Cherion’s pulse was a frantic, visible thing against the pale hollow of his throat. Above him, Zarius was a stark, dark contrast against the tangled dark furs, his knuckles white where they gripped the bedding.

The only sound in the room was the wet, rhythmic slide of Zarius withdrawing his fingers from Cherion’s heat. He didn’t pull away far. He stayed on his knees, looming over the bed, his chest heaving under his fine linen shirt as if he’d just run for miles.

Cherion felt the weight of that gaze more than the biting chill of the drafty room. His thighs were doing that thing again, that fine, uncontrollable trembling that made him feel like he was slowly falling apart. The more Zarius watched him unravel, the worse it got. Another shiver, another sharp breath, another pulse of heat flooding through Cherion’s veins.

Then, the stillness snapped.

Zarius leaned in. He just dipped his head into the space between Cherion’s knees. He swirled his tongue around the sensitive, weeping peak before drawing the entirety of Cherion’s fevered pulse deep into the dark of his throat. The suction was intense, a deep, rhythmic pressure that made Cherion’s vision go white at the edges.

Cherion jolted. It was a violent, electric snap of his entire spine, his heels digging frantically into the thick pelts as if trying to find purchase on a cliffside. His hand flew up, slapping over his mouth to catch the sound that was already clawing its way out of his throat.

God, the heat. In the frost-nipped air of the cabin, Zarius’s mouth felt like liquid gold, searing and absolute. He took Cherion into the dark, wet warmth of his mouth with a hunger that was frankly terrifying. The first sweep of the Duke’s tongue wasn’t tentative or gentle. It was a targeted, rhythmic strike, a masterclass in undoing the walls of denial Cherion had been hiding behind for far too long.

Behind his pressed fingers, Cherion let out a sound. It was muffled, broken, half-moan, half-sob, and it tasted like salt and pure embarrassment. He felt like a fool. He felt like a mess.

Zarius felt the vibration of that stifled cry against his lips, and it clearly wasn’t what he wanted. He stopped. Just for a heartbeat.

With a low, guttural huff, Zarius forcefully pulled Cherion’s hand away from his face. He pinned it, his fingers circling Cherion’s wrist like iron manacles as he pressed it into the furs above Cherion’s head. He loomed. He was so large that he blotted out the moon entirely, his face glistening with a fine sheen of sweat and... other things. His expression was raw. It was the face of a man who had finally stopped pretending he wasn’t a monster.

"Don’t," Zarius rumbled. The sound didn’t just come from his throat; it vibrated through the mattress, through Cherion’s bones, settling somewhere deep and dangerous in his gut. "Don’t you dare hide from me now."

"Zarius, I..." Cherion’s voice was a wrecked thing, a fragment of a thought.

"I want to hear it," Zarius interrupted, his voice dropping to a jagged whisper. "Every shattered gasp. Every time you lose your breath because of me. I want to devour the sound of my name on your tongue until there’s nothing left of it."

He didn’t wait for an answer. He leaned down, his nose grazing the pulse point at Cherion’s hip, and he just... inhaled. Zarius breathed him in slowly, the warm sweetness clinging to Cherion’s skin enough to make something deep in his chest rumble in response. A low growl vibrated from his chest before he could stop it.

"You think you sound shameful?" Zarius muttered against his skin, his breath brushing over the damp curls at Cherion’s groin. He looked up then, his eyes a brilliant, terrifying red. "You’re wrong. Your moans... the sounds you make when I touch you... they’re beautiful."

He paused, his gaze raking over Cherion’s naked form, trembling, flushed, and utterly exposed on the bed. A dark, twisted sort of smirk touched the Duke’s lips. "I’ve spent more nights than I can count imagining how you’d look under me, Cherion. But reality?" He shook his head, a lock of dark hair falling over his glowing eyes. "Reality is so much more delicious than the lies I told myself."

Cherion looked at the lock of dark hair falling over Zarius’s eyes and felt a frantic, sharp pulse of heat flooding his veins. He tried to summon a bit of his usual fire, a bit of that stubbornness that had kept him going through every trial, but it had all melted under the Duke’s starving gaze. He was a mess, flushed, trembling, and utterly undone by the truth.

"Really?" he managed to whisper, his voice trembling with a mix of disbelief and a desperate, rising need. "Well, if the reality is so much better than your imagination, it seems pretty stupid to just stand there talking about it. Stop describing the meal and actually taste it, Zarius."

The "worship" resumed, but the tempo had changed. It stopped feeling like simple teasing and started feeling like a full assault on Cherion’s ability to think straight. Zarius was using everything, his mouth, his teeth, and that incredible, heightened sense of smell. He was hunting every drop of proof, his tongue following the slick, heavy moisture that Cherion was staining the dark furs with.

The shameless, wet sounds of Zarius’s obsession filled the room, competing with the frantic thud of Cherion’s heart. Cherion felt his mind starting to slip, the boundaries of who he was and who the Duke was blurring into a single, agonizing point of need.

Then, Zarius pulled back. The sudden absence of that heat made Cherion whimper, a pathetic, reaching sound he would have been mortified by five minutes ago. His hips gave a small, involuntary twitch, trying to chase the contact.

Zarius rose from between Cherion’s knees, the mattress groaning and tilting under his massive weight. He crowded back in, his knees pinning Cherion’s thighs wide as he braced his heavy arms on either side of Cherion’s head.

The sudden thud of his weight settling into the mattress was like a gavel striking a desk, final, heavy, and impossible to appeal. In the silver moonlight, he looked less like a Duke and more like a predator that had finally cornered its prize.

When Zarius shifted, revealing the blunt, aching reality of his erection, the air didn’t just leave the cabin, it felt like it vanished from the world. Cherion’s breath caught so hard it hurt.

It was a visual shock, thick, pulsing, and intimidatingly large, a biological testament to a werewolf heritage that demanded total submission.

There was nothing polite about it. It was thick and heavy, a scorching bar of iron that seemed to radiate its own gravity. Cherion looked at him, his eyes wide and dazed, his mouth slightly agape.

"Oh god," Cherion whispered.

Zarius reached down, his fingers wrapping around the pulsing, heavy base of his own erection. He guided the scorching heat of himself against Cherion’s inner thigh, testing the friction. The sight of it made Cherion’s vision swim.

"Look at me, Cherion," Zarius commanded, his voice strained and rough with a hunger that had finally reached its breaking point. "I want you to keep your eyes open. I want you to see exactly who is going to be breaking you."