“Demetrius,” she whimpered, “please.”

“Begging won’t help you, baby girl,” he teased gruffly, flexing into her again, somehow knowing exactly how much pressure and speed would take her over the edge and how much would keep her hanging on it. “You have to let go and trust me.”

“I will kill you.” Her voice was hoarse and, even to her own ears, utterly lacking conviction. “I swear I will kill you.”

He flexed into her again, with a little twist of his pelvis to top it off, and this time she gasped. He put his lips against her ear and murmured, “Let go. Trust me. Just once. Just this once.”

Oh, slippery, slippery slope, this. She’d already trusted him once, more than once, but she couldn’t think with him buried inside her, she could barely even breathe, and for some ridiculous reason all she wanted to do was give him what he wanted. Whatever he wanted.

She turned her head, looked up at him, and whispered, “Okay.”

He wasn’t expecting it, she could tell by the way he froze and looked down at her, startled. She bit her lip and nodded, just to make sure he knew she was coherent, and relaxed in the circle of his arms. “Okay.”

“Ana,” he breathed in wonder, “you never cease to amaze me.”

She smiled, feeling almost shy. “Don’t screw it up.”

“Oh?” His brows rose. He leaned down and brushed his lips across her cheek, his own rough and shadowed with a growth of day-old beard. “Interesting choice of words, considering…”

He slowly sank into her again, and she tightened her arms around his neck.

She whispered his name as her eyes slid shut and her head fell back against the tile, whispered it again, broken, when he cupped her breast and bent his head and suckled her. The drawing of his tongue and lips sent spikes of pleasure/pain straight to her core, and though she wanted to writhe against him, she held still, allowing him to hold her up and caress her and control her body, allowing him to bring her back up to that edge again, with his lips and his beautiful, hard body filling hers.

He began to thrust again, slowly, brought her face to his with his fingers on her chin. She knew he’d want her eyes open, so she kept them that way and gazed at him, noticing every detail of his face, strong jaw and full lips and the thicket of dark lashes around his eyes. His breathing was ragged. His hands dug into her bottom.

She began to lose herself to sensation. He was everywhere, filling her in every way, his scent in her nose and his tongue in her mouth and his need for her like another skin wrapped around her body. She was burning, she was flying, and with every single thrust she was falling and letting herself fall, glad of it. Glad to finally let go, if even for only a while.

“That’s right,” he murmured, watching her with half-lidded eyes when she moaned and shivered against him. “That’s my girl.”

She was so close now; every nerve ending was firing, and her entire body was shaking. She felt as if she would crack wide open and die from pleasure, or be devoured by this thing between them that felt like a monster in the room, an entity, primal and hungry and animal.

She cupped his face in her hands and looked deep into his eyes, letting him see everything. Asking permission.

His arms were crushing. His eyes, wild. “Like drowning,” he groaned.

“Like dying,” she agreed in a harsh whisper as she rode the crest of the wave and felt something vast and dark rushing at her, inescapable as death.

D began to thrust hard, letting himself go. “Yes, Ana,” he panted. “Come for me, baby. Now.”

Love like drowning, love like burning, a million different ways to die—

She exploded, supernova, the world went white and then black. Her body bowed, and she sobbed his name, clenching around him, racked with tremors, pleasure so acute it almost hurt.

It did hurt. It burned.

Maybe this is what love is for us…unending, unendurable pain.

She buried her face in his neck to hide her wet eyes.

“Tu mea es!” D groaned suddenly, fiercely. He pulled her head back with a hand in her hair and stared into her eyes, and his look was animal, agonized and intense. “Tu mea es.”

You are mine.

He bared his teeth and came inside her, shuddering, his eyes rapt and locked on hers. She cried out as she felt him spilling inside her, saw his face through a prism of tears.

“Tu mea es.”

He whispered it over and over again as he held her up against the tile shower wall, whispered it against her lips, her neck, her breasts, and the words swirled around like the eddies of steam, dizzying, disorienting, echoing, piercing down to the very corners of her soul.

You.

Are.

Mine.

The wide marble steps that led to the Apostolic Palace at the Vatican were designed by Bernini, and the entrance was flanked by a cadre of armed Swiss Guards. Silas, Caesar, and Aldo were ushered past the guards by their escort, a slight man in a fedora and black cape, and ascended the staircase in silence.

It was ten forty-five in the morning. In precisely thirty minutes, the pope would give his Christmas morning address to the world from the balcony of his private study in the papal apartments, overlooking St. Peter’s Square.

And then the course of history would be changed forever.

The drive from Paris had taken all night, but Silas wasn’t tired. Quite the opposite. Filled with an almost excruciating anticipation, he was finding it hard to keep a straight face. Years and years and years of servitude, of bowing and biting his tongue and being told what to do, all leading up to this moment.

It wasn’t supposed to have happened exactly like this—he was missing a hand, after all, and he couldn’t Shift because of it—but if nothing else, Silas was a master of adaptation, and this was just one more thing he’d adapted to.

Hence, the inclusion of Aldo.

Aldo could Shift, whereas Silas couldn’t at the moment, and Caesar had never been able to. And that was precisely the point, really, getting that particular Gift on film for all the world to see. He couldn’t exactly establish the kind of fear and awe he wanted to inspire in humans just by offing the leader of their most powerful church, for goodness’ sake. No—they had to be shown what it was the Ikati could do. They had to be humbled. There had been one or two instances where they’d been caught on film, but those were accidental, small scale, easily dismissed.

It would not be so easy to dismiss the sight of the pope being slaughtered on live television broadcast all over the world in front of thousands upon thousands of eyewitnesses.

And then, oh, and then they would reign supreme. While the walls between two worlds crumbled and the humans who had persecuted them for eons fell into terrified chaos, he would unite the scattered clans, distribute the serum, and wring his hands—hand—in glee.

Right after he killed Caesar.

Though he was technically Alpha of their little colony because he was the eldest son of the last Alpha, Caesar’s lack of Gifts meant his hold on the title was tenuous at best. Strength always had to be proven, even for an Alpha, and Silas was a little surprised none of the others had formally challenged him yet. He certainly would have lost, which would have deposed him, but no matter, his time left as Alpha was short.

And after the spectacular coup Silas had orchestrated, no one would dare question his supremacy, his right to claim the title as his own.

Caesar hadn’t questioned how Silas had been able to gain access to the pope’s inner circle. He hadn’t questioned how or when Silas had come up with such a monumental scheme. He hadn’t questioned anything, really, he’d simply accepted that he’d be present at this little coming-out party of theirs, taking all the glory for himself.