“And if the Senate frees Xavien, if Elváliev demands it as the price for Casqadia’s crown…” Her voice broke. “I don’t know how I could fight them all.”
Her fingers curled against his chest, rising and falling with the rough thunder of his breath. The words broke from her, raw as the tears in her lashes.
“I love you.”
He drew her closer, gathering her as if he could shield her from the world itself. She shuddered against him, tears sliding down his neck.
“Viktor—I’m terrified.”
For a breath, he only held her—this woman who made him fear nothing and everything at once. Then he bent, mouth brushing her brow.
“Then be terrified,” he said, stormfire in his voice. “Because I swear, Amerei—nothing will keep me from you. Not rank. Not kings. Not death itself.”
His breath seared hot over her ear.
“I will break the gates of Elysium to be with you.”
Her tears wet his skin, unrelenting. She clung to him as though her grip alone might shield them against the storm of crowns and courts and kings.
“Don’t send me away,” she whispered. “Viktor—please. Let me stay.”
Every part of him rebelled—this was Storne’s house, his commander’s roof—but when she looked at him with eyes still shining from his confession, he knew there was only one answer.
“Then stay,” he murmured, sealing it with a kiss to her temple.
And in the silence that followed, nothing existed but the two of them, holding each other against the darkness.
Chapter Fifty
The First Thing He Kept
The raven beneath his heart marked grief.
But in her arms, he finally kept something worth living for.
The orbs above the bed glowed low, bathing the chamber in a hushed gold.
Viktor lay half-naked with Amerei pressed to his side, his pulse still thundering like the vow had been carved into his chest.
He should have sent her back to her chambers.
He should have.
Instead, he’d broken the silence with a growl against her hair:
“Not tonight. Swear it.”
Her shoulders shook with a laugh, low and knowing.
“Swear it? Viktor Seraphim, I’ve already sworn it twice. Are you that desperate to hear me deny you again?”
His jaw flexed. “Say it.”
She tipped her face up, smile wicked in the dim. “Not tonight.”
Heat sparked through him—because her vow sounded far too much like a promise for tomorrow.
Her hair fanned over his bare arm, her shift thin as cobweb, her exhale a slow tide across his skin. Every nerve in him ached with wanting—and still, he couldn’t. One flicker of fear in her eyes and he’d sooner burn again than take what wasn’t freely hers.
