Scythe snatched the hammer. It connected with his head, and the guard fell to the floor with a gut-dropping thud.

Blood covered and poured from Scythe’s hand. I looked at the table. Only skin and nails and more blood remained…

My hand flew to my mouth. “Scythe, my fucking stars.”

He’d ripped his hand free of the nails.

“Now,” Scythe said with an eerie calm, as though he hadn’t just been severely wounded. He unwrapped the chains from his wrists and used one of them to seal the doors, then he stalked to Rorn. “This is how it’s going to go…”

I could only stand there, shaken, torn, and in disbelief, while Scythe seized Rorn by the hair bound at his nape. He dragged and fastened the king to the grate over the fireplace with the other chain.

Then, with a fevered wildness to his features, my wolf came for me.

There were no orders. He picked me up and set me upon the table, his injured hand cupping my cheek as he stared at my mouth and rasped, “I don’t care if someone’s about to pierce my fucking heart, Aster. The sight of you kissing another kills more thoroughly than any death.”

“I had to for it—” I was quietened by his mouth and by the rising of my robe as his unwounded hand crawled up my thigh to my stomach and opened the silken material.

His blood coated my cheek. His tongue plunged inside my mouth, taking and claiming and robbing me of memory of where we were.

“Scythe,” I panted, pulling away when it came back. “Show me your hand.”

His nostrils widened with his displeasure, his dark brows low. Then he grinned, blinding and beautiful, and slid his thumb to my mouth.

I opened, the copper taste of him invading and heating me to dangerous heights. I sucked and searched for more when he stroked my teeth with the digit and the hardness straining his pants against my core. “Always so well behaved for me.”

My eyes closed as yet again, I realized what I was doing.

Scythe cursed, his low voice both rough and soft. “We’ll stop.” I collapsed against him, wanting him but grateful, for I didn’t want him like this. He held me tight to his chest with his fingers woven through my hair and murmured to the top of my head. “Close your robe, wildflower.”

I reached between us and retied it, then lifted my chin upon his chest.

Torment sharpened his features as he gazed down at me, but he still vowed to my forehead, “It’s going to be okay.”

We both knew it was a vow he had no idea how to keep.

My eyes closed over tears when the doors crashed open, and he pressed his mouth to my temple.

Scythe made no protest as he was seized and returned to the dungeon.