Chapter 4

Carya’s POV

The wagon rolled on through the endless, blinding white.

Lilith stayed at the front of the carriage, her back turned as she meticulously sorted the last of the herb packets. Every so often, she glanced over her shoulder, tossing out some mild question about the cold or the remaining distance.

Each time, I had to answer. Each time, I prayed my voice wouldn't betray me.

Rein’s hand was already busy under the heavy cloak.

With a terrifying, wicked patience, his rough fingers traveled from the bare skin of my outer thigh, climbing higher and higher until they found the soaked cotton of my panties.

He pressed down with two fingers, grinding the wet fabric against me in slow, exacting circles. My hips jerked, instinctively wanting to arch into his touch. I locked every muscle in my body, forcing my face to remain deadpan while my mother hummed barely three feet away.

Fresh heat and wetness flooded my panties. The more I hated the way my body reacted, the wetter I became for him.

He knew it.

Every time Lilith’s head started to turn, his fingers went completely still. The second she looked away, the wicked torment resumed—firmer, deeper, always stopping the exact moment my erratic breathing threatened to grow too loud.

“Carya,” Lilith asked suddenly, “does your ankle still hurt?”

I forced the words past my tight throat. “It’s… better.”

The absolute second she turned back around, Rein hooked one thick finger under the edge of my soaked panties and shoved the fabric aside.

Cool air kissed my overheated skin for only a fraction of a second before the rough pad of his fingertip slid directly against my slick folds. No cloth left between us. He stroked once—slow and agonizingly deliberate—and then plunged inside.

A broken whimper almost tore from my throat. I bit down on my lip hard enough to taste copper.

He worked me with ruthless precision. One thick finger, then a second, stretching me, curling upward to strike the exact spot that made my vision flash white. His thumb found my sensitive peak, pressing down in tight, devastating circles. The dual sensation was enough to shatter my mind.

My thighs trembled helplessly on either side of his massive hand. I could feel how obscenely wet I was, how easily his fingers glided in and out, how my body viciously clenched around him against every order I gave it.

The guilt, the hatred, the raw, shameful need—they all crashed together violently.

I tried to focus on the image of my father’s broken saber. On the icy snow. On the reason I had started this twisted game. It was useless.

The more I desperately reached for my hatred, the harder my body arched back into his hand, begging for more pressure, more friction, more of the very man I had sworn to use as a weapon.

Lilith spoke again, mentioning something about the medical supplies. I answered in a voice that audibly cracked.

Rein never stopped. He only slowed his pace just enough to keep me from making an obscene sound, then drove his fingers deeper the very second her attention returned to the herbs.

I was shaking uncontrollably. My nails dug into the wooden bench hard enough to splinter the wood. Shame and fury and unwanted, mind-numbing pleasure tangled so tightly inside me I could no longer separate them.

I had climbed onto this path for revenge. I was the one who had arrogantly pressed my foot against him first.

But now I was the one trapped beneath his cloak, soaking his fingers, silently praying the grinding of the wagon wheels would drown out the wet, indecent sounds of his hand inside me.

The pressure built in my lower belly until it was unbearable.

The orgasm tore through me in a violent, silent spasm. My inner walls locked viciously around his fingers. I clamped my teeth down hard, shaking so violently I was terrified the heavy fur cloak would rustle and give us away.

My wetness flooded his hand. Wave after wave ripped through me, endless and ruthless—

And in that exact, shuddering moment, Lilith turned.