Kira didn’t get a chance to ask as he strode toward the arched door of the fortress. It opened, allowing him passage as Wren lingered for a second longer.
Her seon’yer frowned at Graydon before shaking his head and following the Overlord.
“What is with them?” Kira asked, confused at the abrupt departure.
“Uh, Kira,” Jin said. “I’ll catch you later.”
Kira gaped in disbelief as the drone darted up the wall, disappearing into the window Raider had yanked Elena back from a few minutes ago.
Confusion changed to understanding as she sensed a dark gaze on her. Kira stilled, the feeling of a predator at her back making her cautious.
Finn faded away. Amila and Solal doing the same to give them privacy.
Kira’s eyes closed. She’d miscalculated.
She’d thought Wren would be the one to feel the most upon learning their childhood. She’d forgotten there was another who would empathize and experience pain knowing the person they loved had gone through so much.
Summoning her courage, Kira faced Graydon.
If she’d ever wondered what it would be like to see a man who defined himself by control lose it, she no longer needed to.
Emotions, raw and intense, battled inside him. Cracks appeared in the defenses he used to protect that big heart of his, one small line at a time.
It was scary. Terrifying as Graydon focused every ounce of his attention on Kira. His gaze searing.
“Graydon—“ Kira started, not knowing what she planned to say to make this better.
He closed the distance between them, his hands coming up to cup her face.
Kira caught his wrists, wrapping her fingers around them as she resisted the urge to hide.
Allowing herself to be vulnerable to another took a strength every bit as monumental as the one she’d needed to free herself from that place.
“I see your pain,” Graydon whispered. “I can feel it burning in my chest.”
Emotion moved through his gaze. Tenderness and love as he pressed his forehead against hers.
Kira calmed as their breaths mingled.
They stayed like that, each letting the other’s presence comfort them.
Kira didn’t know how long they stood before Graydon lifted his head, his eyes roving over her face like she was the most amazing thing he’d ever seen.
Tuann spilled from his lips. Phrases she’d heard before on the planet of her mother’s people.
Back then, she hadn’t understood. Now she did.
“From this second forward, you shall not know fear or sorrow. For I am with you. Your shield and your sword. Defender and protector. The shelter in the storm. This I so swear as the child of Marcus and Ashlyn, former son of House Roake and the Face of the sixth Tuann emperor, Torvald Elden.”
There was a weight to his words. A magnitude that felt inescapable. The Tuann took their vows very seriously. Once given, they were impossible to take back.
And Graydon had just given one that felt like the most permanent and momentous of all.
If he hadn’t already given her this vow once before on Ta Da’an with Joule standing right next to her, she’d be tempted to think it was a vow of love.
But that was nonsense. He’d barely known her back then, and she was pretty sure he had considered her a nuisance in his perfectly planned life.
“What have you done?” Kira asked him in a trembling voice.
