I huff a sound that might have been a laugh if it weren’t so bitter. “You’ve never met Rafe. He doesn’t see shades of gray. He’ll want to test me the second I step into his shadow. And Malek—he’ll slice me apart with words before his claws. He never needed fists to make me bleed.”
Her hand squeezes mine, small but sure, and she doesn’t look away when I stare down at her. “Then let him try. Let them both try. Because I’ll be there, Cassian. You don’t get to do this alone anymore.”
The words cut sharper than any threat, because they strike at the part of me that has always stood apart, convinced that distance was the only mercy I had left to give. Yet she says it with such certainty, such stubborn fire, that I almost believe her.
Almost.
I turn from her before she can see too deep, my hands busying themselves with the packs I laid out earlier. Dried meat, spare clothes, ammunition, rope. The practical things of survival, the things that keep hands moving when the mind wants to drift where it shouldn’t. I roll each item into place, tight and precise, because order is the only thing I can control when the rest feels like it’s already slipping away.
She watches me, quiet for once, until her voice breaks the silence, softer than I expect. “You know what I realized tonight, when you weren’t looking?”
I glance at her, wary, because her quiet usually hides truths sharper than her laughter. “What?”
Her eyes glint, but her smile is faint. “That I don’t need my camera anymore. Not really. I used to think the story was out there, something I had to chase and capture before it slipped away. But then I found you, and I realized the story isn’t about the world burning or wars being fought in shadows. It’s you.”
Her words freeze me, my hands stilling over the leather strap I’d been tying. For a moment I can’t look at her, because something in me shifts under the weight of what she’s said. I shake my head, forcing a growl into my voice to keep it steady. “No. It isn’t me. If you’re so determined to call it a story, then it’s us. Whatever this is, whatever comes, it isn’t just mine to bear anymore. You chose it. You chose me. And that makes it ours.”
Her breath catches, the sound small but enough to reach me. She steps closer, her fingers brushing the back of my neck in a touch that is both grounding and dangerous. “Then ours it is.”
For a long time we stand in silence, the storm outside clawing against the walls, the Seal pulsing faintly in the drawer, and the fire burning low. I know the weight of what waits to the south, the reckoning with brothers who may never forgive, the war that may already be upon us.
Yet in this moment, with her eyes steady on mine and her words still echoing, I feel a tether stronger than the Seal itself.
28
ANGIE
The northern lights weave emerald and violet across the snow outside the cabin window, painting Cassian’s skin in otherworldly hues as his hands slide under my sweater. His calloused palms rasp against my ribs, setting my nerves singing. I arch into him, my back pressed against the rough-hewn log wall as he kneels before me on the fur rug, the firelight low and guttering beside us.
"You’re shaking," he murmurs against my throat, his beard scraping my collarbone.
"Aren't I always?" I breathe, tangling my fingers in the rough silk of his unbound hair. He doesn't answer, only hooks a thumb under the waistband of my thermal leggings and peels them down with agonizing slowness, his breath hot on my belly.
Sucking my lower lip between my teeth, I’m already molten where his knuckles graze my hip. When he reaches my damp cotton panties, I lift my hips in silent plea.
He strips them away, kisses the inside of my thigh. "Tell me I'm not dreaming you."
I slide my fingers under his jaw, tilt his face up. "You feel like you're dreaming?"
An ache opens within me when he presses an open-mouthed kiss between my thighs, licking up my slick heat with a groan that rumbles against my skin. His tongue strokes me, relentless and reverent, parting my folds and testing my clit until I’m gasping fragmentary syllables. Calloused hands grip my hips, pinning me as I writhe, chasing the pressure. My knees lock, fragile as paper when he pushes me over the edge with a slow suck, stars flaring behind my eyelids.
I sink into the fur beneath me, pulling him up by the shoulders, trembling fingers fumbling with his belt. He unfastens it himself, shoving his jeans low on his hips.
His cock springs free, thick and hot in my hand, velvet over steel. I close my eyes, feeling its weight, the hard throb in my palm. When he settles again between my legs, I spread my thighs to cradle him, my core throbbing from before.
He shifts higher and I feel the blunt heat of him pushing against my sex, so impossibly deep I bite his name into his shoulder, pain-good-stretch-love flooding through me.
He goes perfectly still, letting me adjust until my inner tremors fade. "Angie." I squeeze my legs around his waist, sink my heels into his back.
"Move."
He does. Slow, deep strokes set a counterpoint to the frantic beat of my heart. I feel every ridge of him, every withdrawal followed by a filling so complete my breath catches.
He cups my breast through my sweater, rocking into me with a rhythm that dances us toward a second peak. I claw at the fur under my hands, arching to meet his thrusts as they deepen.
My world narrows to his face above mine, its stark lines softened by twilight and awe. He buries his groan in the hollow of my neck as he surges deeper. My nails dig into his shoulders as sensation crashes through me, a wave that leaves me shuddering and clenched around him.
His hands slide up my ribs, immense palms spanning my back as he lifts me like I weigh nothing. I gasp, the sudden shift sending fire through my limbs. "What're yo?—"
