It was a quarter of the manor’s size, pale stone, with a slated roof. The escaped moon highlighted one tower and two chimneys. She leaned as far as she dared, until she could see the house sat upon an outcropping, and that outcropping was largeenough to contain a small garden with several trees and even a bench.
She straightened.
She shook her head.
Her entire body hummed with anticipation, leaving no room for nerves or fear. She didn’t understand it, but there it was, rooted in her chest: that feeling of being on the right path. The feel of—
A grunted oath announced Shaw’s arrival. She turned in time to watch his knee connect harshly with an iron bar. He hissed an expletive, and then he was through.
He staggered to his feet. “These trousers cost more than a month’s rent in Ghadra.” He limped toward her, the fabric torn wide over his thigh.
“Are you hurt?”
“Only if you want to tend to me.”
She scowled up at him then pointed. “There it is. Riselda’s childhood home. They’d said we can’t get to it; that part of the path is crumbled away. But it seems every other thing they’ve told me has been a lie. That probably is too.”
Now that Shaw stood beside her, she saw he bled; he did not appear to notice. Lux waited for the familiar sick feel in her gut, the tightening in her chest, but…it didn’t arrive. Her eyes skipped from her own dried blood on his shirt to his trickling wound, and before she realized what she was doing, she’d pressed the torn portion of her skirt to his skin.
He stiffened in surprise against her, and she looked up. His pupils had dilated in the night until no warmth remained, but she could find it still in the line of his brow and the shape of his mouth. His lips parted. “Have you moved past your aversion to blood?”
Her fingers grew damp with it. “Only yours.”
She blushed at his expression. Shaw’s hand came around her back, fisting in the folds of her skirt. Her skin heated like a kettle beneath his grip. He cradled her face, his thumb tracing the line of her cheekbone.
Suddenly, he pressed his lips to hers, light and swift, and pulled back the moment he was through. She stumbled forward.
“No, I shouldn’t focus onthatright now. You’ve been manipulated by this deranged society, and we need to find out why.”
She absorbed nothing after his first sentence.
What did it say about her that she would happily focus on it? Rather than the fact she’d tossed someone to a horrific death and had been tasked with reviving another. Rather than the possible deterioration inside her.
Rather than their discovery of thebuyersoflifeblood—her most fervent goal.
He shouldn’t have kissed her atall.She’d rather not get a taste if she’d be denied the rest.
“It’s rather impressive, isn’t it?” He stared from the cliff’s edge at the sea. “I don’t think I’ve done it justice.”
“Yes. And you have.” Lux sucked a salt-filled breath. “Have you—” She stopped, watching an immense wave crash against a jagged beast of a rock. Her brow furrowed.
“Have I…”
“It sounds far-fetched.”
She glanced to find his eyebrow raised and an expression she took to mean,“Really? After all we’ve been through?”
She relented. “Have you ever felt like you’ve finally found it? The right path, or even the right choice? I don’t know why, but ever since I saw the sea… When I glimpsed this house…”
Shaw’s features turned thoughtful. It took him time to answer, but eventually he said, “That night in the prison. I knew we wouldn’t make it. Letting you go was the only choice. I’ve neverfelt surer of anything than wanting you to live.” He looked down at her. “Something like that?
Lux’s breath abandoned her in a rush. She stared up at him.
They’d never talked about it—what he’d said that night—but she still replayed the moment every time she closed her eyes for sleep. He’d confessed in that wretched hour. Finally admitted he’d come to like her as she’d come to irrevocably care for him. And then he’d hinted at more than even that.
Her chest felt heavy in a different sort of way. Heavy with words sheneededto say.
“Something like that,” she murmured.
