I once thought freedom would feel like air.

It didn’t.

It felt like teeth.

It felt like Kael’s knot, swollen inside me, holding me in place as the ground trembled from the army we’d summoned.

It felt like fire spreading through my spine as I rose bare, blood-soaked, and crowned in ash.

The First Mother demanded sacrifice.

And she always claimed it through pleasure.

A tether of energy still hummed between Kael and me, raw from our last ritual beneath Velhara’s flame. But tonight ...