#74429 - Take me like this, she said. She imagined running her hands across its flanks, feeling the rise and fall of its ribcage and the hot breaths steaming from its muzzle. “What kind of satisfaction was this that only birthed a new and more fervent desire? Where was the final the relief from this hot hunger? Where was the line between them? Had they always been two separate halves waiting for this moment when they would finally and eternally become one? “This was the fevered thought the king had as soon as the aching, shuddering, crashing, all-consuming force of his— “I have to go, Rupin said, standing up like a shot, teetering on his feet for a moment as if he might fall and then all but running from the room.