Dignity, sophistication, civility, they were meaningless strings of syllables in this place of raw emotion. She shouted back, “I can’t be yours, and somebody’s got to hang around so they can keep me alive!”

“Shut the hell up,” he said, his voice savage. His features had reformed. He was a monstrous, merciless freak of nature, and she wanted him so badly she thought it would tear her to pieces from the inside.

She kept hitting him, the wild blows falling blind. “Will you get out of here, you son of a bitch? Go back to your life!”

She slapped him. She did everything she could think of to cause offense and drive him away. He took everything she dished out without a single flinch. He shook her once, a short, controlled snap of the wrist that rattled her torso, and he jerked her to him, his white eyes scorching. Then the monster’s mouth slammed down over hers, and he devoured her, heart and soul.

She couldn’t give either one of them to him fast enough. He dug into her mouth, his teeth and tongue hard, punishing. She clawed at his shirt as she kissed him back. She couldn’t get him close enough, couldn’t get the kiss deep enough.

Then he sank one fist into the hair at the back of her head. He forced her to look up at him. “Now you listen to me,” he growled. “It’s my turn to talk. I will not leave you. If Dragos or anybody else has a problem with it, they can take it up with me.”

“The Dark Fae will never accept you,” she said between her teeth.

“I don’t give a shit about what the Dark Fae accept or don’t accept,” he snapped. “There’s only one person and one thing that could make me leave, and that’s you. Look me in the eye, faerie. Tell me you don’t want me, and you better make me believe it.”

Tears welled up and spilled out the corners of her eyes. They streaked down her cheeks to soak into her hair. She looked devastated. She worked to form the words, her mouth trembling. Someone else might have taken pity on her, but he wasn’t a creature that knew much about pity. He knew a hell of a lot about fighting, though, and survival. He was fighting for the both of them now, if she only knew it.

She whispered, “I d-don’t want you.”

“What a bad liar you are,” the monster whispered back to her. “I can smell how much you want me. I felt your wetness and all I want to do is lick it up. Your desire is coated all over my fingers. It’s got me so hard I can barely stand up straight. You’re a twist in my gut I can’t unknot. I look for you when you’re not with me. After you sent me away all I could think about was how much time I should give you before I came back to you. I counted it by hours, by minutes.”

She stared at him, pinned and transfixed by his white eyes and the re-formed structure of his face. “That’s just sex.”

“Is it?” He showed her his teeth. “How bad did you miss me when you thought I went back to New York?”

“N-not bad.” When she had found out he had left the hotel, she had curled up on her bed, unable to move.

“You said you missed me so much. How much is so much?”

“Not much.”

He cocked his head. There was something almost plaintive about his ferocity now, a puzzlement that sliced at her. “Why are you still lying?” he asked. “Why can’t you admit the truth to me? Is it such a horrible thing, to want me? Do you wish you didn’t? Is that why you’re trying so hard to drive me away?”

He was a lord of war. He instinctively knew more about assault tactics than she ever would. He had to know how he dug away at the foundation of her walls. It was a two-pronged attack, as he came at her from the outside but also from within, for she was her own worst enemy. She crumbled and sobbed, “I want you so much it’s making me crazy.”

“Then take me,” he said. His grip in her hair loosened. He knelt in front of her, shocking her anew, and wrapped his arms around her waist as he laid his head against her breast. “Because nothing else matters.”

She cradled his head and bowed over him, wiping her damp cheeks with one hand. “We’re so different from each other.”

“We live a long time. It’s good to not be bored.”

“I like pink lipstick,” she sniffled. “And pretty shoes.”

“Much to my surprise, I find that I do too,” said the monster. His big hands moved up and down the shapely hourglass of her back, and cupped the back of her slender knees. Not once did he let the talons tipping his long fingers graze her thin, tender skin.

“I tried to think how I could walk away from the throne and follow you,” she whispered. “But it’s too late. Now everyone knows I’m alive. There would always be someone coming after me.”

“You need me, faerie. I’ll protect you.” He rubbed his face in that extravagant, silly, wonderful heart-attack dress, and tiny strings of sequined beads tickled his nose. He smiled to feel those little fingers of hers thread through his short hair. Some time very soon he would have those kitten claws digging into his back while he made her scream with pleasure. His voice deepened. “You know we’re good together. Even the fighting is fun.”

They were so good. She buried her face in his hair. She whispered, “Rune was right, the Dark Fae will never accept a Wyr as ruler.”

Rune? Tiago turned his head slightly away from her as he thought. He had known when the First had arrived at the bar, had heard when Rune and Aryal evacuated everyone, and none of it had mattered. That Rune had talked to Niniane—yes, that made sense. That explained it. She had been with Tiago all the way. Then she had changed so suddenly, he still felt mental whiplash. She had tried to drive him away, not for her sake, but for his. He was pretty sure he had Rune to thank for that.

Tiago would make a point of thanking him in person later.

But first things first.

“That dog won’t hunt,” said Tiago. “Because I don’t give a f**k about ruling or the Dark Fae throne. But you should know, they’re still going to object.”

Her breathing stilled as she tried to think. It was hard to do, with hope twisting her into a pretzel inside. Could they do it, could they pull this off? The thought of Tiago coming with her was such a game changer, she couldn’t compute the consequences.

Tiago tilted back his head to look at her. His white eyes had darkened to black again, and the lines of his face had returned to normal. He said, “Stop trying to think ahead to fix this. There’s nothing to fix.”

“But Tiago—”

“But nothing,” he said. “I don’t know all the answers. Nobody does; nobody can. Take hold of this, Niniane. Take hold of me, and don’t let go for anything. We just need to do this one thing. We’ll have some hellish fights ahead of us, and that’s okay. We can meet whatever the future brings us. You knew you were looking ahead at a tough road anyway.”

She touched his lower lip, studying him, her face grave. “You like to fight.”

His lips pulled into a slow smile. “And I’m good at it.”

It felt hazardous to her, but then everything did. Maybe she and Tiago would face a short life, but she was facing that possibility on her own already. With Tiago acting as her guard and protector, they would have a fighting chance, and she would no longer be alone. “You would be giving up everything.”

He gave her a small smile. “You would be giving me everything that matters.” Then his smile vanished and his face turned hard. “But if you take me, there’ll be no one else for you. I won’t tolerate it, faerie.”

She already knew that. He was far too dominant and possessive. She could have told him that he was everything she could have hoped for, and far more than she had ever dreamed she might actually have. She might have confessed that she was every bit as possessive and jealous as he was. She should have reminded him that all her weapons were still poisoned and she knew how to use a gun.

Instead her lower lip stuck out. She pouted at him. “I haven’t even had you yet,” she grumbled. “Here you are talking about forever and only, but how do I know you’re any good? I don’t think it’s exactly fair for you to be stomping and snorting about the possibility of anybody else yet—”

He glared at her in disbelief. “Who keeps stopping?”

Her mouth fell open. “I get to say no if it’s not right, mister.”

“Did I say you couldn’t say no?” he demanded. “No, I did not, even when it damn near castrated me. But it’s a little much if you say no, and then you start complaining about the results, Niniane.”

She narrowed her eyes and sneered at him. “Can I help it if I get cranky when I’m not sexually satisfied?”

The brutal angles of his dark face tensed, and his obsidian gaze grew vivid. His Power sharpened and turned predatory. He ran his hands up the side of her body. He stood. “Poor little faerie,” he murmured. “Are you sexually dissatisfied?”

“Maybe a bit,” she muttered. She blinked up at him. Good gods, he was built like a brick shithouse. He went long and grew wide, and he was looking at her like she was his newest favorite snack. She was doing much worse than teasing a tiger. She started to babble. “You’ve got to admit we’ve had some pretty frustrating moments in the last few—”

“Didn’t I tell you once to shut the hell up?” he said gently. He took her dress in both hands and tore it from neckline to hem.

Sequins exploded everywhere. They showered the room in sparkling silver lights. She gawked at the wrecked material that hung off her arms. Maybe she needed her head examined. Tigers were pu**ycats in comparison to this walking, talking holocaust of a male. Then her teeth clicked together as she found her voice. “How could you, you stupid man? I loved that dress!”

“So did I,” he breathed. He stared at her, transfixed. He had already removed her thong, and she wore no bra. She was as exquisitely made as his imagination insisted she would be, with round pink-tipped br**sts in full, ripe bloom, a narrow rib cage and an even tinier waist, and a flat stomach that flared to trim hips. There, between slender thighs, was a small shadow of black hair.

He knew how silken that private, luscious tuft of hair was. He had stroked it so briefly not long ago.

And, good Christ, she still had on those four-inch stilettoheeled f**k-me silver shoes.

He met her gaze and said from the back of his throat, “I’ll buy you a thousand pretty dresses, a mountain of pink lipsticks and a queen’s ransom in jewels, and I will never let anyone hurt you again.”

Her pixie features shivered. The anger faded away to be replaced with things that were much more breakable and precious to him: trust and hope. She let her head tilt to one side, and holding his gaze, she slipped the ruined dress from her shoulders and let it fall to the floor.

He stepped forward, and it felt so right to pick her up in his arms. Pivoting on one heel, he carried her to the couch. He went down on one knee and laid her slender, curved body down on the cushions, then divested himself of his weapons, laying guns and fighting knife within reach on the floor.

She slipped off her shoes and stroked up his muscled arm, watching him. When he was through, she whispered, “Now your shirt.”

He took a deep breath. Then he reached back, grabbed his shirt and dragged it over his head and flung it on the floor. He held her gaze as he unbuckled his belt and unzipped his fatigues. She felt herself growing drenched as she watched him undress, revealing, bit by bit, the massive architecture of his body. He stood, and the heavy muscles of his chest and arms flexed as he toed off his boots. He kicked off his fatigues.

It was the most beautiful gift, to feel this extravagant fullness of desire.

She gorged on the sight of his nude body. His strong, sleek legs went on forever, his flat abdomen rippling with an eightpack. His erect penis jutted over heavy round testicles that had drawn up tight underneath, unmistakable evidence of his own desire. She reached out and stroked him. He was so big she couldn’t close her hand around him. As she massaged his penis’s thick, broad head with her thumb, he sucked in a hissing breath and the muscles in his powerful thighs quivered.

She had enjoyed sex for a long time and made no apologies to anyone for it. She had bounced and shimmied through the 1960s with too much glee to be embarrassed or self-conscious now about their surroundings. But something had happened to her along that journey. She had grown, not indifferent exactly, but detached, unmoved by pretty men and frothy flirtations. Even though she loved sex, she found she no longer wanted any. She had stuffed herself on a banquet of dessert and walked away from the table unnourished.

This was the sweetest hunger she had ever known, leavened by the tenderness softening his hawkish face and how much she loved him. She caressed him, her fingers trailing along the huge velvet length of him, watching as sensual pleasure flushed over him and the tight clench of his body loosened.

He came down over her, and it felt more right than anything he had ever experienced to pin her down with his weight. He braced himself on one forearm and caressed her cheek and the side of her neck as he stared down at her. He was coming to a place he had never been before, a new and necessary place he hadn’t even known to miss. It had all started with those first steps he had taken toward her in New York.

She still wore that breakable, breathtaking expression. She whispered, “It’s been quite a while for me.”

He stroked down the delicate line of her throat to her breast. He drew around her nipple and watched the succulent little bud tighten. He managed to remember to suck some air into his lungs. She was beautifully built and so small, and he was a great, crude, hulking brute of a male. “I’m glad you smacked me over the head and slowed me down,” he whispered. “You need time.”