the string that had kept him from being able to perform. Only to be allowed to remember her for an excruciating moment afterward—a moment where he’d hated himself so much more than he ever could have hated her, because he couldn’t believe he’d forgotten her so easily.
And then Osiris would take it all away to begin again.
She felt it all, saw each horrible moment flash between them, his agony a palpable force that threatened to destroy them both.
Her heart fractured at the trials he’d endured. But it mended when she experienced his love and adoration. She understood that it hadn’t been him doing those things—it’d been Osiris.
“Don’t let him exist between us,” she said, threading her fingers through Sethios’s hair to pull him away from her neck. Tears glistened in his green eyes, his purgatory a whiplash to her senses. “I forgive you, Sethios.”
“You shouldn’t.”
“But it wasn’t you,” she stressed, cupping his cheeks. “I refuse to allow him to alter our bond. If I can come out of reformation and still love you, then you can pull yourself out of this historical loop and remember how to love me.”
She undulated her hips beneath him to prove a point. He was still hard inside her, his body raging with the need to copulate and destroy.
It’d been so long. He’d gone without any form of pleasure all these years, living in a perpetual state of agony he hadn’t fully felt until this moment. It was brought on by their reignited link and his soul confessing everything to hers in a whirlwind of minutes.
She’d absorbed the brunt of it, returning the favor by blasting him with her own memories. Except hers were all isolated to a box. She’d only drowned for a few hours before her mother had found her.
And then Vera had altered Caro’s mind, demolishing all her links and bastardizing her familial bonds with harsh, looping sequences.
It’d all been unraveled upon her arriving here—wherever they were, surrounded by darkness and snow. She didn’t care where he’d taken her, just that she was with him, that they’d survived and were finally together again.
“Remind me who we are to each other, Sethios,” she whispered. “Forget the past. Forget the pain. Forget it all. Just exist with me. Teach me how to feel like you did that first time. Make me enjoy it.”
He’d already blown her mind once since waking, but she knew he could do better. With his blood flowing through her veins, the results would be cataclysmic, and that was just what they both needed to survive.
“Take me, Sethios.”
“Angel,” he breathed, his lips whispering across her cheek to her neck. He adored her with his mouth, his touch featherlight against her skin. She had no idea where the knife had gone, lost somewhere in the sheets, but if she found it, she’d draw blood.
“More,” she demanded.
“Patience,” he returned.
Her throat vibrated with annoyance. She’d been patient for far too long. “No.” She wrapped her legs around his waist, her thighs tightening to a death grip. “Fuck me.” Those two words from her mouth had always excited him.
His cock pulsed inside her, his body shuddering in response. “Caro.”
“Fuck me. Now.”
“Who taught you those dirty words?” he mused against her ear. “I thought you preferred fuzz.”
“I prefer you,” she countered. “Now stop delaying and give me your cock, Sethios. Make it hurt. Make me bleed. Make me yours.”
“Fuck, Caro,” he whispered, shuddering all over again. “You don’t sound like a Seraphim who needs to learn how to feel, sweetheart.” He slid almost all the way out of her and drove back in, causing her to cry out in both surprise and delight. “It’s like someone already gave you a lesson in ecstasy.”
“Several,” she moaned. “But I need more.”
He repeated the action of slipping out all the way to the tip and slamming back into her. “Are you addicted to me, angel?”
“Yes,” she hissed, arching into him. “You’re mine.”
“Damn right I am,” he agreed, his mouth finding hers and silencing them both as his body began to really move once more.
Their dance was one destined for the stars, creating a new history underlined in survival, blood, and forbidden affection.
Caro allowed him to plow the reformative thoughts right from her mind, her spirit rejoicing in the connection reverberating between them.
She felt his guilt and sorrow melt away, replaced by a hunger to sate them both. His heart beat with hers. His breaths mingled with hers. His soul married hers.