Rider’s growl of response brought fire to my veins. He thrust up inside me, taking control. One of Rider’s hands dropped to grip my hip and the other cupped the nape of my neck. Heat flooded between my thighs at the fierce look in Rider’s eyes, despite the crude feel of the taut chain pressing coldly against my spine.

“Fuck . . . Bella,” he murmured as he guided the pace of my movements. Rider’s olive skin glistened as we moved faster, and the pressure that I had only felt one time before began to gather at the base of my spine.

Rider’s length twitched in my channel, hitting something inside that made me shiver with pleasure. “Rider!” I cried out in surprise and his heavy-lidded eyes clashed with mine. He bit his bottom lip as pushed his hips up to meet my own. My eyes rolled as the beautiful feeling of him within me became almost too much to bear.

His hand on the nape of my neck pulled me closer. Rider smothered my lips with his own and plunged his tongue into my mouth. The sensations were almost too much. He was everywhere—his taste in my mouth, his hands on my skin . . . his soul in my heart.

Rider’s tongue dueled faster with mine. His hips increased to a maddening speed, and just as I could not bear the pressure filling me, a burst of pleasure rocked through my body, so intense that I cried out against Rider’s mouth. Rider stilled as my back arched, and we swallowed each other’s moans of release as he filled me with warmth.

We gasped for breath, hands roaming over backs and arms and skin. I wound us down, slowing the rhythm of my hips until I had rocked us to a halt. I tore my mouth from Rider’s and our foreheads met. My fingers combed slowly through his long hair, and I let myself feel this moment in all its glory. In all its sweet, beautiful purity.

When I opened my eyes, it was to see a look of such peace on Rider’s face that it sewed the broken pieces of my heart back together. “You are a good man.” I repeated the words I had uttered to him before we joined.

Rider was silent in the aftermath. I drew back my head and raked damp strands of his long brown hair from his face. Rider closed his eyes under my touch, and I knew that what Maddie had said to me tonight was true.

I loved him. Somehow, miraculously, in all of the madness, stress and grief of the past few weeks . . . I had given my heart to this man. A man whose spirit was just as fragile as my own.

And I could save him.

I was determined to redeem him of his wrongs.

As my fingers soothed the worry he was holding inside, a smile of contentment tugged on his lips. That one action of happiness spurred me to make a plea, to beg for a promise from the husband I loved. “Come back to me.”

Rider tensed, and his brown eyes rolled open. He searched my desperate gaze. Moving his hand to my face, he delicately ran his fingertip over my lips. “I have to go, Bella. I have to help those who helped us. And I have to try and save the people. I cannot let them be killed because of Judah’s pride. Only I can do this . . . it is down to me now. I need to do this.”

“I know,” I said reluctantly. And I knew it was true. It did not mean that I did not wish it was different. That somehow we could all forget the past and simply rejoice in the fact that we were free.

But we were not all free. As long as Judah lived, the elders lived, Rider would never be free. Yet, at the same time, I did not know the impact losing Judah would have on Rider’s heart. Even now I could feel that he still believed he did not deserve my love. He did not deserve to be around people that wanted him for the kind soul he truly was. I worried that he would completely break when he finally rid the world of his twin.

“Just . . . return to me,” I begged again. “I . . . I need you to survive. I need you to return home.”

“I . . . ” Rider went to speak, but his raw voice cut out. “I . . . I have no home,” he said sadly.

Taking his hand from my face, I placed it over my racing heart. “Yes you do. Your home is right here.”

Lost for words, Rider leaned forward and took my mouth with his lips. He kissed me hard and long and deep. “You should go before you are caught. I could not bear for you to be hurt over this,” he said.

I did not move for a few moments, then I forced myself to lift from his lap. Rider’s hand immediately reached for my own. I smiled. His body begged me to stay even though his head told me to go.

But what Rider had not yet realized about me was that I rarely did as I was told. It was how all my personal strife had been caused. I had never been able to toe the line.

With my free hand, I pushed on Rider’s chest and lowered him to the ground. He tried to resist, but one look at my face made him obey. I settled down over his body and wrapped my arms around his waist. My head lay over his heart; it instantly called to my own.