The way he had always, always held back.
She crossed the room in three steps and stood in front of him, close enough to smell the sweat and woodsmoke on his body.
“Is that why you keep your distance? Why you hold back?” she whispered. “Because you’re afraid that I’ll choose wrong?”
He didn’t answer. Instead, he reached up and tangled his hand in her hair to pull her down, their mouths nearly touching. His breath came fast, warming her face, the heat of him drawing out every ache she’d tried to bury.
“I’m afraid,” he said, “that I’ll ruin you.”
Alina laughed again, but this time it sounded almost happy. “Too late.”
She kissed him, hard and without warning, all the fear and want and anger in her flooding out at once. Kael met her with equal force, the kiss wild and desperate, mouths clashing, teeth catchinglips. His other hand wrapped around her waist, pulling her onto his lap as if he’d been waiting forever to do it.
They broke apart only to breathe, then came together again, hands greedy, tugging at fabric and skin. Alina tore at the buttons of his shirt, popping two, then shoved it from his shoulders. Her own tunic went next, Kael’s hands already under it, mapping the shape of her body with a feverish hunger. When she ground against him, she felt his hardness and the answering ache between her own thighs, and she felt no shame in wanting, no voice telling her to hold back.
Kael stood, lifting her as if she weighed nothing, and spun, pinning her to the wall. His mouth moved from her lips to her throat, to the hollow at the base of her neck, biting hard enough to mark. She arched against him, gasping, fingers digging into his hair.
He paused, pressing his forehead to her shoulder, his hands trembling on her hips. “Are you sure? Please say it now, if you’re not,” he murmured, his voice the deepest burr. “I will stop anytime you tell me to, but if you say so right now, I might survive it. Later, I am not so sure.”
Alina answered by wrapping her legs around his waist, locking him to her. “I’m sure.”
They crashed onto the bed in a tangle of limbs, the blanket soft and smelling pleasantly of him. Kael pressed kisses to every inch of skin he could reach, his lips and touch urgent, hands memorizing the curve of her waist, the slope of her collarbone, the line of fresh scars on her shoulder. She touched him back, tracing the old wound along his jaw, the knot of muscle at the base of his neck, the line of his spine. She wanted all of him and he was hers for the taking, making her greedy and fearless in equal measure.
Clothes vanished. Skin against skin, hot and damp and alive. Kael worshiped her body with hands and mouth, driven by emotion and desire, utterly focused on feeling all of her. She lit up, her entire body only there to feel his touch. When he entered her, it was a shock of pain and pleasure, raw and perfect, every nerve awake. They moved together, the bed creaking, the sound of their bodies the only music in the world.
He bent her, folded her, filled her, each thrust a promise and a dare. She met him with everything she had, matching him, and teasing him, wanting to shatter him as much as he shattered her. He breathed her name against her heart, helpless against the tide. When she found her release, it was with a cry that echoed off the stone, her whole body shaking. Kael followed with arms wrapped tight around her, face buried in her neck with a sound so raw it was almost a sob.
They stayed tangled together, limbs hopelessly entwined, sweat cooling and hearts refusing to slow.
After a long while, Kael brushed her hair back, his hand shaking a little. “You’re going to be the death of me.”
She smiled, the kind of smile she’d never dared in her old life and pressed her lips to his throat. “No. I’m quite the opposite.”
After, there was only the sound of their breaths, the heat of skin cooling against damp fur. Alina lay half on top of Kael, her cheek pressed to his chest, his heartbeat steady beneath her ear. The world outside had vanished. All that existed was this small, secret room that felt like an extension of him—stone walls lined withmaps and daggers, a single candle flickering on the far shelf, the soft weight of Kael’s arm curled possessive and loose around her waist.
For a long time neither of them spoke. Alina traced lazy lines on Kael’s ribs, following the faint ridges of old scars. Some were new, still red and angry, while others had faded to a silver barely lighter than his skin. Each mark told a story, and she wondered how many he would ever let her hear.
The quiet was easy, at first. Alina felt a peace she’d never known, a sense of belonging so deep it was almost frightening. She closed her eyes and drifted in the comfort of his arms, the musky smell of sweat and earth and woodsmoke and him, and let herself imagine a world where this was not a stolen hour, but a promise of more.
But her mind wouldn’t let go. The day kept replaying, flashes of the way Elara had looked at her after the blast, the words she’d overheard in the corridor, Maven’s warning about the prophecy. Each time she tried to hold onto the warmth, doubts slithered back in, cold and insistent.
She shifted to prop herself up on one elbow, looking at Kael. He was nearly asleep, lashes dark against his cheek, mouth soft and vulnerable. With his head against the pillow he seemed impossibly young—nothing like the man who led raids and snapped orders, who bore the whole rebellion like a yoke across his shoulders.
Alina brushed a strand of hair off his brow and whispered, “What happened to you, Kael?”
He didn’t open his eyes. “Which time?”
She smiled, but it faded quickly. “All of it. Why do you never talk about yourself?”
He was silent for a while, and Alina thought he might not answer at all. Then: “Every time I tell someone a piece of my past,I lose it. The memory, the weight. It belongs to them, not me anymore.” His arm tightened around her. “I don’t want to lose any more than I have to.” That was a terrible way to feel about people. She wanted him to feel different about her.
She pressed a kiss to his chest, tasting salt on his skin. “I want to know you,” she said, her voice soft, but with a fierce undercurrent that couldn’t be denied. “Not just the captain. All of you.”
He opened his eyes then, gold, and strange in the flickering candlelight. “You already know the best of me.” He smiled, something sad hovering at the corners. “The rest is just scars and stories.”
She touched what she thought was the oldest, a jagged crescent below his collarbone. “Tell me about the prophecy,” she said. “Please.”
Kael tensed beneath her—not much, but enough that she felt it. He stared at the ceiling, searching for words.
