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I give it to her. I pin her there with my body, letting her feel exactly what she does to me. She gasps again. Her nails dig through the linen of my shirt.

“Lukas…” she breathes against my mouth. “What are you doing to me?”

At that, I go still.

I hear it again:Lukas, what are you doing to me?

But it’s not Rae’s voice saying it anymore.

It’s Elena’s.

She stands where Rae stood a moment ago. Her hair is thinner than it was when we met, and frayed at the ends. Dark circles ring her eyes. She’s lost weight—too much weight. The bones of her clavicle jut out beneath the thin straps of a white cotton sundress with blue flowers on the hem.

I’m the one doing this to her. Life with me is killing her one day at a time. She’s wasting, wasting, wasting away.

Soon, I’ll finish the job.

“You can’t keep doing this,” she begs. Her voice is tired. So fucking tired.

“I’ll do whatever I see best,” I snarl. “I wasn’t asking your permission.”

“Lukas, I?—”

“I said no. I’m done with this argument, Elena. Don’t bring it up again.”

Her eyes meet mine. They’re a deep, rich amber, warm and bright and full of sorrow.

“You think you get to decide?” I growl. My face is inches from hers. “You think this is your choice to make?”

“It’s my body,” she whispers. “My life.”

“Your life belongs to me.” My fingers dig into her shoulders hard enough to bruise. “I decide when it ends. I decide how. Not you.Me.”

The memory fractures. Sunlight bleaches everything white again.

And then I’m back.

Rae is staring at me. Her lips are swollen from kissing, her eyes wide with concern.

“Lukas?” She touches my face. “Where did you go just now?”

I release her and step back. The distance between us yawns open like a gaping, festering wound.

“This was a mistake.”

Rae’s hand falls from my face. “What?”

“This is wrong.” I take another step back. The distance helps, but only a little. “You’re half my age. You’re un?—”

I stop myself before I can finish the word, clamping my jaw shut so hard my molars ache.

“Unwhat?” She follows me, closing the gap I just created. “Say what you were going to say.”

The fever is back and worse than ever. The other night, with Kir outside the gala, I tried to make myself feel rage the way normal men feel it. I couldn’t then—all I felt was the endless winter I’ve lived in since the day I was born.

Until now, that is.

Here, with her, I’m burning, burning, burning. I’m a wildfire blazing out of control, and she is the match that started it all.