“I’m hardly a catch, though, am I? I’m hardly Beaufort Lincoln, or Dray Eros.”
She snorts. “No, you’re not,” she says. “You’re Fox Tudor. And maybe I’ve always been a little bit – just a teensy-weensy bit – in love with you. Even as a kid.”
I raise an eyebrow, and a smile forms on her lips now, the frown melting away.
“Oh, come on, Fox,” she says. “Practically every girl in Slate Quarter has had a crush on you at one time or another – plus all the students at the Firestone Academy.”
I shake my head. “I don’t know about that. But I do want to know how you found me.”
“Oh,” she says, “it was the headmaster. He mentioned this place. I realize it was pretty foolish to trust him.”
“Yes, pretty foolish,” I chide.
“Beaufort found the place on his map.”
“Beaufort,” I say. “I guess I should thank him. I guess I should thank them all.”
“That would be nice,” she says, her smile even brighter.
I stroke my thumb over the soft skin of her jaw, right below that smile. To touch her is such a gift, I could almost weep. I never thought I’d touch her again.
“But I knew you were out there in the demon wastelands.”
“You found my ring?”
“Yes, but it wasn’t just that. I could feel you,” she lays her palm against her chest, “I could feel you right here.”
“Fated mates,” I whisper to her. “There’s a connection between them. We’re not just connected by fate but by …”
I struggle to finish my words, to make her understand. But it seems I don’t need to, because she nods.
“Yes,” she says. “Yes, I feel it. When one of you leaves, when one of you is far away, it’s not just the magic in my chest – the magic that you all gave to me. It’s something else, like something is missing, like a part of me has gone. It’s like our souls are connected.”
“I didn’t think I had a soul anymore,” I say. I thought Veronica had stolen it along with my life. But it seems I was wrong. I do have one – and it’s connected, in this indescribable way, to Briony’s, and through hers to Beaufort’s, Dray’s, and Thorne’s.
She ducks her head away, humming some tune under her breath, and continues to wind the bandages around my body. When she comes to the end, she stands in front of me again and ties the ends together neatly, tucking them away.
“I think you’ve done this before,” I say.
“Of course I have,” she says. “Hasn’t everyone in Slate Quarter?”
I nod. There aren’t exactly clinics, hospitals, or healthcare out in Slate. Everyone has to learn to look after themselves. My own mother stitched up the scar that sits on my knee, and my father delivered me himself into this world.
“Thank you,” I tell her – and it’s not just for patching me up. It’s for everything. “For coming for me, for not giving up on me, for loving me, for saving me, for being with me.”
I don’t think I’ll ever deserve her. But I will try. I will try to deserve her.
“Fox,” she says, resting her palm against the place where my heart starts to beat, pumping her blood around my body.
“Yes, sweetheart,” I say.
But she doesn’t answer me with words. Instead, she’s reaching up on her tiptoes, twining her arms around my neck, pulling my mouth down toward hers, and kissing me.
I kiss her too – hungrily. Her blood sings in my veins, and the smell of it is potent in my nostrils. I’m so hungry for her, so ravenous. I slide my hands down her lithe body, relishing the heat and the life and the vibrancy of her.
She moans against my lips, and I can’t help but slide my hand into the waistband of her pants, inside her underwear, until I’m touching her – touching where she’s wet and hot and needy.
I know we’re safe for now, in this moment in time, but I don’t know how long that will last. I don’t know if the Empress will come for us again, if she’ll bring the elite guards with her. I have no idea if we’ll be lucky enough to escape. So I’m going to take this moment with her – perhaps my last one – and be thankful for it. I will take it, because I’m weak. Weak for her.
