.

A sudden, heavy shift warped the air in the courtyard. The ambient light of the moons didn’t just fade—it was violently executed. Thick, living tendrils of midnight shadow bled directly from around us, rising up the granite walls like a tide of obsidian. The shadows stretched across the sky, weaving together to choke out the silver moonbeams until the entire world around us dropped into an absolute, suffocating darkness. The lightness disappeared completely, sealing us inside a private, lawless void where the only reality was the suffocating heat of his skin.

I lost my mind to the dark. I clawed at his shoulders, my nails ripping through the raw white silk of his festive tunic, tearing the fabric until I could dig my fingers into the tattooed muscle of his back. I twisted my head, biting his lower lip until I tasted the hot, metallic tang of blood and wine between us, my body arching violently into his mass.

“More,” I begged against his mouth, my voice a fractured, panting whimper that carried absolutely none of my usual defensive armor. “Caspian, please. Give me more.”

He groaned, a dark, territorial sound that vibrated directly into my chest. He handled my weight with a terrifying, effortless strength. Refusing to put me down. Refusing to remove a single inch of my skin from his. Keeping his hands clamped around the underside of my thighs, his chest pinned flat against my breasts, he began to move. He walked blindly through the shadows toward the timber door, his heavy boots silent against the frost, his mouth returning to mine to steal the desperate gasps from my throat.