When he released me, I spun on him, breathless and annoyed and a little dizzy. We were going to be here all day, and being so close to him was maddening. “You have an unreasonable number of weapons.”
“Then take them.”
So I did. I reached for the strap at his thigh, unclipping the sheaththere. My fingers brushed the inside of his leg, and I pretended I didn’t notice how his breath hitched. He moved to block me, our bodies whirling around each other, but I’d always been going for the throwing knife in his bracer.
“Mine,” I said, snatching it and tossing it aside.
His smile sharpened. “Starting to enjoy this?”
“No. Being near you at all is a necessary evil.”
“Mm. I see.” His steady golden gaze suggested he saw more than I wished. “Well, let me show you another trick.”
He swept my legs effortlessly from beneath me, and I was falling before I had time to respond. But he caught me, his solid arms closing around me, keeping me from falling. He took us both to the ground, careful, controlled, maybe evengentle.
His hand raced down my leg and caught the knife from my boot. He tossed it to one side, and it clattered on the stone.
I rolled up to my feet, putting distance between us.
“Good,” he told me. “You were quick. You’re still disarmed, but at least you’re on your feet.”
“You knew I was carrying a knife?”
“It’s my job to know. I’m glad you were, though you need something better than that little kitchen knife.” He reached down and plucked a knife from his boot that I’d never seen; when he pulled it from its leather scabbard, it was narrow and deadly. He pushed it back into the dark scabbard and tossed it to me.
I caught the sheathed knife clumsily. “You trust me to be armed around you?”
“I’d trust you with my life,” he said lightly, and I whistled at the lie.
“Well, that would be a mistake,” I promised him.
He stood waiting, letting his arms fall to his sides. “Show me that startling speed at which you learn again.”
I shouldn’t care about impressing him, but gods, that challenge sparked something inside me.
I lunged for one of his knives, my eyes tracking it before I moved. He reached for my wrist, drawing me against his hard chest.
Just as I’d expected. I looked up into his face, wide-eyed, my heartpounding. His lips and mine were as close together as they ever were, given how much taller he stood.
My gaze lingered on his lips, at the soft, sensual shape of them above that hard jaw. Fieran might have a tender side, and his mouth betrayed him.
So did the way his golden eyes softened as he closed the distance between us.
He’d bowed his head the way I’d hoped; I caught him with an arm looping his throat, clumsy and too hasty, but he was slow to push me away. Our lips brushed in a faint kiss just as my fingers wrapped the hilt of the dagger at his thigh; I pulled it out in one smooth move.
His arm wrapped my waist, taking us both down again, and I jolted as I found myself straddling his lap, my knees on the hard floor. But I’d acted with just as much impulse, and I gripped the knife to his throat. “Last one.”
Fieran’s golden eyes sparkled. “Marry me.”
I groaned and tossed the knife away, rolling away from him onto the floor to look up at the stars.
While I studied the stars, I could feel him studying me.
“Are those mortal stars too?” I pointed out the bright golden stars dotted amid the misty sparkle of the majority of the stars.
He rolled over onto his back. He didn’t seem to need me to point to understand what I was saying. “Yes.”
“What makes some of them brighter?”
