“I can’t go back to sleep.”

“You haven’t tried.”

“I don’t need to.”

Merik sighed. Why argue with that? He had enough wrinkles without adding Safi into that mix. So on Merik marched, his fingers drifting over fern leaves or trailing through pine needles. So cool to the touch. So alive.

When he reached the sea—when the distant, glittering storm and white-capped waves hit his eyes, something inside him unfurled. Relaxed. Safi scuffed left toward a huge outcropping of limestone, and Merik followed—though he kept two long steps between them. Then, they both leaned against the rock, and for a time, stared silently at the sea, the moon, the lightning.

It was peaceful, and Merik found himself relaxing. Slipping into the rhythm of the waves and the humming insects.

Until it wasn’t peaceful anymore. At some point, the night’s pulse had gathered inside him—a pressure needing release. A violent heat like the storm on the horizon. Safi shifted, drawing Merik’s eyes. The light off the limestone cast her in a muted, moon-like glow.

Her lips sank into a scowl. “Stop staring like that, Prince.”

“Like … what?”

“Like you’re going to attack me.”

Merik laughed, a warm, genuine sound. Yet still, his gaze was trapped by Safi. By her throat in particular. Its curve was silhouetted against the limestone, and he couldn’t recall ever seeing a neck so elegantly shaped. “My apologies,” he said at last. “Attacking you is the farthest thing from my mind.”

She flushed a moonlit pink, but then, as if annoyed with herself, she popped her chin high. “If you are imagining a more … intimate sort of attack, Prince, then I should inform you I’m not that sort of girl.” She looked—and sounded—every inch a domna.

“I never thought you were.” It was Merik’s turn to flush now—not with embarrassment. With annoyance. A hint of fury. “And you shouldn’t assume that I even desire you, Domna. If I were looking for a casual tumble, then you are easily the last person I would choose.”

“Good,” she retorted, “because you’re the last person I would choose.”

“Which is your loss, I promise.”

“As if you’re so talented, Prince.”

“You know that I am.”

Her gaze snapped to Merik. Her chest expanded. Froze.

And Merik took a step closer. Then another until he was right beside her. “If you were that sort of girl, then…” Merik lifted a hand to her jaw—tentative at first, then more confident when she didn’t pull away. “Then I would start here and move down your throat.” His fingers whispered over her neck, to her collarbone—and Merik was pleased by how punctuated her breaths grew. How much her lips trembled.

“Then,” he continued, voice rumbling from somewhere low in his throat, “I’d circle back. Move behind you.” He pushed away her braid—

“Stop,” she breathed.

Merik stopped—though, Noden’s breath, he didn’t want to.

But then came a twist of Safi’s body, and suddenly her lips were to Merik’s. No, her lips were above his. Pausing. Waiting, as if she’d surprised herself and now didn’t know what to do.

A breath stirred in Merik’s chest—snagged there along with his thoughts. Yet, the inches between their bodies could have been miles and the gap between their lips felt uncrossable.

Safi’s breath scraped over his chin. Or maybe that was the breeze. Or maybe it was his own breath. He couldn’t tell anymore. It was getting hard to do anything but stare at her eyes, sparkling and close.

Her gaze moved down, her brow furrowing—like she wanted to do more. Then her hands lifted to rest over Merik’s hip bones. Her fingers curled in.

Merik’s witchery ignited.

Wind thrashed upward, spraying Safi’s hair from her face and almost pushing her away—except that Merik moved in. He pressed Safi to the rock and, in a roar of wind and heat, he kissed her.

The hunger of the day scorched through him and, to his vast pleasure, Safi took it in. She grabbed it from Merik with digging fingers and a rhythm in her hips that went beyond any four-step.

She was savage now—unabashedly so—and Merik found himself biting, tugging, and pushing. All talons and teeth and brutal, charged winds.

But he couldn’t get her close enough. No matter how hard his lips crushed hers or her hands clutched beneath his jacket … beneath his shirt …

Hell, her fingers were on his bare skin now.

Fresh heat slashed through him. His knees almost buckled, and his winds tore outward. Upward. He hefted Safi onto a low outcropping, his fingers tugging at the hem of her shirt. His mouth tasting in all the places he’d promised. Her ear—where she moaned. Her neck—where she writhed. Her collarbone …

Her hands shot between them. Pushed him away.

Merik staggered back, gaping. Lost. Safi’s chest heaved, and her eyes were huge—but Merik couldn’t see why she’d stopped this storm between them. Had he crossed some line?

“Do you,” she finally rasped, “hear that?”

Merik shook his head—still lost—and sucked in a tattered breath.

Then he heard it too. A steady beat thumping over the sea. A wind-drum.

Merik lurched around.

The Jana’s wind-drum.

In an instant, he was hurtling back the way they’d come, Safi right behind. Scrub and gravel twisted underfoot, but Merik barely noticed. The wind-drum was getting louder. The Jana would sail into view at any moment, and Merik had to know why—had to see how far his ship was from shore. He could fly to his men, but only if he had a visual …