“I know.” He releases my jaw, though his other hand stays locked around mine. “But you’ll care when the immediate impulse fades. And I will not have our first… I will not have this happen in ash-saturated territory with soldiers within hearing distance.”
He’s right. I hate that he’s right.
“Later, then.”
“Later.” The word is a promise—binding and absolute. “When this mission is complete. When the Cardinal is dealt with. When I can give you the attention you deserve without interruption.”
I nod, accepting the delay even as my body protests. The kiss has left me aware of him in new ways—the heat radiating from his skin, the controlled power in his frame, the way his presence fills the space around me until there’s no room for anything else.
“We should coordinate with the strike teams.”
“Yes.” He doesn’t move.
“Arax.”
“I’m… adjusting.”
“To what?”
“To having what I want within reach and being required to wait.” His mouth curves—not a smile, but close. “It’s not a sensation I have experienced recently.”
I match his expression with one of my own. “Welcome to my world.”
We turn toward the strike teams, toward the mission waiting to resume, toward whatever comes next. But as we walk, his shoulder brushes mine—deliberate, sustained, a point of contact he refuses to break.
Possession that preserves agency.
Partnership that doesn’t require surrender.
This is what I’m choosing. This is what I want.
And for the first time since Morrith, since the destruction and the exile and the years of running, I allow myself to believe I might get to keep it.
