A cry escapes my throat as I’m consumed by the sensation of him—strong arms tight around me, his hot muscular back hard beneath my palms, the brush of his wings against my shoulders, his strong heartbeat against my chest, that familiar, bonfire scent of his skin.

“Grab tight hold of me!” he urges, and I thrill to the sound of Yvan’s beloved voice resonating low in his chest, an ache of want scorching through me as flames leap in my vision.

He’s going to fly us out, I realize through his overwhelming thrall.

I remember how hesitant I was the last time I needed him to carry me, unnerved by the scandalous, forbidden intimacy of wrapping my arms and legs around a young man I wasn’t fasted to.

I show no such hesitation now.

I throw my arms around Yvan’s shoulders as he slides his hot palms under my thighs, lifting me at the same time that I wrap my legs around his hips. Then he throws his wings powerfully down.

Launching us into the air.

We shoot upward with such velocity it steals my breath, the Sixth Tier falling away as the world tilts and Yvan blasts us north out of the city and over the river. We blaze through the air, his heartbeat pounding strong against mine, my cheek pressed to the hot skin of his neck, that smell of him, like a midnight fire, shearing through my heart. Tears sting my eyes as I hug him close, merging into his heat and remembering that he can scent my overwhelmed emotions.

He soars faster than a falcon’s dive over the river, the mountains edging the Vo a blurred streak, the city’s lights behind us now as hulking, moonlit mountains race past on either side.

Angling toward the peaks of the Voloi Mountain Range, he darts into a rocky depression, wings pivoting up. We rapidly slow, then land, his form bathed in silvery moonlight. He loosens his grip on me and my body slides down against his heated form.

Yvan’s eyes flash a brighter gold as my feet touch down on stone and we stare at each other for a heated second, the air between us going taut with invisible, grasping flame.

“Elloren,” he says, my name wrung from low in his throat as love for him breaks through me like a tide. He pulls me into a fervid embrace, my back connecting with the mountain’s hard stone as we clutch each other close and he brings his mouth decidedly down onto mine.

Everything in me turns molten as our fires collide, the whole world alight with gold as his all-consuming Wyvernbond spirals through me, so fervently I can’t think around it, his body rife with power.