Not a moan. Not a scream. Something that had never left her before—a sound that the body produces when it is being fundamentally rewritten, a cry that came from somewhere below language and above silence, full-throated and undisguised, her deep voice carrying it to the mountain walls and getting it back as echo.
He stopped. Let her feel it. Let her body process the inch.
Her hands had gone to the rock on either side of her—both palms flat, fingers pressing into the stone hard enough that the surface crumbled slightly under Stone bloodline strength. Her face was upturned, jaw completely open, eyes tracking something in the sky that wasn't there.
He moved.
Pressed in.
The second inch.
"'—NGH—NHHGH—NGH—'"
---
Time had ceased to mean anything she could hold.
