So I leaned down and put my mouth on him.

He jerked at the contact with a barked, “Shit,” and I laughed around him, even as I took him deeper into my mouth.

His hands were now fisted in the sheets, white-knuckled as I slid my tongue over him, grazing slightly with my teeth. His groan was fire to my blood.

Honestly, I was surprised he waited the full minute before interrupting me.

Pouncing was a better word for what Rhys did.

One second, he was in my mouth, my tongue flicking over the broad head of him; the next, his hands were on my waist and I was being flipped onto my front. He nudged my legs apart with his knees, spreading me as he gripped my hips, tugging them up, up before he sheathed himself deep in me with a single stroke.

I moaned into the pillow at every glorious inch of him, rising onto my forearms as my fingers grappled into the sheets.

Rhys pulled out and plunged back in, eternity exploding around me in that instant, and I thought I might break apart from not being able to get enough of him.

“Look at you,” he murmured as he moved in me, and kissed the length of my spine.

I managed to rise up enough to see where we were joined—to see the sunlight shimmer off me against the rippling night of him, merging and blending, enriching. And the sight of it wrecked me so thoroughly that I climaxed with his name on my lips.

Rhys hauled me up against him, one hand cupping my breast as the other rolled and stroked that bundle of nerves between my legs, and I couldn’t tell where one climax ended and the second began as he thrust in again, and again, his lips on my neck, on my ear.

I could die from this, I decided. From wanting him, from the pleasure of being with him.

He twisted us, pulling out only long enough to lie on his back and haul me over him.

There was a glimmer in the darkness—a flash of lingering pain, a scar. And I understood why he wanted me like this, wanted to end it like this, with me astride him.

It broke my heart. I leaned forward to kiss him, softly, tenderly.

As our mouths met, I slid onto him, the fit so much deeper, and he murmured my name into my mouth. I kissed him again and again, and rode him gently. Later—there would be other times to go hard and fast. But right now … I wouldn’t think of why this position was one he wanted to end in, to have me banish the stained dark with the light.

But I would glow—for him, I’d glow. For my own future, I’d glow.

So I sat up, hands braced on his broad chest, and unleashed that light in me, letting it drive out the darkness of what had been done to him, my mate, my friend.

Rhys barked my name, thrusting his hips up. Stars wheeled as he slammed deep.

I think the light pouring out of me might have been starlight, or maybe my own vision fractured as release barreled into me again and Rhys found his, gasping my name over and over as he spilled himself in me.

When we were done, I remained atop him, fingertips digging into his chest, and marveled at him. At us.

He tugged on my wet hair. “We’ll have to find a way to put a damper on that light.”

“I can keep the shadows hidden easily enough.”

“Ah, but you only lose control of those when you’re pissed. And since I have every intention of making you as happy as a person can be … I have a feeling we’ll need to learn to control that wondrous glow.”

“Always thinking; always calculating.”

Rhys kissed the corner of my mouth. “You have no idea how many things I’ve thought up when it comes to you.”

“I remember mention of a wall.”

His laugh was a sensual promise. “Next time, Feyre, I’ll fuck you against the wall.”

“Hard enough to make the pictures fall off.”

Rhys barked a laugh. “Show me again what you can do with that wicked mouth.”

I obliged him.

It was wrong to compare, because I knew probably every High Lord could keep a woman from sleeping all night, but Rhysand was … ravenous. I got perhaps an hour total of sleep that night, though I supposed I was to equally share the blame.

I couldn’t stop, couldn’t get enough of the taste of him in my mouth, the feel of him inside of me. More, more, more—until I thought I might burst out of my skin from pleasure.

“It’s normal,” Rhys said around a mouthful of bread as we sat at the table for breakfast. We’d barely made it into the kitchen. He’d taken one step out of bed, giving me a full view of his glorious wings, muscled back, and that beautiful backside, and I’d leaped on him. We’d tumbled to the floor and he’d shredded the pretty little area rug beneath his talons as I rode him.

“What’s normal?” I said. I could barely look at him without wanting to combust.

“The … frenzy,” he said carefully, as if fearful the wrong word might send us both hurtling for each other before we could get sustenance into our bodies. “When a couple accepts the mating bond, it’s … overwhelming. Again, harkening back to the beasts we once were. Probably something about ensuring the female was impregnated.” My heart paused at that. “Some couples don’t leave the house for a week. Males get so volatile that it can be dangerous for them to be in public, anyway. I’ve seen males of reason and education shatter a room because another male looked too long in their mate’s direction, too soon after they’d been mated.”

I hissed out a breath. Another shattered room flashed in my memory.

Rhys said softly, knowing what haunted me, “I’d like to believe I have more restraint than the average male, but … Be patient with me, Feyre, if I’m a little on edge.”