The words scrape out of me, cracked and vulnerable. I didn’t intend for them to come out sounding like a confession. I didn’t intend to sound so small.
His gaze sharpens. Like the words hit him somewhere deep.
“I told you,” he murmurs, voice rough gravel and heat, “I will always come back to you.”
His hand lifts—slowly, like he’s afraid any sudden movement might frighten me off. When his fingers touch my cheek, I swear my knees almost give out. His thumb traces the line of a bruise, feather-light, reverent in a way Reapers aren’t supposed to know how to be.
I lean into him. I can’t help it. My body moves on instinct, on relief so profound it borders on aching.
Then he bends down.
And kisses me.
Not like before—not hungry or demanding or claiming. This kiss is soft. Slow. Almost… disbelieving. His lips brush mine like he’s cataloging the fact that I’m here, that I’m whole, that I’m breathing. The heat of him pours into me, melting the last shards of fear lodged under my ribs.
When he pulls back, the world tilts. I didn’t realize how much I’d been shaking until he steadies me again with both hands on my waist.
“Sit,” he murmurs.
“No,” I breathe. “Not yet.”
My palms slide up the planes of his chest, over scorched skin and broken spurs and the sticky warmth of half-dried blood. I shouldn’t touch him. Not like this. He needs a medic. He needs rest. He needs anything other than me pressing into every wound like an idiot.
But he doesn’t flinch. If anything, he shudders under my touch, chest rumbling in a low sound that feels like recognition. Like relief. Like need.
He cups my jaw with both hands, lowering his forehead against mine. His skin is hot, almost feverish, and his breath fans across my lips.
“I thought I lost you,” he whispers.
“You didn’t.” I touch the side of his face, trace the line of a crack in his spur. “You never did.”
His lips part on something like a gasp. Or maybe it’s a growl. It’s both. It’s neither. It’s the sound of a dam breaking.
Then his mouth is on me again.
This time it isn’t soft.
This time it’s everything we’ve been holding back.
His kiss is deep, desperate, a pull like gravity dragging me closer until I’m pressed against the scorching heat of him. His arms wrap around my waist and lift me—effortless, urgent—carrying me the last few steps toward the bed that’s half collapsed, sheets torn and dust-covered.
He lowers us into the wreckage, pulling me onto his lap with a sound that makes every nerve in my body snap awake. His hands roam my back, my arms, my waist, shaking slightly with the force of trying not to crush me.
I break the kiss only when my lungs start to burn. I drag in a breath that tastes like him—iron, smoke, sweat, and something uniquely Vokar.
“You’re hurt,” I whisper.
“So are you.” His thumb brushes my lower lip. “We live.”
A shiver runs through me. Because that’s what this is—this moment, this closeness—it’s proof. We lived. We survived.
But survival isn’t enough. Not anymore.
I lean forward and kiss the cut at the corner of his mouth. Then I kiss the bruise forming along his jaw. The ridge of his cheekbone. The line of his neck.
Every touch draws a deeper sound from him, low and rough and almost… stunned.
“Freya,” he breathes, voice barely holding together, “tell me to stop.”
