Page 120 of Spar of Hearts

So she took him by the hand,

and they ran.

The forest floor squished between her toes. Roderick’s footfalls echoed her own as they raced through the woods, trees rushing by in a moonlight-dappled blur of leaves and branches. From log to moss to clover and grass, they ran and jumped and laughed like carefree children. Fireflies pattered against their faces, smearing them both with a luminescent glow. Unafraid, whole, and unabashedly loved, she shifted back and forth without fear or shame, playfully shoving Roderick and yipping him on. He laughed and howled with her, loved and adored her like no one else had.

As different as they were, they melded with nature together, like animals in the underbrush. They belonged to the cool night air, the supervision of the stars, and every thunder of feet and pump of hearts and breath of lungs and sheer experience of life itself until their legs gave out, and they found themselves back at camp in a tangled heap of passion.

She’d never felt such an intense connection with her wolfish instincts and her own heart. Together, they paved a new path within her, letting every emotion she’d buried bloom along the way.

“What about the future?” she whispered between kisses.

“What about it?” he said, burying his face in her neck. As she tried to answer, he pressed soft kisses to her throat. She shivered at the slightest prick of his fangs on her skin. Stars above, she wanted them in her, to mingle his scent with her blood…

“I”—she gasped as his lips roamed further down her neck—“I have to go back to Eteross, and you—”

“—I’m renouncing my title,” he murmured against her skin. “I can follow you anywhere.”

“You can’t mean tha—oh…” Her eyes fluttered closed as the sensations overwhelmed her, magnified by the chorus of nighttime surrounding them, made of the loon’s tremolo song, chirping crickets, even their own panting breaths. She ran her fingers through Roderick’s fiery hair, desperate to rub her scent on him while instinctual, clipped, wolfish words flooded her mind.

Finally, finally, finally, my mate, oh, my mate…

He pulled back, hair satisfyingly mussed from her ministrations. “Folk follow stars all the time. If you want the throne, I’ll be by your side. I’ll be your prince, your knight, your footman, your stable boy, whatever it takes to catch even a glimpse of you. I love you, Anya. I know now that I’ve never experienced love in its truest form.”

She linked her claws behind his back and tangled herself with him, hungry to merge her body with his. By the time she wrestled her instincts into submission, she was drunk on moonlight and desire—eyelids heavy, pupils dilated, cheeks hot.

“I’m kissing a star. A wandering star,” he said breathlessly.

“You can do a whole lot more than kiss,” she breathed. “Bite me.”

She caught his eyes flick to her neck, then a quick swipe of his tongue over his pearlescent fangs. He sat there, mouth agape for a long, tortuous moment. She needed it. She needed him. She couldn’t explain it.

But who the hell cared about explanations?

“Are you sure about this? About me? The Rhodias doesn’t fix me. Love doesn’t fix me. What if I ruin this, us, everything?”

She kissed him, then nodded wildly. “I’m sure,” she whispered.

Excitement coursed through her as he lifted her hand to his lips, slowly dragging the tips of his fangs along the underside of her wrist and up her arm, before finally coming to a rest on her shoulder. Everything in her pulled taut like a bow, ready for him to release with a single bite.

“Bite me,” she pleaded, voice shaky with anticipation. “Please…”

“I can’t just sink my fangs right in. I want you to be ready for me. And you’re getting there. Your heart is beating like a hummingbird.”

She melted under his touch, reveling in the hot sensation that followed wherever his lips trailed. A gasp escaped her chest as his tongue flicked her shoulder.

“Bend your neck for me,” he whispered.

She obeyed. The new height of vulnerability sent a thrill up her spine. There was nothing but their panting breaths mingling, chests heaving, hands roaming and petting every curve and crest of one another as he kissed the spot. After a minute, he pulled back just enough to hold her gaze, fingers tangling with the hair at her nape as if to ask her permission one last time.

He didn’t need it.

She’d never been more sure of anything in her entire life.

She tapped her forehead against his, breathing in his masculine scent. It was raw and real, sweat and soil, bark and leaves, the very essence of life itself.

“Do it.”

He ran his hands through her hair, kissing her lips, her cheek, her ear, working down to the soft crook in the side of her neck. His fangs grazed over the spot he’d prepared, drawing a needy whimper from deep in her chest.