He slid in closer, our bodies lining up, the heat of him radiating through the thin barriers of fabric that yet remained. I matched his lips brush for brush, a soft sigh escaping me as I relished the feel of his skin, of his realness—his closeness.

His right hand gripped me behind the knee, and he hiked my leg to the side of one hip.

Taking hold of the collar of his open shirt, I tensed at the sudden escalation. Of everything.

Velvet soft, his tongue swept mine, and his kiss, passionate and incinerating, now beckoned to the most buried parts of me.

My whole body, my whole soul, sang with this intensifying duet, anticipation warring against the apprehension that unraveled as his hand, in a caress, traveled from my knee to my thigh. From there, his fingers followed the curve of my hip, then slid up over my rib cage, barely bushing the outer curve of my breast before scaling my arm to capture my left hand.

From there, he inserted his thumb into the fist that held the iron grip on his shirt, and, loosening it, he laced his fingers with mine. Then he squeezed, causing the metal of the skull ring to bite into my skin.

What was he telling me? Where would he take us from here?

But then . . . where else was there to go?

“Stephanie.”

Eyelids fluttering shut, my mind left me the moment he said my name, so that there weren’t any clear thoughts to be had. Just fragments evoked from the next kiss he captured me with.

Erik. Heat. Love. Now.

He pressed into me, his free hand roving where it would. My own clamped his shoulder while my heart thumped against the one I had given him.

Our bliss spiraled. Carrying forward for one moment longer.

Until, suddenly, Erik stopped.

He parted the kiss. His hand unraveled from mine, and without warning, he drew back.

His eyes found mine in the gloom, the sudden twin flashes of light within them replacing my momentary delirium with fright.

He let go of me then, retreating through the darkness.

“Erik!”

I sat up fast, shouting—reaching after him.

Into a cold and empty room filled with the stark and blinding white light of day.

SEVENTY-SIX

Zedok

I had not planned to do what I had done. Neither, when I’d been in the midst of its euphoric unfolding, had I intended to stop where I had.

But when had my plans ever panned out in the way I conceived them?

After Stephanie had fallen asleep, I had stolen into Myriam’s room and had transported her, as I had promised, back to her own room, exiting my side of Moldavia for hers through Myriam’s closet. After laying her into her own bed, I had returned to my Moldavia, shutting the door after myself, aware in spite of our betrothal that I would not find her there again.