I stand from my chair and move to him. I kneel on the rough stone of the terrace, my knees protesting, but I don’t care. I am a Petrenko—I was raised to worship power, but I’ve learned that the only power worth having is the power to stay.
“Jovan,” he whispers. His voice is tight.
“I want to.”
I press my palm flat against his chest. His heart is a heavy, steady thrum beneath his ribs. It’s the same heart I heard through the door of the Processing Room, the one I synchronized my breathing to when I was dying of thirst.
I lean in and press my lips to the burn marks on his shoulder. His skin tastes of salt and sun. I feel him shudder, his breath catching in his throat. I move to the line on his ribs, tracing the scar with my tongue, and then to the hip.
Each kiss is a reclamation. I am erasing the Kennel’s marks with my own.
When I reach his wrist, I stop. I hold his hand in mine, tracing the raised, irregular tissue with my thumb.
“This is the one,” I say. “The test.”
“The reminder,” he corrects. “Of what happens when the machine fails.”
I look up at him. His eyes are as wide as I’ve ever seen them, the glacial blue stripped of its ice. He looks terrified—more terrified than he was when the Petrenko guards were shooting at the truck.
“And now?” I ask. “What does it remind you of now?”
He looks at our joined hands, then back at me. The waves crash against the rocks below, a violent, beautiful punctuation.
“It reminds me that I survived long enough for you to find me,” he says. “It reminds me that a weapon can choose to be a man.”
I kiss the scar, my mouth lingering on the damaged skin. It’s warm. It’s alive.
“Jovan Petrovic,” he says, his voice a low vibration. “The name suits you. It means 'God is gracious.' I do not believe in gods, but I believe in the grace of your hands.”
“And Stefan Horvat?” I ask, standing up and stepping into his space until our chests touch. “The Crown?”
“I wore a crown of thorns in that Tower, Nikolai. I prefer this. I prefer being no one. I prefer being a ghost that only you can see.”
I reach up, my fingers sliding into the hair at the nape of his neck. It’s longer than it was, the dark strands soft against my palms.
“We’re defectors,” I say, the words a secret between us. “We’re traitors to the organizations that made us. We’re dead men walking through a paradise that doesn't know our crimes.”
“Does that bother you?”
“No,” I say, and I realize I mean it. “The people we were deserved to die. The man who snorted his life away in a penthouse didn't deserve you. The monster who mapped my bones didn't deserve me.”
I pull his head down until our foreheads are pressed together. Our breath mingles, the scent of coffee and the sea.
“But these two?” I whisper. “The ones on this cliff? They belong together.”
He’s quiet for a long moment. I can feel the tension in him—the last of the Kennel’s walls holding out against the invasion of a feeling he wasn't allowed to name.
“I do not know if I have the capacity for love,” he says, and the honesty of it makes my heart ache. “The program... they didn't leave much room for it. I look for the protocol and I find only a void.”
I lift my head to look at him. His expression is raw, the clinical mask shattered.
“What do you feel, then?” I ask. “When you look at me?”
“I feel a necessity,” he says. “I feel as if the oxygen in the room is tied to your presence. I feel an aversion to any future that does not include the sound of your breathing beside me. I feel a drive to protect you that overrides every directive I have ever been given.”
He pauses, his thumb brushing my jaw.
“If that is what love is, then I am consumed by it.”
