I felt fragile, and that made it harder to be near him because being near him was the thing I wanted, and that wanting was part of what made me feel fragile. The circle of it was exhausting.
“Tomorrow. You’ve done so much, Cara. Rest.” He didn’t wait for an answer before he swept me into his arms.
I was so tired.
I put my head on his shoulder and let him carry me.
He didn’t take me far. My awareness narrowed to the steady rhythm of his movement, the warmth of him, the solid certainty of his arms around me.
The room was dim when he pushed the door open with his shoulder, lit only by a low-burning lamp and the silver spill of moonlight through the window. It softened everything: the edges of the furniture, the lines of his face when he turned slightly toward me, the world beyond him. Gold necklaces glinted, hanging from the bedposts; there were twin new and empty bookcases framing the fireplace.
He set me down carefully beside the bed, his hands lingering for a moment at my waist.
I didn’t step away.
His hand came up, slower now, and brushed a loose strand of hair back from my face. His fingers traced the line of my temple. “Cara.”
Something in my chest tightened, and I reached for him despite that other, unsettling sense in my body, the sense that I wasn’t entirely sure was my own. My hand caught in the front of his shirt, fingers curling into the fabric, grounding myself.
His first kiss was slow, exploratory. His lips nudged mine open. The slide of his mouth against mine unspooled something inside me.
My other hand came up, finding his shoulder, then the back of his neck, drawing him closer.
His hands slid to my waist again, pulling me fully against him, the contact firm now, certain, his body aligning with mine in a way that felt both familiar and newly overwhelming.
My breath caught, then deepened, my thoughts scattering, dissolving into sensation faster than I could gather them back.
He deepened the kiss, his mouth moving against mine. My fingers tightened in his shirt, then slipped inside, finding the warmth of his skin and the rippling muscle beneath.
He made a quiet sound against my mouth, something low and rough. His hands moved again, one sliding up my back, the other settling at my hip, guiding us closer still, until there was no space left between us at all.
The world narrowed to him. All my fears and failures and frustrations blurred at the edges, distant and indistinct. He drew back to look at me, his breath unsteady.
“Nothing needs to be held in reserve now,” I murmured.
Whatever tension had been in his face fell away. He pressed me down on the bed, covering my face and my throat with kisses. I reached for the edge of his tunic and pulled it up, urging it over his head, and Fear hesitated.
I paused, uncertain what was wrong. Did he not want me after all?
Fear caught the hem of his shirt and pulled it over his head, revealing the hard squares of his abs, the way his lean waist gave way to a broader chest and then his powerful shoulders as he once again leaned over me. Across his shoulder and heart was a mark. It had not been there before.
I touched it, tracing it with my fingertips, trying to make sense of it. A wishflower, and behind it, a shield—or rather, the head of a shovel. It was what I had traced onto his skin for my sigil, rendered into beauty.
“What is this?” I murmured.
“I tricked you into wearing my mark,” he told me, taking my hand in his. He ran his thumb across my finger that wore his ring. “I could not bear not to wear your mark as well.”
He brought his hand to the sigil on his chest. “Just as you drew it on my skin.”
I didn’t know what to say. Something yawned wide inside me, something wild and hungry. Maybe he did love me. The thought sang in my mind as I put my hand on the back of his neck and urged his mouth back down to mine.
His mouth met mine hard enough to steal the breath from me. Fear kissed like he fought, as if restraint was something he practiced only because the world demanded it of him, not because it came naturally.
I could feel his carefulness fraying now. His hand slid beneath my shirt, rough palm against bare skin, and I arched into the touch before I could stop myself. He made a low sound against my mouth at that, something pleased and almost disbelieving, as though he still could not quite trust that I wanted him this way.
I pushed him back enough to look at him. His hair had fallen loose around his face, dark against the lantern light, golden eyes fixed on me with terrifying focus. There was always danger in Fear when he looked at me like this. Not because he would hurt me. Because he would undo me.
“You did that for me,” I said softly, touching the mark on his chest again.
