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I froze.

My Dandelion.

Every muscle in my body turned to hard, impenetrable diamond. Knowing he recognized me was one thing. Hearing him say it aloud was something else entirely.

I returned the knife to his throat once more. “I will kill you.”

He shook his head sadly. “No, you won’t. You can’t kill me.”

My jaw tightened. “I will.”

“No,” he whispered.

Suddenly, his hands cupped my cheeks, and a shiver ran through me as a surge of energy flooded my body. Somehow, he’d broken free of his restraints, and I had no idea when he’d managed it.

Had he been free this whole time?

“Did you let me carve you?” My voice broke.

“Yes.”

“Why?”

My grip loosened, and the knife slipped from my fingers, clattering against the wooden floor.

A thud that echoed inside my heart.

He surged to his feet, gripped the back of my hair hard, and pinned me against the desk.

The movement sent a rush of his scent toward me. Cedar and sin tonight, beneath the familiar hints of bergamot and coffee. My throat was dry and burning, but other parts of me certainly weren’t. Are. You. Fucking. Kidding. Me. Body? Now is NOT the time to get horny for him.

Especially since you just fucked him only hours ago.

But that was the thing about my body. She was always a fucking traitor, and she would always want this man in any lifetime, in any world, in any version of him.

Including when he was the devil in human flesh, when he was sin made manifest.

Severin Volkov would always be my devil.

A shiver crawled up my spine.

He looked ready to devour me, and unfortunately, desire stirred in my stomach too, the heat rushing through me, overwhelming and powerful.

It was ripping me apart, and so were all the other overwhelming things I was feeling.

I was volcanic rock, hardened on the outside. Crusted, black, unyielding. But now the surface was beginning to crack, and beneath it, molten lava still burned. Beneath my hurt and pain, my heart still sang to him.

It still wanted him.

Severin’s grip tightened in my hair as he pulled me closer. I expected anger, but what I saw was something far, far worse.

Hunger. A desperation unlike anything I’d ever seen.

Then his mouth was on mine, his tongue tangling with my own in a heartbroken kiss, thirteen years of pent-up sorrow pouring into that single moment.

It was different from the rage-fueled fucking earlier.

That was fury.