Dawn hadn't breached the grate yet. Anaktoria readjusted, her leathers rasping against the wooden bench. Cassandra's head had migrated again, now pressed tight against her inner thigh. The prophet's breath ghosted through worn leather, directly over...

  Godsdamn involuntary geography.

  Anaktoria clenched her jaw. Every minute taut wire in her body screamed restraint. She tried the temple shove again. Gentle pressure. Cassandra only mumbled... something about stolen lemons... and pressed closer. Her nose nestled deeper into the crease below Anaktoria’s hip bone. Lips, parting slightly now, made a damp, insolent brand directly over the root of her fiercest heat.

  Spartan discipline. Spartan fucking discipline.

  Anaktoria clenched her jaw. This was new. The warmth. The softness. The terrifying vulnerability. Her world pivoted on violence and control. This? This was a surrender she hadn’t ordered. Her abdomen locked tight. Muscles deep inside contracted sharply, savagely, unwillingly, clamping down on a phantom pressure. Heat surged. A tremor wracked her thighs. She clamped them tighter, trapping the prophet’s oblivious skull.

  Do. Not. Move.

  Across the small cell, Damon shifted. Anaktoria’s gaze snapped to him. He laid in the same position, eyes closed, but the thin fabric of his trousers strained against an unmistakable ridge. The sight punched her low in the gut far harder than she expected. Heat roared anew, painfully specific. Years of refusing messy entanglements dissolved. Mortality pressed in. Exhaustion. The thud of her own pulse against Cassandra’s skin.

  He opened his eyes. Met hers. No words hung suspended in the damp air.

  His gaze held hers, steady as a star. Questioning. Waiting.

  Anaktoria moved. She laid Cassandra to rest, then slid off the bench. Crossed the two strides separating them. Knees sank, bracketing Damon’s hips. She shoved her leathers down with a savage jerk, just far enough. Her hands found hardness pushing against worn fabric. It ripped easily.

  Surprise tightened his features for a heartbeat. Pain spasmed across his shoulder as he tried to sit up, but her wild, haunted look stopped him. His free hand came up, caressing her instead.

  He was too slow. Anaktoria took him in hand. Hard. Scalding heat pulsed against her palm. She positioned herself, ignoring the frantic thud of her heart. Then she plunged. Down. Hard and sure. Filling her. Complete. A gasped breath ripped from Damon's throat—instantly choked off. She came down on him with her full weight. A brutal claim. Solid. Anchoring. Stilling the shimmering panic inside her for one stark, still moment.

  The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  Damon lay sheathed beyond reason. Buried to the hilt. He lay rigid beneath her, braced against inevitability. Anaktoria didn’t move. She sat, welded onto him, her hips cradling his root. Her skin burned. Her inner muscles, still clenched from Cassandra’s accidental scorching, spasmed around the intrusion, tighter, possessive. The sheer, shocking fullness pulled a fractured sound from her throat.

  Instinct drove her then. Desperation sublimated into slow, deep glides, grinding her pelvis against his. Seeking… obliteration. Finding only friction. Frustration coiled, sharp.

  She angled her hips slightly. Forward. Forward on the upstroke. Damon slipped nearly free.

  Then she slammed down. Harder.

  There.

  A lightning fork jolted into her. She stopped dead. Every muscle locked like fortress gates. Her breathless exclamation, trapped behind gritted teeth. Fireworks, blinding and silent, burst deep within her, behind bone. An anchor dropping into strange, deep water. A sickening, impossible sweetness bloomed, shocking in its violence.

  Trapped by the sensation. Damon felt her inner grip turn merciless, slick walls clamping around him like a fist. He pushed up powerfully, rhythmically, instinctively burying himself deeper inside that lethal clutch.

  Her cry choked off against his neck where she’d pitched forward. Rocking started again. Tight, frantic little motions. Jagged circles chasing the impossible point where sweetness met agony. Each minute shift dragged his rigid length deep against that fiery inner wall, triggering tremors that ripped through her core. Sensation backed up, flooding her like a breached dam. Pressure built, immense, terrifying, undeniable. A sun forming inside her belly.

  "Damon...!" His name strangled itself as the floodgate cracked. A vast, golden rush detonated outwards, radiating heat and light through marrow, filling every vessel, cracking every dam. It submerged her. A resonance that drowned out reality. Troy, salt, death. Only vibration and impossible, liquid fire unfolding endlessly beneath her skin.

  Her body arched, suspended in a silent scream. Damon’s own climax crashed against hers. Limbs clamped tight, hers around his waist, his good hand tangling into her hair. She shook, wracked by silent convulsions as the slow, molten weight poured through her, hollowing her out, leaving nothing but the thrum echoing through her bones.

  Dissolution came.

  Slowly, so slowly, the world seeped back. Her own tremors subsiding into fragile stillness. She stayed fused to him, trembling, soaked in salty sweat and release, utterly spent. The terrible, golden resonance faded, leaving behind an unfamiliar, quiet hollow. And the ache.

  Cassandra sighed deeply nearby. Then she resumed snoring.

  Anaktoria flinched as if stabbed. She pushed herself off Damon’s body, a clumsy retreat. Hands fumbling, trembling uncontrollably, stuffing her back into armor. Her spine stiffened as she turned away, facing the wooden wall, a captain restored. Dawn light crept pale fingers through the grate.

  She didn't move, her stance rigid, facing the surface as if it held secrets she desperately needed to read before the light came. Still hollow. Still echoing. Still drowning in a deep, deep sea only she had found. Her own private Atlantis. And she had no map to get back.

  There was one thing she could do for someone else, however.

  She sat back on the bench, letting Cassandra burrow back into her lap.