“You don’t understand.” My voice vibrates through the space between us. “You don’t know what happens to people who matter to me. What I do to keep them safe. What I become when they’re threatened.”
“Show me.” The words are barely audible, but they might as well be shouted for how they affect me.
Our faces are inches apart.
“Show me,” she repeats, softer this time but no less certain. Her uninjured hand comes up to rest against my chest, fingers splaying over the leather of my shirt. The touch burns through the material as if she’d pressed bare skin to mine.
My control, honed through decades of leadership and violence, stretched thin by wanting what I can’t have, snaps.
I cup her face in both hands, thumbs tracing the delicate line of her cheekbones. For a heartbeat, we’re frozen—predator and prey, captor and captive, something else entirely that has no names or definitions.
Then I lean down and claim her mouth with mine.
The kiss is fierce but careful, claiming but tender. She tastes of courage and determination and something sweet that makes my head spin. Her lips are soft against mine, warm and giving and perfect in ways that destroy my carefully maintained distance.
She gasps against my mouth—surprise or pleasure or both—and the sound sends heat racing through me. Then she’s kissing back, her uninjured hand fisting in my leather shirt, pulling me closer despite the size difference that should terrify her.
The response is everything I didn’t dare hope for, and more than I deserve. She matches my intensity with her own, meeting the controlled hunger in my kiss with fire that burns just as brightly.
I taste her pulse racing, hear the small sound she makes when I deepen the kiss. Her scent surrounds me completely—making every rational thought evaporate.
Heat floods between us, desperate and overwhelming. My hand slides from her face to her waist, finding the warm skin above her hip where her shirt has ridden up during her unconsciousness. She arches into the touch, breath coming short against my mouth, and a low growl rumbles from my chest—desire barely leashed, control hanging by threads.
I want more. Want to map every inch of her skin with my hands and mouth, want to hear her say my name in that breathless voice, want to claim her in ways that go far beyond ceremonial shackles and political necessity.
The need is overwhelming, primal, threatening to sweep away every consideration that should stop this madness.
But she’s injured. Weakened from blood loss and magical exertion. Under my protection in ways that make this complicated beyond measure.
I force myself to pull back, though everything in me screams to continue. We’re both breathing hard, staring at each otheracross a distance that feels infinite despite being measured in inches.
Her lips are swollen from my kiss, her cheeks flushed with more than fever. Those stormy eyes hold mine with an intensity that steals my breath, seeing past every wall I’ve built to whatever lies beneath.
“Vlorn.” My name on her lips is soft, wondering, changed by what just passed between us.
The barriers I’ve built around my heart crack open, letting in light and warmth and possibilities I’d buried years ago.
“You could ruin me,” I admit, the words rough and honest in ways I haven’t been with anyone since my father died.
She studies my face with that direct gaze that sees too much, reading emotions I’ve spent years learning to hide. When she speaks, her voice is steady despite everything that just happened between us.
“Maybe you need rebuilding.”
The words cut deeper than any blade, stripping away pretense and leaving raw truth in their wake. Maybe I do need rebuilding. Maybe these barriers I’ve maintained serve no one but my enemies.
Maybe letting someone past my defenses isn’t weakness—maybe it’s the only way to become more than a weapon pointed at problems that require violence to solve.
Before I can respond, heavy footsteps pound up the corridor outside. Military boots, moving with urgent purpose that speaks of crisis requiring immediate attention.
The moment shatters.
My expression hardens back into command even as my hand lingers on her face, thumb tracing her cheekbone in a touch that promises this isn’t finished. The Iron Warlord mask slides back into place, but imperfectly now—she’s seen what lies beneath, and that knowledge changes everything.
“Warlord!” Hadrun’s voice booms through the stone walls. “We need you immediately!”
I’m reaching for my sword when the door bursts open without ceremony. Hadrun fills the doorway, taking in the intimate scene with calculating eyes that miss nothing—the rumpled bed, Zoraya’s flushed face, my protective posture over her small form.
His weathered features remain professionally neutral, but I catch the flash of something darker beneath the surface. Opportunity, maybe. Ammunition to use against me when the time comes.
