Chapter 49
I don’t know who moves first.
One second, the world is frozen. His breath on my lips, the tension coiled so tight between us it could snap and take my fucking head off. His eyes–stormy, wild, barely restrained–burn into mine, daring me to pull away.
I don’t.
And then-
Everything explodes.
His lips crash against mine with a desperation that borders on violent. A sharp gasp escapes me, but I don’t fight it. Can’t fight it. My fingers are in his hair before I can stop myself, yanking him closer, because fuck, I need this. I need him.
We head back to the house as he carries me with our lips together, we rush to my room like starved animals.
He growls, a low, guttural sound, and my back slams into the wall of my tiny, suffocating excuse for a room. The breath leaves my lungs, but I don’t care. I don’t care about anything except the way he’s pressing against me, solid and burning and fucking alive.
His hands are rough–everywhere, nowhere, gripping my waist, sliding up my sides like he’s memorizing me. One hand fists in my hair, tugging my head back, exposing my throat to him. My stomach clenches, heat pooling between my thighs, and then his teeth are there, grazing my skin, testing, teasing-
A strangled noise leaves me. Something between a whimper and a curse. I feel his smirk against my neck before he bites down, hard enough to send a shockwave straight to my core.
Bastard.
I retaliate, grabbing his face and biting his lower lip, not soft or teasing, but vicious. The coppery taste of blood blooms between us, but all it does is make his grip on me tighten, like he’s seconds away from devouring me whole.
“Enoch,” I breathe, barely recognizing my own voice–needy, desperate, wrecked.
He makes a sound, half–snarl, half–moan, and that’s it. That’s the only warning I get before he’s lifting me, one arm beneath my thighs, the other bracing against the wall. My legs wrap around his waist instinctively, holding on for dear life as he grinds against me.
I’m losing my mind.
He’s losing his.
And we let it happen.
His mouth is on mine again, and I can taste everything in him–the restraint that’s barely holding together, the hunger that’s consuming him, the ache that neither of us knows how to soothe. His hands roam, gripping, claiming, and I let him, I fucking let him, because I need to feel something other than the emptiness that’s been gnawing at me since the moment I realized I could lose him.
He pulls back, just enough to rest his forehead against mine. His breath is ragged, his fingers trembling where they dig into my hips. “Taryn
It’s the first time he’s said my name in full sentences since he lost his memories. My chest tightens painfully, a lump forming in my throat. But I don’t ask. I don’t break the moment.
Because I’m afraid of the answer.
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Instead, I reach for him again, dragging him back down, because if this is all I can have, I’ll take it. Even if it kills me.
I don’t know who moves first.
Maybe it’s me, too fucking tired of pretending I don’t want this, don’t need this. Maybe it’s him, giving up whatever stupid resistance he’s been holding onto.
It doesn’t matter.
Because the second our lips crash together again, the world fucking burns.
Enoch grips my hips like he’s trying to leave bruises, dragging me closer, his breath ragged against my mouth. The room is dark, shadows flickering from the dying fire in the hearth, but I don’t need light to know the way his hands feel on my body -possessive, desperate, like he’s memorizing every inch of me with his fingertips.
I don’t stop him.
I don’t fucking want to.
I’m already burning alive, and I don’t care if he’s the one holding the match.
His teeth graze my lower lip, and I gasp, my head knocking back against the wooden beam behind me. Enoch follows, his mouth trailing down my throat, open–mouthed, hot. He bites–not gently, not sweetly, but with a hunger that makes my knees buckle.
I shove at his chest, not to push him away, but because I want to fight this feeling, this fucking need. “You’re such a goddamn asshole,” I manage, voice breathless, shaky.
He doesn’t even hesitate. Just growls, low and primal, before gripping my wrists and pinning them above my head.
My pulse jumps.
“You push,” he rasps, his breath searing against my skin. “I take.”
Fucking hell.
His grip tightens around my wrists, holding me still as his knee slides between my legs, pressing, forcing me to acknowledge how wet I already am.
I should
stop this.
I should demand answers, force him to talk, make him explain why he keeps looking at me like I’m something worth breaking for.
Instead, I fucking grind against his thigh like a bitch in heat.
Enoch makes a rough, guttural noise and crashes his mouth back to mine, shoving his hands under my shirt, up my ribs, dragging his calloused fingers over my skin like he’s trying to carve himself into me.
“Clothes,” he mutters, his voice wrecked.
It takes my dazed brain a second to catch up. Then he’s yanking my shirt over my head, and I’m pulling at his, and we’re a mess of hands and gasping breaths, frantic and clumsy in the dark. My back hits the bed before I even realize he’s moved us, and then he’s on top of me, covering me, devouring me.
His fingers slip beneath the waistband of my shorts.
I arch up, impatient. “Fucking do something-”
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He does.
He rips them off like they offended him.
Jesus.
His mouth follows, trailing down my stomach, his tongue flicking against my hip bone before moving lower. My head slams back against the pillow as his fingers spread me open, and then–fuck.
My breath shatters.
His tongue is on me, hot and wet and perfect, dragging slow, lazy circles that make my thighs tremble. He groans against my cunt like he’s starving for it, like he needs this more than breathing.
I can’t fucking think.
Can’t do anything but arch into his mouth, into the press of his tongue and the way his hands grip my thighs like he’s holding me in place, like he doesn’t trust me not to run.
As if I could.
As if I’d ever want to.
His fingers join his tongue, sliding inside me, stretching, curling in a way that has my breath stuttering, my body winding too fucking tight.
I tug at his hair, desperate, nails scratching against his scalp. “I swear to fucking God, Enoch-”
He sucks
my
clit into his mouth, and I break.
The orgasm slams into me, white–hot, ripping through every nerve ending, leaving me boneless beneath him. I barely register him crawling back up my body, barely feel the way his fingers grip my jaw, forcing me to look at him.
His pupils are blown wide, lips slick with me.
“You,” he breathes, dragging his fingers down my cheek, then lower, pressing against my swollen lips. “Only you.”
I don’t get a chance to respond before he kisses me again, deep and filthy and claiming.
Then he’s shoving his pants down, positioning himself between my thighs, and–fuck. He’s big, hot, the tip of his cock pressing right against my entrance, teasing.
I should be scared.
I’m not.
I hook my legs around his waist and dig my nails into his back. “Enoch,” I whisper, daring him. “Take me.”
Something in him snaps.
He pulls out his cock, now dripping with precum and towers over me with an ominous look on his face. My body trembles.
Before I knew it, he lines it on my entrance and I whimper.
“Eno—ah!” He thrusts his entire cock in, all at once, burying himself deep, and I gasp–half in shock, half in pleasure. He’s thick, stretching me, filling me, making it impossible to breathe.
He doesn’t move right away, his forehead dropping to mine, his breaths coming in sharp, uneve holding on. Like he’s afraid he’ll break me.
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Chapter 49
“Move,” I demand, voice hoarse.
He does.
Slow at first, letting me adjust, but it doesn’t take long before we’re both desperate, both lost in it. His thrusts turn hard. punishing, each one shoving me deeper into the mattress, each one knocking the breath from my lungs. “Ah! fuck!” I groan.
It’s messy and frantic and fucking perfect.
His hands are everywhere–gripping my hips, threading through my hair, squeezing my throat just enough to make me gasp. My nails rake down his back, desperate to mark him, to leave something behind in case this is the last time.
Because I don’t know what we are.
I don’t know if this is just desperation, if it’s just loneliness and fear and the need to hold onto something real.
But I don’t care.
Not when he’s fucking me like this.
Not when he’s dragging me under, drowning me in him.
His rhythm stutters, his breath catching, and I know he’s close. I clench around him, digging my heels into his ass, forcing him deeper, and-
He groans my name like a prayer, like a curse, and comes, shuddering against me.
The world tilts.
We collapse together, a tangled mess of limbs and sweat and gasping breaths. His weight is heavy on top of me, grounding, and I don’t move, don’t want to.
His lips brush my temple, barely a touch, barely anything at all.
I close my eyes.
And let myself pretend.
***
The world is quiet.
It shouldn’t be.
Not after the way he just fucked me, not after the way we tore into each other like starving animals finally getting a taste. My body is sore in places I didn’t even know could ache, every nerve still buzzing, but I don’t move.
I don’t want to.
Enoch is still on top of me, his weight pinning me to the bed, his face buried in my neck. His breath is warm against my skin, slow and steady now, unlike the frantic, desperate panting from minutes ago.
I should say something. Maybe something snarky, maybe something soft. But I don’t. I just let the silence settle around us, let the heat of his body seep into mine.
His arms tighten. Just barely. Like he knows, like he feels it too—this fleeting moment where nothing outside this bed fucking matters.
The air is thick, heavy with something unspoken. I exhale, fingers ghosting over his back, tracin
lines of muscle, the
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scratches I left behind. A sick, satisfied part of me likes seeing my marks on him. Proof that this wasn’t just in my head. That he wanted it as much as I did.
I tip my head back against the pillow, staring at the wooden ceiling beams, my mind spinning in slow, hazy circles. The carlier storm outside has calmed, but my body still thrums with its aftershocks.
Maybe we can be like this forever.
The thought slithers in before I can stop it. A dangerous, stupid, naive thought. But one that lingers. One that makes my chest ache.
I swallow hard, dragging in a breath.
“Maybe we can be like this…” I whisper, barely realizing I said it out loud. “Forever.”
Enoch stiffens.
It’s subtle, barely there, but I fucking feel it. The moment those words leave my mouth, his body turns to stone against mine. His fingers twitch against my hip before pulling away.
And just like that, the warmth is gone.
He sits up, shifting his weight off me, running a hand down his face. I try not to shiver at the loss of his heat, but it’s impossible.
My stomach twists.
I shouldn’t have said that.
“Enoch?” I push myself up on my elbows, searching his face. “What’s wrong?”
He doesn’t answer right away. He just stares at the wall, expression unreadable, like he’s lost somewhere I can’t follow. When he finally speaks, his voice is low. Rough.
“Not… forever.”
Something sharp lodges itself in my throat.
I force a breath, ignoring the way my chest tightens. “Why not?”
He shakes his head, looking away. And that’s what fucking does it–because he never looks away. Not from me. Not from anything.
My fingers curl into the sheets, my mind racing.
“I don’t know who I am,” he murmurs. “Don’t remember. His hand tightens into a fist, frustration leaking into his tone. “But I know… I made promise.”
I frown, my heart hammering. “To who?”
His jaw clenches. “Don’t know.”
Fuck.
I don’t know why it hurts. Why his words make something ugly coil in my gut. He’s always been a mystery. A lost king without his throne, a man with no past. But right now, it feels like he’s slipping through my fingers.
1 should push. Make him talk. Dig deeper.
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Chapter 49
But I don’t.
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Instead, I lean forward, pressing my forehead to his, forcing his gaze back to me. “Maybe you don’t remember who you were,” I whisper, “but I know who you are now. And that’s all that matters.
His breath hitches.
And for a second, I think I’ve won. That he believes me. That this weight hanging between us will finally lift.
Then-
A loud thud cracks through the silence.
We both jerk at the same time, heads snapping toward the window.
Something just hit it.
Hard.
A chill prickles down my spine. Enoch is already moving, climbing off the bed, his body tense, alert. My pulse pounds as I scramble up beside him, heart hammering as I stare at the window.
There, on the wooden ledge, lies a bird.
A crow.
Its body is twisted, one wing bent at an unnatural angle, black feathers slick with blood. My stomach churns.
“What the fuck”
Then I see it.
The note.
Tied to its mangled leg, fluttering weakly in the breeze.
Enoch is faster than me, yanking the window open before I can even process what’s happening. Cold air rushes in as he snatches the note, his expression darkening the second his eyes scan the words.
His fingers tighten around the paper.
Something isn’t right.
I move toward him, my skin crawling, but before I can get close enough to read it—
He crumples the note in his fist.
My pulse spikes. “What did it say?”
He doesn’t answer.
“Enoch.” I grab his arm, yanking it. “What the fuck did it say?”
His gaze snaps to mine, something wild, something feral flashing in his dark eyes.
“Nothing,” he lies.
Bullshit.
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Chapter 49
Before I can call him out, before I can snatch the paper myself-
Bang.
The door slams open.
Kallias storms in, his face set in a scowl, his movements rigid. “We need to talk.
My irritation spikes. “Ever heard of knocking?”
Kallias ignores me, his gaze locked onto Enoch. “He knows where she is.”
The air goes still.
My stomach drops.
“What?” I whisper.
Kallias doesn’t look at me. His jaw tightens. “You know who” he says to Enoch. “He’s regrouping. And he knows where she is.”
The world tilts.
Enoch goes rigid, his body coiled so tight he looks seconds away from snapping.
“If you stay,” Kallias continues, voice grim, “she dies.”
The words ring through the room, slicing through my chest, carving into my ribs.
I barely register the way Enoch’s grip on me tightens, the way his entire presence turns lethal, dangerous.
He’s shaking.
Not with fear.
With rage.
I don’t breathe.
Because I fucking know that look in his eyes.
I know what it means.
I know what he’s going to do.
And I can’t fucking stop him.
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