His lips press into a line before he finally steps closer. “I needed to see you,” he admits quietly. “Without the Flight. Without the others.”
The vulnerability in his tone takes me off guard, but I recover quickly, leaning against the doorframe of the bathing room, determined to keep the barrier between us intact. “What for?”
Raven’s eyes lock on to mine, intense and searching. “You always do this, El. You deflect. Avoid. Pretend like none of it fazes you.” He takes another step forward, his voice dropping. “But it does. I saw it in your face this morning.”
My heart flutters, then beats like wild wings in a storm, and it takes all my strength not to retreat. He’s too close now. The air between us tightens, heavy and tense, like the stillness before a hawk’s descent. “Maybe stop watching so closely.”
He exhales, shaking his head. “You don’t make it easy.”
I scoff, clutching the towel tighter against my chest as I cross the room to the nightstand and take out the small velvet bag holding the vial of Titaia’s blood. Straightening my spine, I turn to face him, holding the bag out while locking eyes with him, feigning indifference to the conversation I’m trying to avoid—just as he predicted I would. “I am not your mission here, Raven. Perhaps you should focus on what is.”
He flinches at my words, and I can’t say I’m surprised—they came out colder than I intended. But hopefully that means he won’t notice how much of an effect his presence is having on me right now.
Raven steps closer still, until he’s only inches away. When he reaches out, his fingers graze mine as he takes the bag. He opens it and finally tears his eyes away from mine to look down. “Titaia’s blood?”
“Yes.” My breath hitches over the word as he leans into me, the soft rustle and clink of glass telling me he’s placed the bag down on the nightstand. He straightens without pulling away, his intoxicating scent enveloping me, saturating the air I breathe until I’m certain I can taste him.
“Swooping in to save the mission again.” The words are almost soft, roughened only by the weight of whatever he’s bracing himself to say next. “Do you even know what it’s like, El?” he murmurs. His hand lifts, hovering just over my collarbone like he can’t quite bring himself to close the distance. “To watch you risk everything over and over again? It’s maddening. You’re maddening.”
My head screams at me to retreat, to keep the fragile wall I’ve built intact. But my body—my heart—refuses to obey. Was it his concern this morning? Or the way he has made me believe I’m more than just a piece in this game we’re playing? I can’t tell anymore, and maybe I don’t want to. Not tonight.
As if reading the decision in my eyes, his hand moves, cradling my face, as though waiting to see if I’ll pull away. I don’t.
Instead, with everything unspoken between us coiled so tightly I feel like I might snap, I step forward, bringing the space between us down to nothing. His forehead rests against mine, the two of us suspended in the fragile stillness before the inevitable fall—balanced on the edge between certainty and reckless uncertainty.
He doesn’t kiss me. Not yet. But the weight of his gaze, the ghostly brush of his thumb along my jaw…it’s enough to unravel everything I thought I had locked away.
I hate him for it. And I don’t.
“It’s forbidden,” I whisper, the words trembling and thin, stripped of the resolve they should carry. A distant echo of words he said to me years ago.
“In the Aviary.” My eyes lock with his. “But we’re not there now.”
“Semantics,” I murmur.
“I’ve always had a soft spot for wordplay.” Slowly, he drops his head toward the base of my neck and kisses me. His lips trail a path up my neck, and then he nips at the corner of my jawline when he reaches it. “Tell me to stop.”
I say nothing. My hands tangle in my towel, clutching at the fabric as he grazes the tip of his nose up my cheek.
“Tell me to stop, princess,” he tries again, “and I’ll take you at your word.”
And I should. I know I should. There is no way we could work together—no foreseeable future with a happily ever after like the books I would read late into the night.
He is going to steal the weapon, and I am going to win these trials. Soon, he will head home, and I will stay. I may never see him again. And yet…
Fuck it.
I jerk out of his grip. My heart thunders in my chest as I watch him closely, noting the feathering of the muscles in his jaw, the tightness of his posture as he holds himself back. As though he’s preparing himself for my rejection once again.
But I will not turn him away now.
Not after staring death in the face countless times. Not when the chance of ever seeing him again feels like an impossibility. And certainly not now, when I’ve finally decided to claim something for myself.
The towel falls from my grasp, gliding down my body to pool at my feet, and I stand before him, completely bare. But my eyes never leavehis—wanting him to see the truth of my words within them. “I will never tell you to stop again.”
The darkening of his gaze is the only warning I get before he lunges for me, that fragile hold finally snapping.
One arm folds around my waist while his other hand grips my ass and lifts me. I wrap my legs around his hips and bury my hands in his hair as his lips claim mine. His tongue caresses the seam of my mouth, begging for permission, and I give it. Raw hunger awakens at the sweet taste of him, dragging a deep moan from the depths of my chest. His heat and his hardness are driving me to the edge of sanity, and before I know it, we’re devouring each other.
