Fates, I didn’t know why I had this reaction to him. How someone I’d once sworn to hate could make my heart stumble like this. There was always something waiting just beneath the surface, begging to be let out.
He lifted a hand and reached for something next to me. “Drink?”
And just like that, the tension snapped.
I blinked once. Twice. Then looked over to find a glass liquor cart next to my chair.
“Probably not a good idea.” I shook my head and looked down at my hands, where my shadows twisted through my fingers. He released his hold on the chair and took a step back, as if he needed to clear his head too.
Now that I could think again, the daunting task ahead consumed me. “I don’t know how you all do it,” I said. “Risking your lives day after day, raid after raid. You act like it doesn’t even faze you.”
To my surprise, he scoffed. “Aren’t you the woman who ran straight into Scarven’s secret base with no weapon or back-up? You’re fearless, Devora. You always have been.”
“Then why am I so scared?” I whispered.
He stared at me for a moment, swallowed, then loweredhimself until his knees hit the floor at my feet. His hands rested on my wrists, my shadows hovering between us. “We’re all scared. Every single time.”
I rolled my lips together. “What if I mess this up? What if I do something wrong and—and he finds out? He could take it out on one of you, or his prisoners, or—” My voice caught, all my fears pouring from me in a tidal wave. Fears I’d pushed aside with false confidence and a brave face for the sake of the mission. “What if he tries to—if he experiments on me, or hurts me, and I—I can’t stop him?—”
Nox gripped the back of my neck, cutting me off as he pressed his forehead against mine. I gasped at the sudden contact. He hadn’t been this close to me since the nightmare in his tent, and my pulse pounded at his nearness.
“I’m sorry,” he rasped. “You don’t have to do this. You’re not a prisonerora pawn. You’re aperson, and you have a choice. I’m sorry if I ever made you feel like you didn’t.”
I let out a shaky breath. “Part of me wants you to—to tell me to stay,” I confessed, so quiet I barely heard it myself. “I’m selfish and scared, and I?—”
He cut me off again with a growl. “You arenotselfish. I was wrong about you, Devora. You’ve riskedeverythingfor people you don’t even know, and I will never forgive myself for the way I treated you.” He lifted his forehead and cupped my cheek, forcing me to look at him. A tenderness I’d never seen before shone back at me.
His thumb wiped a stray tear from the corner of my mouth. “Fates, I—I’m scared, too,” he said. “I’ve been gone so much because I’m afraid if I look at you, I’ll beg you not to go.”
“Do it,” I whispered. “Beg me, and maybe I’ll listen.”
His mouth curved into a sad smile. “We both know you’ve never listened to me, Devora, darling.”
My tongue darted out to lick the corner of my lips, barely grazing his thumb. His arm went rigid, eyes locked on my mouth.
Fates, he was too close. Every breath tasted like him, liketemptation and danger that I wasn’t supposed to want. And still, I found myself leaning in, just enough to feel his warmth. His safety. To imagine what it would be like if I stopped fighting.
But that was the whole point of this. Tofight.
“We both know I can’t stay. Even if I want to.” I paused on an exhale. “I can do this, Nox. I can help them all.”
His fingers gently brushed my jaw. “I know you can. I trust you.”
Those words poured through me, filling gaps I hadn’t known existed.I trust you.
It was all I wanted to hear after everything that had happened between us.
My shoulders fell, and I gave him a tentative smile. “So, how about that drink?”
He rose from his knees, taking my hands and pulling me with him. Our time here was up.
“Come home, Devora,” he said softly. “Then we’ll have that drink.”
The Trap
37
Devora
