Vaelix grinned from his position on the floor, though something serious moved behind his eyes. "To be completely clear, drinking this makes it impossible to lie about what you're feeling. It is considered the essence of romance in Zorathi social circles."
"Romantic isn't the word I'd use," I said, taking a long draft from my glass, then watching the way the liquid moved, smooth, almost luminous.
Lyrin hadn't moved. His glass sat untouched before him, and when I looked at him, I saw the tension in his shoulders, the careful control of his expression. He was afraid. Not of me. Of this. Of what lowering those walls might cost him.
I waited.
The silence stretched. Kaedren shifted impatiently. Vaelix opened his mouth to say something, but Lyrin reached for his glass before Vaelix could get the words out.
Lyrin's hand was steady, but I felt the cost of that steadiness through the Tether. The effort it took for him to choose vulnerability when he wasn't entirely sure he wanted to. But he raised the glass, met my eyes, and toasted me.
"I do this for you, Kira. For everything you have done for me, for us," he said, sending love through the tether, then taking a large sip.
Something cracked open in my chest.
Torvyn lifted his glass. "To choosing what we fight for instead of fighting what we have to."
Kaedren followed. "To battles worth the blood. To standing instead of running."
Lyrin's voice was rough, reluctant, and honest. "To walls broken. To letting someone see what's behind them."
Vaelix raised his glass with something that almost passed for solemnity. "To staying. When staying costs more than leaving ever could."
They looked at me. Waiting.
I raised my glass. "To my Knights. The men who showed me what love and acceptance are. Thank you for filling a void in my life that I didn't know existed."
A lump formed in my throat, but I took a quick sip from my glass to push it back down. The wine was sweeter than I expected, with a warmth that spread through me like fire. Not intoxicating, not in the way human alcohol made me feel. This was different. The Tether hummed brighter, and suddenly I could feel them. Their presence. All of their emotions. Like the doors to their souls had been thrown open, and I was experiencing everything. Torvyn's certainty. Kaedren's coiled tension. Lyrin's fragile hope. Vaelix's hunger barely leashed beneath his easy smile.
And beneath all of it, desire. Theirs. Mine. Tangled together until I couldn't tell where one ended and another began.
We had won the war we had been forced into. Voss was in chains. The corporations were in ruins.
For the first time in as long as I could remember, I felt optimistic.
I moved first.
Not because they expected it. Not because the wine demanded it. But because I wanted to, because I wanted to celebrate everything I had done, everything we had done. And I deserved it, damnit.
I crossed the space between us and stopped in front of Torvyn. His eyes tracked me, patient, waiting. Always waiting. He'd been waiting since they rescued me, a refugee with nothing but rage and embarrassment. He'd been waiting through every battle, every argument, every moment I'd pushed him away. And still he waited.
"I want this," I said.
"I know." His voice was rough, strained with the effort of holding still. "Name it."
"I choose you. All of you."
I kissed him.
His hands framed my face, careful, reverent, like I was something precious that might shatter. But I wasn't fragile, and I proved it by pressing closer, by tangling my fingers in his hair and pulling him down to meet me with a hunger I was done pretending I didn't feel. He groaned against my mouth, the sound vibrating through me, and the feeling traveled through the Tether like lightning, making every nerve ending in my body sing.
I felt Kaedren move behind me before I heard him. His hunger pressed through the bond like fire against my spine, urgent and barely contained. Two of his hands settled on my hips, fingers digging in possessively, while the other two traced up my arms with deliberate slowness. His mouth found the curve of my neck, teeth grazing, tongue soothing.
"Took you long enough," he murmured against my skin.
"Patience." I broke from Torvyn long enough to turn my head, catching Kaedren's mouth with mine. Different. Sharper. More urgent. He kissed like he fought, all coiled power and barely restrained aggression, his tongue sweeping against mine like he was claiming territory. When I bit his lower lip, he made a sound, low and desperate, that sent heat flooding between my thighs.
Vaelix appeared at my side, his grin wicked even as vulnerability bled through the bond. "Don't I get a turn?"
