He’ll be here. Somewhere.

The cold finally reached her skin, a bone-deep tremble that started from within. Please. Please let him be alive. The alternative…she couldn’t even think of it.

Not in the yard. She turned toward the other towers that stood at each corner of the wall. Ravens screamed as they circled Crowe Tower, disturbed out of sleep by the noise and the fires.

A man’s form appeared, leaning against the arch that led into Crowe Tower. Mina froze, her lungs tightening in her chest. Not quite believing her eyes. “Leo,” she whispered, but the word was almost soundless.

As if he heard it, the man looked up, dark eyes locking on her from across the yard, looking at her as if she were the world, his whole world. She felt it deep within, her heart finally starting to beat again in her chest—or perhaps it always had been but she could only feel it now. One hesitant step toward him, then she couldn’t hold herself back. She broke into a run, darting between men and women alike.

Leo took a step toward her, wincing as he put his right foot down. His arms opened and she ran into them, her body hitting his with a thump, his arms curling around her and crushing her to his chest.

“You weren’t there.” She gasped. “You weren’t there when I looked, and all Lynch could tell me was something about a bomb and a Falcon and—”

“Did you miss me?” His hoarse voice rumbled through her chest. Hands stroking through her hair as he drew back just enough to look at her.

If she could have cried in that moment, she would have. Something shifted in his expression at the sight. A little bit feral, full of need.

“I thought you were dead,” she admitted in a small, choked voice. “I thought—”

And he knew. He saw it, his expression hardening. “I wasn’t going to die, Mina. Not with everything left unsaid between us. I was always coming back for you. I always will.”

“Promise me—”

His mouth met hers, cutting off the words. A hard, fierce kiss that said so much more than words ever could.

Mina melted against him, a whimper in her throat. Then he was dragging her back into the shadows under the arch, his hands relentless as they stroked her back and bottom, cupping her hard against him.

Firelight gilded his face as he drew back just enough to catch his breath, his eyes cast into saturnine pools of darkness. “I’m close to the edge tonight,” he said hoarsely, as if she couldn’t see the rise of the hunger in his eyes, driven there by strong emotion. She slid her hands into his hair, feeling the unyielding stance of his body. Trying to control himself. Fair warning. She didn’t care.

Mina fisted her hands in his collar and dragged him against her, her mouth finding his. Their mouths met again, hers just as hungry as his. Reaching out, she shoved blindly at the heavy wooden door, plunging them into the heated darkness inside the tower.

Hard hands bruised her hips, pushing her back against the wall. Leo understood the kiss as consent, biting at her throat and lifting her thighs until they locked around his hips. The heated length of his erection ground against her, and Mina was suddenly desperate for it. Shoving at his coat, his shirt, baring skin to her touch, biting at his throat until he gave a soft groan in the dark.

“Mina… Oh God…” He caught a fistful of her hair and jerked her mouth back to his, grinding his cock against her sensitive flesh. “I need to be inside you.”

She wriggled, trying to undo her buttons. “Bloody Blade. These cursed trousers.”

A masculine laugh sounded close to her ear, drawing to a heated purr at the end. “They have their appeal.” Hands slid over her hips, his body disengaging just enough for her toes to touch the ground. Leo tugged the leather down over her hips, following with his breath and lips.

A kiss to her navel, trailing lower as he dragged the trousers down over her thighs, trapping her knees together. Mina stilled, a hand trembling in his hair as his breath wet her skin, teeth sinking into the edge of her drawers, then gliding lower until his face nuzzled into the intimate hair between her thighs.

Her heart was pounding fit to tear her chest apart. “Leo,” she whispered. A single word that meant so much.

Tongue darting between her thighs, he made a sound, half groan, half growl. He dug his fingers into her flesh as he held her legs shut, that wicked tongue stealing into places that made her shudder.

“Blood and glory,” she moaned, throwing her head back, aching desperately to part her thighs and let him in. “Please.”

“Please what?”

Teeth sinking into her lip, she looked down, unable to see him in the dark. But she could feel him, his tongue tracing her clit, those broad shoulders spread before her. “Just let me… Ah…” Her head thrashed back, teeth bruising her sensitive lip. “Damn you. Get these trousers off me.”

He let her thighs part, just an inch or two, and sucked her clit into his mouth. Hard.

Mina screamed, pushing her knuckles into her mouth, her teeth sinking into them. The pressure built. She threw her head back, driving his face against her body with her hand, not caring in that moment about embarrassment. Just need. Pure, selfish need.

And he gave it to her, kissing her as deeply as he had done her mouth. His tongue darted inside her, then swirled around her clit as if he traced the letters of her name. She couldn’t take it anymore. “No… No…”

“Yes,” he breathed.

It fractured her. Blew her apart and left her gasping against the wall, one hand fisted in his hair, body racking with violent convulsions that finally ceased as he drew back. God, if she wasn’t leaning against something, she’d be a quivering pile on the floor right now, as Leo pressed a gentle kiss against her thigh.

Her whole body trembled. She could feel him slip the hem of her trousers over a boot. Callused hands slid up the back of her legs, cupping her thighs, lifting her easily as he stood and resumed his rightful place between them.

Dazed and floating in a pleasure haze, she slid her hand between them, tugging ruthlessly at the buttons on his own pants, diving that hand inside to cup him as soon as she could. A hiss whispered against her throat, Leo giving a little thrust into her palm. Every muscle in his body tensed. Fingers unsteady, she guided him between her legs, rubbing the slick head of his cock over the wetness there.

Mina moaned as he pushed inside her, sliding her fingernails down his back, raking them into the slick leather of his coat. It clung to his shoulders. She wanted it off, her mouth seeking his and tasting the heat of her own body there. Leo twisted his shoulders, the coat hitting the floor with a meaty slap as he thrust within her. Then his shirt… She couldn’t drag it open. There were buttons…bloody buttons… Her mind went blank, filling with him, with the force of those slowly increasing thrusts, the hard rasp of the stone at her back rough against her bottom.