Him. Leto of Garnis. She believed he could be better than he was. More than believed; she expected it.

While drawing out the agonizing pleasure of their joining, he almost shared her belief. Warriors fought and bled and fucked. They didn’t make love in a way that put a partner’s satisfaction above their own. Leto felt that way now. No matter how urgently he wanted to thrust—hard, deep, unrelenting—he held back. That resistance tapped into long years of training. He was strong enough to be patient. He basked in the moments of soft splendor, waiting for the moment when Nynn would need him to be anything but.

He bowed over her body while she explored his. Hands and fingers and even her heels found rough crevices and made them smooth. She calmed him in ways he’d never thought possible. So very aroused yet somehow lethargic. He dropped his forehead to hers.

“I’ve never had this.” The admission made his rhythm falter, along with his heartbeat. He hadn’t meant to say anything so personal, even as they shared such a personal act.

She cupped the side of his face in the way that made him shudder with a sense of belonging. “Beautiful, isn’t it?”

Leto pushed away his body’s needs and lifted from hers. “Bathatéi.”

“What?” On her elbows, Nynn’s confusion was written across her brow.

“You have felt this . . . this . . . Dragon damn, Nynn, it’s beautiful. And they took that from you. Your husband . . .”

He’d never felt more humiliated by his inability to make a point.

Nynn’s face had paled, so distinctive in her pain or fear. The golden tone of her skin drained away and left behind the pattern of freckles he had memorized.

She didn’t shy away or stop touching him. He’d expected both. When faced with a reminder of that loss, how could she not? Just the opposite happened. She touched him with more assurance and more vigor.

Leto swallowed to quell the monster in his blood. “Because you remember it all now, don’t you?”

“Yes.”

Guilt overwhelmed him. She was in possession of memories they hadn’t discussed. That meant she had her husband back—the life they’d shared, the life that had been ripped away from her.

Nynn stroked where his inner thigh met his groin. He flinched. She caressed him again, until the flinches eased into calm. “Breathe,” she whispered.

Now he closed his eyes. She changed position on the bed so that she knelt at his side. Leto was enveloped by softness once again, this time nestled between her breasts. He breathed just to soak up her scent.

“Caleb was taken from me.” Her halting words feathered across the buzzed hair and the crown of his head. “And yes, I ache with the knowledge of what we could’ve shared. We’ll never have that.”

“I was as brainwashed as you first said. I was part of the system that made your family suffer.”

“You were a boy raised to be a man with no choice as to how that happened. Do you yearn to kill and maim, Leto? I don’t believe you do. You’ve never hinted at enjoying the blood for blood’s sake. It’s all been for your sisters.”

“And for glory,” he said wearily. “You’ve felt it. We both know how intense it can be.”

“Just like we both know the unfairness of it all. And who really caused it. I’ll dig their graves with bare hands if I have to, because the Asters will not escape the punishment they deserve.”

“You’ll have help digging those graves, if they deserve such a courtesy.” The cadence of her touches was so soothing. Leto crisscrossed his arms behind her back and held tight. “I can’t replace your husband.”

“Of course you can’t.” She lifted his head and held his gaze. “That doesn’t mean I want to be alone forever.”

“I never thought I’d be anything but alone.”

“What about your family?”

“I’ve fought for their safety, but I can’t speak to them. Sometimes they exist more as goals than people. There are moments I regret that I wasn’t born one of the Dragon-damned Heartless. At least Indranan warriors can communicate with those outside.”

“No.” She kissed him so tenderly that it might have been a daydream, but her hand was still at the juncture of his thigh and groin. Nynn was no daydream. “You are Leto of Garnis,” she said against his mouth. “You are a Dragon King. And if you let me, I could love you.”

He bracketed her head in his hands. “Could?”

Her expression took on a teasing glint—a glimmer of silver to lead them out of the black. “You have to admit, we haven’t been on the same side very often.”

“It felt right when we were.”

“Yes. It did. And it does now.” She arched into his touch when he threaded hard, possessive fingers into her hair. “I asked for you, remember? I want to be here with you. To be on the same side and know it’s forever.”

“We can’t promise forever. Not down here.”

“Then we get out of here.”

He shook his head. “Not possible.”

“I wouldn’t do it with the stupid, impatient trust I gave Kilgore. Instead, you’re my warrior, and I light up like Dragon-damned fireworks.” She grinned, slid her warm palms to his shoulders, and gave him a good shake. “Then you could love me, too.”

Could?

There was no “could” about it.

He loved her. Nynn of Tigony was a firework, so bright and beautiful in a place that had never known either. He needed that light, craved it. More meaningfully, he was grateful that she’d shared it with him. He’d taken to heart that he would keep her safe because his heart was at risk. To lose her now would mean losing a part of himself he hadn’t known existed, liberated of everyone else’s wishes but his. And hers.

“When we’re free,” he said with his lips against her bare shoulder. “That’s my promise.”

“Now you get to promise that you won’t stop again.”

She stretched back against the mattress, with her knees negligently parted. The pink wetness of her sex made him want to taste. He dipped low and licked. Nynn’s hands flew to the back of his head. Another new sound. Greed. A combination of yes and a groan and a curse word older than the Five Clans. She was salt and sweet, hot and pulsing against his tongue. Each questing swirl revived his arousal. The past was the past—painful, and not without a demand to be avenged.

At that moment, however, Leto was finally able to set his mind aside and let his body loose. Reflex. Instinct. Selfish need. Every satisfying lick made Nynn writhe. Her hands stroked faster along the back of his head. Dragon be, she could drive him mad with her enthusiasm. They had matched from the beginning, not in goals, but in resolve and pure stubbornness. He put that stubbornness to its most sensual use, flicking faster, sucking deeper. His prick swelled in response. He was so ready.

This was a claiming, and it was mutual.

“Leto! Please, here with me. Not by myself.”

The breath punched out of him. Without thought, he was over her, kissing her, inside her. The slow softness they’d given each other was still there, in the way they caressed and in the encouraging sounds of pleasure. Little gifts. But Leto could not be gentle, pushing, pulsing with that word repeating in his mind. Claim.

“I’m here,” he said on a gasp. With his head tucked next to hers on the pillow, he drove with gathering speed. Each stroke was stronger. Her tight legs and quick hips met him each time. “We do this together.”

Previous orgasms had all been explosions, full and potent and as hard as he’d fucked. This time, with Nynn stretched beneath him and her breath breaking to pieces, he felt his climax building and building. It could’ve been seconds. It could’ve been years.

“Nynn, tell me. Tell me you’re close.”

She had no words, only the fierce arch of her spine and a mangled cry. The clench of her sheath around his cock broke through the gradual build of his pleasure—broke through, then dragged him into an abyss that seized his muscles and locked his bones. His last thrust was as deep as she could take, and she took all of him. Every thick, aching inch. He growled his satisfaction into the pillow, where Nynn had already turned her head, kissing his temple. She licked away the sheen of sweat.