Sensing the panic of denial rising inside him, Laya pulled him to his feet. She leaned in and kissed him, long and deep, so he knew she meant it. The last fraying thread inside her broke when she pulled back to whisper, “Lie with me tonight, Luntok. Be with me, as if it were the last time.”

Luntok’s breath hitched in his chest. He didn’t lunge to make love to her as he would have in the past. That was when they’d thought their love might be spared from the harsh rules that governed their world. When they believed their tragedy would be different. Gently, he caressed her face, tracing a line with his knuckle from the ridge of her cheekbone to the curve of her bottom lip.

“I cannot lose you, Laya,” Luntok said again. This time, her name rolled off his lips like an ardent prayer. He looked down at her, his eyes darkening with a zealous need. Then he gave her another shake, this one more restrained than the first. “How can I make you understand?” he asked. “I would do anything for you. I love you. Gods help me, I love you.”

Luntok’s urgent pleas didn’t scare her anymore. Hearing the desire in his voice, Laya’s blood surged. She drew him to the bed. “Come, then,” she murmured, pulling him on top of her. “Show me how much.”

They did not tear off each other’s clothes. Rather, they shed each layer with care, as if unwrapping a delicate gift. For once, they made love slowly, as if they were the only creatures on earth, as if time had yet to begin. Laya shivered when he dragged his lips down her throat and past her stomach, lower and lower, until he reached the juncture between her legs at last.

“Luntok!” she choked out, tangling her fingers in his hair.

This, too, they took time with. Luntok teased out her pleasure nimbly, patiently, as she arched into his tongue.

The rattan bed frame creaked afterward, when Luntok joined her on the mattress. Laya moaned against the pillows as he eased inside her, her legs still quivering from her climax. Laya did not recognize the foreign rhythm. Tonight, Luntok rocked against her with a different kind of desperation⁠—that of a dying man, craving a last, gentle touch.

The rhythm built gradually to a crescendo. That, Laya recognized. It crested over her body, rippling up from her core, shooting past her toes and fingertips. She drew him closer to her by his shoulders, feeling the strong muscles rippling beneath his skin. In her arms, Luntok became an eagle, arching his mighty wings. Deeper and deeper, he drove into her. Then his hands curled around her hip bones, and he finished with a strangled cry.

“By the gods,” he sighed, breathing heavily as he collapsed beside her on the pillows. He wrapped his arms around her, pressing a kiss to her forehead.