Licking her lips, she added, “I even felt a bit of pride. Can you believe that? Pride that I hadn’t broken. That I stood up to you. That I kept waking up each day myself and not some broken replica. But wow…” She shook her head again, dropping her gaze to her feet, standing on one leg to study the faint red marks on her sole, courtesy of the cage wire. “I’m nothing compared to Ace.”

A tremble began in my thighs, infecting my body and hands. I wanted her to shut up…before she could ruin me in an entirely new way.

But her delicate voice fell with a harsh whisper, “Abuse comes in so many forms. A single moment or prolonged event. After one night, I’m prepared to do whatever it takes to never spend another in that cage…and because I can talk to you—because we speak the same language, I probably stand a good chance of achieving that goal. However, a poor chimp or dog or cat—any creature at the hands of prolonged abuse—doesn’t have the ability to speak. Even though they’re probably begging for death, they still wag their tail when their owner comes, hoping that today will be the day they get a scratch instead of a kick. Each time the cage opens, they trust that maybe they’ve been good enough to be freed. That there is an end to a punishment that they didn’t deserve. And each day the kick comes, and the cage closes, and they wonder what they did wrong.”

A tear spilled down her cheek unchecked. She didn’t try to wipe it away. She didn’t stop staring at her feet as if the tiles had become a crystal ball, a seer’s tool to peer through classifications of mammals and segregations of species to not just witness the animal’s nightmare but to live it. “So…in answer to your question if I had a pleasant night? I want to change my reply and not complain about myself. I won’t complain about my discomfort because the other inhabitant of that cage couldn’t. He couldn’t voice his pain. He couldn’t beg for a reprieve. He just endured. Every damn day. For decades.”

When she looked up, I struggled to keep my façade in place. The mask I’d worn for so long that I’d forgotten I had another face beneath it. A mask that caused grievous bodily harm because it was his right to do so. A disguise that allowed me to be the monster my brother was, the heartless people my parents were, the superior over everyone.

She saw that slip. Her gasp gave her away. Her eyes danced over mine, diving deep, tearing through my walls until I felt her inside me. Her tiny hands clutched at my sins. Her dainty feet ran over my scars. In a heartbeat, she’d run riot in my psyche and left utter destruction in her wake.

So I did the only thing I could do.

I dropped the barrier against my lust and my sanity.

I ripped my hands from my pocket and dove my fingers into her hair. Our bodies went flush, fitting together as if we’d always had, her female liquidity against my male rigidity, and…

I kissed her.

I pressed my mouth to hers and tore my way into her just like she’d torn into me. My tongue was a knife, slicing her to ribbons; my saliva was a poison, killing her before she killed me.

The harness around her body held her steady, but her arms were free to move. I jolted as her touch scalded my neck. I shivered as her fingers became nails, digging into me as I dug into her. My hands dropped down her spine, gathering her harder against me so she’d feel how much I struggled. How much I fucking wanted her.

Her lips widened under mine, and I kissed her harder.

I kissed her until all I could taste was her, all I could remember was her, until bruises painted our lips blue.

I needed to stop.

Everything.

But I only kissed her deeper, struggling to breathe. My body turned savage and weak all at once. My mind swam, lightheaded with need. Snatching her off her feet, I stumbled off balance.

Our lips disengaged, and I automatically released her so I didn’t pull her down with me. The harness kept her standing while I fell to one knee.

Somehow, I’d ended up doing what I’d fought against since she landed on my beach.

I bowed.

I bowed at her fucking feet and looked up at the most stunning girl I’d ever seen. A girl who wasn’t a goddess, after all, but a golden-hearted human who was even rarer than myth.

Her lips were swollen and pink. Her gaze no longer filled with rain but lightning bolts. I needed to prepare her for Euphoria, but all I could do was stare up and ask the most damning question. A question I’d asked before but still didn’t have a fucking answer.

“Who are you?” My tone had tangled with darkness and desire, weighed down with sand.

Her swollen lips parted, perhaps to give me some cosmic answer delivered by fate’s arrow, or maybe to curse me with an even greater spell. Either way, I wasn’t prepared to listen.

I didn’t have the goddamn strength.

Wrapping my arm around the top of her thighs and clamping a hand on her hip, I dragged her forward. I gave her no room to argue or struggle as my mouth clamped down on an entirely different part of her body.

The moment my tongue touched her clit, the harness creaked with her full weight. She went lax and locked tight all at once. “Ah…God. Sully—no.”

No?

I didn’t understand that word anymore.

No was something you said about inconsequential things.

This?

Tasting her? Tonguing her?

This was not inconsequential.

This was fucking consequential. The biggest consequence of my life.

My tongue drove inside her.

She cried out, swinging in her binds. Wetness welcomed me to dive deeper; her inner muscles clutching around my invasion. Her body flushed with heat as I released her hip and brought my hand between her legs.

While my tongue circled her clit and her desire made her pant, I pressed two fingers inside her. The second her body swelled and settled around my touch, she moaned so guttural and raw, my hips pumped into air.

I couldn’t control the instinctual need to replace my fingers with my cock.

Everything about this girl made me drunk. It made me forget my boundaries. My promises. It made me go rogue with the need to take everything I could. To steal her senses. Her sanity. To make her as tormented as me.

My teeth unsheathed, biting her clit as I rocked my fingers deep. Her hips undulated against my face. I growled as she whimpered, her body releasing another silky wet welcome.

My tongue lavished every part of her. She tasted of citrus and frangipani from her bath that all goddesses had access to before serving in Euphoria. She smelled wild and ripe with need.

I thrust deeper into her, driving my fingers as far as they’d go. My knuckles pressed against her pussy lips. My tongue lashed and teeth teased.

And I broke her into pieces.

Her orgasm swelled and shattered in a single heartbeat. The force of it milked my fingers with tight pressure, rhythmic and primal. The beast inside me wanted to respond. It knew what the bands of muscles and the fading cries of Eleanor’s pleasure meant.

She was at the pinnacle of passion. She’d come, but that only made her more receptive, more open to deeper claiming, harder fucking, rougher connection.

She wasn’t pleasured.

She was primed.

Primed to be mounted and taken.

The thought of removing my fingers from her still pulsing body and removing my tongue from her delicious taste almost kept me locked on my knees, but the feral hunger to thrust my body into hers jerked my hand from between her legs and forced me to scramble upright.