LOGINEli's povThe door was unlocked like he had known I would come.Ash stood by the east window with the last of the night still on his shoulders. No questions. No recriminations. Just the look that had always been the same—mine, inevitable, older than the years we had lost. I crossed the room. He met me halfway. The first kiss was slow enough to hurt. Years of distance folded into the simple press of his mouth and the way his hands found my waist like they had never forgotten the map.“You came,” he said against my mouth.“I never left.” My hands were already under his shirt. “Not where it counted.”We undressed each other like men who had practiced this in every dream and still could not believe the fabric was real. Skin to skin felt like the first true thing in a long time. Ash walked me backward to the bed and laid me down with a care that made my throat tight. He kissed the inside of my wrist, the hollow of my throat, the place over my heart, then lower, taking his time like the sun
Cass’ povThe storm hit like the mountain had been saving it.Wind screamed past the aerie mouth. Rain turned to ice on the outer stone. Vael sealed us in with his body and the partial shift of wings until the worst of it passed, then took me on the furs while thunder still rolled in the peaks. No patience. No talk of valleys. Just heat and the claim burning brighter every time lightning flashed white across his shoulders.I held on to the pelts and took every thrust like the storm outside was only weather and the real weather was him.“On your back,” he said when the thunder moved east. “Look at me. No more rope. No more counting days. Say what you want without the storm as an excuse.”I stripped the shirt and lay back. He pushed my knees up, spat, and shoved into me in one long burning drive that made the furs slide on stone. Full. Raw. The claim in my shoulder lit like a brand under his hand.“Say it,” he muttered against my mouth. “Not survival. Not the gold you never got out with
Cass’ povDays blurred into heat and stone and the sound of wings folding. I stopped counting sunrises and started counting the times the claim throbbed when he looked at me. Between them I ate what he brought, walked the ledge when he allowed it, and learned the exact creak of stone outside the nest so I would know when to bite my wrist and when I could breathe.Vael took me on the furs when the morning thermals rose, hand over my mouth so the mountain would not carry the sound.He took me on the stone lip when the sun cut white across the valley, my chest scraping rock, his voice low and nasty while he drove in. “Soft thief on my ledge. You’re not looking down anymore. You’re taking it. Quiet for the wind. Loud for me.”I started asking on the second day. Harder. Don’t stop. Say I’m not leaving. The words left my mouth like a leak I could not patch. He gave me harder and did not let me take the asking back.When pride surfaced between thrusts and I told him to get off, he laughed ag
Cass's povThe vault should have been empty at the dark of the moon. I had timed the guards, the thermal drafts, the old wards that slept when the mountain turned its face from the sun. I was wrong about the dragon. The air itself had been lying to me for weeks.Gold shifted under my boots like a living thing. Coin and plate and cups that had not seen daylight in a century. My bag was already half full when the air changed—heat, pressure, the smell of ozone and something older. Vael unfolded from the shadows at the far end of the hoard as if the dark had been wearing him.“Thief,” he said. Not loud. The word carried anyway. “Hands off my gold. Eyes on me.”I ran. He was faster. One moment the exit tunnel was three strides away; the next my chest hit a wall of heat and muscle and I was on my back in the coin with a knee between my thighs and eyes like forge-fire looking down at me.“Soft hands,” Vael murmured. “Fast pulse. You came for treasure. You found the owner.” He dragged my trou
Reid's povThere was no call sheet on the table. Only Julian, collar open, the unsigned extension beside a glass of water I did not need. The city burned gold behind him. He had dismissed everyone. The door was already locked. My phone still held Monday’s note: **After. You know where.** I had known. I had come.“No cameras tonight,” he said. “No script. On your back. Look at me. Say what you’re staying for without the money in the sentence.”I stripped and lay back on the bed that had stopped feeling like a prop. He pushed my knees up, spat, and shoved into me in one long drive that made the frame knock the wall. Full. Raw. His eyes stayed on mine while he fucked me in steady, mean strokes.“Say it,” he muttered. “Not the fee. Not the apartment stipend. Me.”“You.” Ugly. Steady. “Not the transfers. You. Don’t make me say it twice. Harder. Don’t stop.”“Good.” He snapped his hips. “The public gets the double. I get you. Indefinitely. Take it.”I came first with my eyes open, watching
Reid's povThursday was the airport walk-through. I wore the grey. I nodded at two executives and ignored the phones aimed at my jawline. Julian’s publicist murmured timing in my earpiece. I gave them the left-sided smile and the silence that people mistook for power. Someone called Mr. Voss from behind a barrier; I half-turned the way he did in footage and kept walking.The second the SUV doors closed, Julian—who had been “unavailable upstairs”—pulled me across the leather, shoved my formal trousers down, and fucked me with a hand over my mouth while the privacy partition stayed up.“You held the face,” he muttered against my ear. “Now hold this. Quiet for the driver. Loud for me.”I came first, shaking, spilling against the seat. He filled me before the airport loop even ended and fixed my clothes with the same precision he used on a term sheet. “Upstairs when we land at the tower. Don’t clean up. I want you wet when you walk into the elevator.”I walked into the elevator wet. He to







