Sweat soaked my skin as Caelum led me through the tunnels. We went higher, climbing toward the surface but on a different path

than the one we’d taken when we first joined the Resistance.

“Where are we going?” I asked, glancing over at him. His body was positioned slightly in front of mine as he approached one of the hatches that led from the hidden tunnels up into the caves themselves. This one had steps carved into the rock wall, enabling him to release my hand and climb up so he could shift the stone cover off the hole.

“Somewhere we can get cleaned up without an audience to watch,” he answered, hauling himself up and out of the tunnel. “Come on.”

I slipped my hands into the holes in the wall, lifting myself up and letting my feet follow. Caelum’s hand waited for me when I reached the top,

taking hold of me and lifting me free from the tunnel. He replaced the hatch, taking my wrist in one hand to entwine our fingers together.

With his other hand, he unsheathed a sword, gripping it tightly as the distant rumble of cave beasts came from the caves to the left. Caelum led me to the right, seeming sure in his steps.

As if he knew exactly where to go.

“Is it safe? What about the warding?” I asked, my worry overwhelming me. The last thing I wanted was to lead the Fae right to us just because I was a little shy with my own nudity.

“We can’t come up here every day by any means, but it’s safe to do every now and then as a special treat,” he answered, guiding me up a set of steps carved into the stone, which curved around a central beam.

When we finally emerged into the light of the moon, it was to a small, private hot spring hidden on a ledge next to the mountain. The air that met me when we stepped out onto the ground was harsh and cold compared to the insulated tunnels, a single gust of wind instantly making my cheeks burn.

Resting just inside the doorway to the caves was a basket filled with tiny bars of soap, and Caelum grabbed one of them on the way out. He set it at the edge of the pool, unknotting the laces at the top of his tunic as he faced me.

I swallowed, fearing I wouldn’t like the answer. “How did you know about this place?”

His fingers paused for a moment, his head tilting to the side as a smirk graced his lips. “Jealous, Little One?”

Nausea churned in my gut. I’d left shortly after Melian worked with me until the muscles in my arms felt so tired I couldn’t lift my practice sword any longer, my increased muscle mass since becoming Fae Marked only going so far with hours of repetition.

It appeared he’d been busy in the time since I’d left him earlier in the day. I’d spent the rest of it translating pages and pages of texts until my hand cramped and my fingers swelled from how I gripped the quill.

“I think I’ll take my chances in the bathing cavern,” I said, swallowing back the urge to be sick. All of Melian’s words came rushing back; all of my reminders to myself that I couldn’t satisfy him.

I’d known exactly what would happen and still let him convince me otherwise.

Caelum chuckled, stepping toward me as he tugged the tunic over his head and deposited it on the ground next to him. “You get this twitch underneath your left eye when you think I’d let someone else play with me,” he said, moving forward until he reached out and touched his thumb to the spot in question. “I think it might be the cutest thing I’ve ever seen.”

“Fuck you,” I snarled, jerking my head away from his hand. If he thought I’d sit around and allow him to be with other women without ever allowing another man to touch me, he had another think coming.

We could be faithful, or we could not be. But whatever standards he set would go both ways, even if that meant I had to swallow my nausea and go find Jensen to take him up on his offer to be my first romp within the Resistance.

Caelum grinned, grasping my chin between two fingers and tipping my head up so that he could stare down at me intently. “No one but you has touched me since we first met.”

“Then how did you know about this place? I can just imagine what it’s used for,” I said, trying not to allow all his bare, golden skin to distract me. I wouldn’t be dumbstruck by a handsome face and sculpted muscle.

I was more than a body without a brain.

“There were offers,” he said, making me swallow down my rising rage once more.

The idea of somehow marking him as my territory became more and more appealing with every word he spoke. “Offers. As in plural. What are you doing with me, then? You could be having another threesome.”

Caelum chuckled. “I could be, and I would be if that was what I wanted, but I have no interest in anyone but you, my star. I don’t know how much more clear I can be about that. You are the only one for me. Women may make offers, but my answer will always be no. I expect the same in return.”

I swallowed as he rested a hand on my shoulders, inching his fingertips under the fabric there and sliding it down toward my arms. With the laces unknotted at the front, it would fall to my feet the moment the sleeves slipped down.

“Caelum,” I said, making him pause as I bit my lip. I had no doubt where this would go between us if my dress fell. He wouldn’t turn his back this time and wouldn’t be distracted by the scars on my back.

“There will be no going back from this once you’ve taken me inside you, Little One. Take care to understand just how sincerely I mean that.

Once we cross this line, you’re mine,” he murmured, toying with the fabric as he stared down at me. His focus didn’t move as he waited for my response, his features patient and relaxed despite the urgency in his gaze.

“I thought I already was,” I said stupidly, unable to think of what to say in the face of all his intensity. He leaned forward, touching his lips to mine as he brushed my sleeves off my shoulders.

The dress pooled at my feet, leaving me naked except for the socks and boots on my feet. Caelum kissed down my jaw, trailing his lips over the front of my throat as he lowered himself to his knees in front of me.

He was tall enough that his head was level with my breasts, his mouth caressing softly and drawing goosebumps to my skin. His fingers worked at the laces of my boot as he pressed a kiss to the peak of my nipple, opening his mouth and wrapping the wet heat of it around me.

I gasped as he finished untying my boot, and wrapped one hand around the sensitive skin on the back of my knee, lifting so he could pull the boot and sock free while his tongue slowly flicked my pebbled nipple.

He kissed his way over the valley between my breasts as he switched to the other boot, drawing my other nipple into his mouth with more urgency. He sucked hard enough that my back bowed as he finally stripped off the other boot, rising to his feet in front of me and pressing his bare torso against me.

He kissed me, his tongue tangling with mine and threatening to consume me. I knew in that moment I would do anything to keep him.

His nostrils flared as he pulled back, reaching down to grab my ass in both his hands and squeeze. “Get in the water, my star,” he said, his voice dropping low with the command as he took a step away and dropped his hands to the laces on his trousers.

I moved to do just that, escaping the cool air in favor of the comfort of the hot spring. I lowered myself into the pool slowly, letting the warm water envelop me. I dropped my head below the surface, floating there for a moment before I resurfaced.

Caelum lowered himself into the water, dunking his head under until his blond hair turned darker from the soaking. He grabbed the soap off the edge of the pool, stalking toward me slowly and lathering it in his hands.

“The Resistance doesn’t appear to have products for hair specifically,” he grumbled, touching his soapy hands to the top of my head and working them through my hair methodically.

“I’m used to that,” I said with a little chuckle. Soap was universal when you were poor. Only the richest among us could afford anything else.

“You deserve the best of the best. Specific formulas to wash your hair, oils to keep it soft,” he murmured as he worked the lather through my hair. His fingers massaged my scalp, and I flushed as I thought of what a mess I must look like compared to what he was used to.

If the women he’d been with before usually had those kinds of products at their disposal, I was nothing compared to that.

He tipped me back, helping me rinse the soap from my hair carefully before he ran the bar across my neck and shoulders. His touch was slow and lazy as he explored every line marked into my skin. Washing the dirt and sweat from my body, his attention fixated only on where the soap and his hand touched me.

Watching the grime wash away to reveal my skin beneath it, the girl I’d once been was revealed just a bit more with every pass of the soap. By the time he finished with my arms and made his way down to my breasts, I thought I might combust.

He cleaned them thoroughly, running the soap over my stomach and eventually touching it to the apex of my thighs.

“I can do it,” I said, flushing as I thought of him cleaning the most intimate part of me.

“I had my fingers inside you only yesterday, my star. Do you think I would hesitate to wash your cunt before I bury my tongue inside it?” he asked, rubbing soap-lathered fingers over me. He forced my legs wider, spreading me as he ran his hand over me and cleaned me.

I whimpered, the heat within me building as he stroked between my legs. He moved on to my legs as soon as he was satisfied, lifting them one at a time and washing them methodically. I was a mess of need by the time he turned me around and began to wash my back, his fingers hesitating on each and every scar.

He leaned down and pressed his lips to the worst one, kissing the sensitive skin that seemed to tingle any time someone touched it. The kiss felt like a promise of retribution, a reiteration of the vow he’d made to see the man who’d harmed me dead.

He touched a hand to my ass cheek, gripping it with bruising fingers as he lowered the soap. I jolted away from his touch, spinning to face him as he grinned at me. “I think not.”

He shrugged, rubbing the soap over his chest as if the boundary didn’t matter to him. “I’ll fuck you there one day too, my star.”

I blanched.

Was that even possible?

The serious look on his face gave me all the answer I needed, so I just shook my head and took the soap to finish washing myself there. Maybe with a normal man, that could be physically possible, though I doubted pleasurable. But for a man with a cock that seemed to hang down to his knees?

Hard pass.

I brushed off my moment of embarrassment, stepping toward him and lifting the soap to his body. I wasn’t willing to let the moment pass me by, knowing that our baths would normally be fraught with company watching our every move. This might be the only time in the near future where I could take the time to learn the contours of his body with my own hands while we were submerged in warm water.

I ran it over the muscles of his chest, staring at the place where my fingers ran over his golden skin. His gaze felt heavy as he watched my face, but something in me couldn’t force myself to look up and meet it. I knew that the moment I looked at him with my hands on his skin, my time to explore would come to an end.

I passed the soap over his shoulders and the scars almost covered his body in a way I wouldn’t have expected for a man situated to know of wealthy items for women’s care.

There was so much I still didn’t know about Caelum and the life he’d lived, but I couldn’t bring myself to ask with the steam in the air around us and his skin against my palm.

His muscles twitched against my hand as I trailed them down to his stomach, making me look up at him finally as I cleaned the grooves between each of the muscles carved from his abdomen. Only when that was finished did I drop my hand lower, cleaning the lines between his torso and the corded muscles of his thighs.

He hissed when I shifted my hand sideways, rubbing the soap against the top of his shaft. My fingertips brushed against his length, and I watched as he gritted his teeth. My other hand joined the first, wrapping around his cock as I ran the soap over him tentatively. The moment my fingers gripped him, he groaned. “Fuck.”

I washed him, sliding my hand up and down his shaft as the soap cleansed him. He’d already been hard by the time I took him in my hand, but there was no denying the way he hardened more in my grip, until he was like a rock, unforgiving, and I knew he would break me when he pushed inside me for the first time.

“Enough,” he grunted, covering my hand with his. He guided me, stroking himself with it twice more before he finally pulled it away and took the soap to finish washing himself.

I hesitated, wondering if I’d done something wrong or crossed some sort of line. I didn’t understand how I could have misread the situation. “Sit on the edge, Estrella,” he ordered, making me swallow back my nerves. I moved to do as he instructed, walking to the edge of the pool.

“Did I do something wrong?” I asked, staring at him as he turned his attention back to me. Danger glinted in his eyes, something animalistic rising to the surface as he prowled toward me. He deposited the soap onto the edge of the pool, grabbing me around the waist and placing me on the cold stone.

I shivered as he spread my legs, inserting his shoulders between them and staring at the center of me as if he wanted to devour me.

“Did you do something wrong?” he asked, tilting his head to the side as he carefully pulled my ass so close to the edge that I felt like I might fall into the water. One of his enormous hands touched the center of my chest, pushing me back until I leaned onto my elbows and stared down at the rugged lines of his handsome face. “If you didn’t stop, I was going to bury myself balls-deep inside you while you screamed. I only have so much control when you have your hand wrapped around my cock, my star.”

“Oh,” I murmured softly, watching as he slid an arm behind each of my thighs and gripped them. He shoved them wide, tilting me further until my back touched the cold stone beneath me.

“Oh,” he repeated, as if I was an idiot for being totally unaware of the effect I had on him. He leaned forward, dragging his tongue through me from entrance to clit.

“Oh Gods,” I whimpered, my back arching from the wet heat of his mouth.

“I’ll be your God any day, my star,” he murmured, burying his face into me. He licked and stroked every inch of my skin, sinking his tongue inside

me and fucking me with it. When his hand joined in and he pressed a finger in while he circled my clit with his tongue, I thought I would explode.

No one had ever touched me like this; had ever made me feel things like this.

“Caelum,” I whimpered.

“What happened to God?” he teased, nipping at my clit as he slid a second finger into me.

“I want to feel you inside me,” I moaned, thrusting a hand between my legs to grip his hair. I pulled him closer and then pushed him away, guiding his mouth where I wanted it even as I wanted more.

“Then come so I can fuck you,” he growled, sucking my clit between his lips and reaching up to pinch my nipple with his other hand. I came, clenching around his fingers and forgetting my own name.

I was still lost in a haze of bliss when he pulled me down from the ledge, the warmth of the water enveloping my skin that felt frozen and overheated all at once. He moved to the shallows and pressed me against the edge of the pool, wrapping my legs around his waist, with my pussy suspended in the cool air.

His cock pressing against my entrance snapped me out of the haze, bringing me back to my senses as he pushed inside me slowly. My pussy squeezed around him, protesting the too-large invasion of the cock that seemed impossible to fit.

He drew his hips back while I curved myself into him, burying my face in his neck as I felt like he would tear me in two. He moved in slow, shallow thrusts, opening my body for him bit by bit.

I felt every inch of him inside me, gliding over my swollen flesh until he finally pressed against the end of me. His balls rested against the curve of my ass, his strangled groan rumbling in my ear as he paused and stayed planted inside me.

“Like you were fucking made for me. You’re mine now, Little One. Do you understand?” he growled, burying a hand in my hair and tugging my head back. He stared into my face intently, waiting for the only response I could give as he started to move. Slowly pulling his hips back, he drove in sharply and drew a whimper from me.

I nodded. “I understand.”

“You don’t, but you will,” he said, possessing my mouth with his. He fucked me into the wall with slow, deep thrusts that consumed me. My back

scraped against the rough surface, but all that mattered was him pressed to my chest, his cock driving hard and deep between my legs and filling me for the first time in my life.

Caelum’s body was the lifeline I clung to while he unmade me from the girl who had existed before his possession. He imprinted himself on my soul and my body, filling me with him until I came violently, crying out as my pussy clenched down on him, trapping him inside.

“Who is fucking you, Little One?” he asked, touching a hand to the front of my throat and bending me back over the edge. He kept fucking me through my orgasm, moving with a faster pace as he sought his own release inside my body.

“You are,” I whimpered.

“And who am I?” he asked, planting so deep I saw a void of all life as my eyes drifted closed.

“Caelum.”

“Who am I to you, Estrella?” he asked, his meaning coming into focus as my eyes opened to the dark wells of his staring down at me.

“You are mine,” I whispered, feeling him flood me with heat the moment I spoke the words. He shuddered, his body going still as he shoved deep and planted himself inside me. He held me still, dropping his mouth to trail his lips over my neck and breathe me in as if I could become a part of him.

When he pulled back and smiled down at me, those dark eyes gleamed in the moonlight.

And I knew I would never be the same.