His eyes darkened.
“No relics.”
She lifted his hand and pressed it over her heart, where the hidden letter lay beneath cloth and skin and memory.
“No vow telling me I have to disappear.”
His fingers spread against her.
“No,” he said quietly.
“I chose the words in that chamber.”
“Yes.”
“I choose this too.”
His control broke with a quietness that almost hurt.
He kissed her.
Not gently.
Gently would have been a lie after the morning they had survived.
This was fear and relief and fury and need, all of it compressed into the hard seal of his mouth on hers. Sabine answered with the same force, hands gripping his coat, pulling him closer until the heat of him drove the last of the underground cold from her skin.
The bond flared.
Then settled.
Answered, not imposed.
Lucien felt it. She knew by the way his hands paused at her waist, by the way he broke the kiss just enough to look at her.
“It is different.”
“Yes.”
He touched her face with shaking fingers. “Tell me again.”
“I choose this.”
His mouth found hers again.
This time there was no court, no screen, no trial chamber waiting to name the shape of their bodies. The suite was still guarded. Still a cage. Still close enough to the royal wing that every servant would read meaning into the locked door.
Sabine did not care.
For one hour, maybe less, maybe the last hour they would have before Serast found a way to turn the relic’s acceptance into new accusation, she wanted the living man in front of her more than she feared the machine around them.
She pulled at his coat.
He helped her, shrugging out of it, then caught her hands when she reached for his shirt.
“Slow.”
“No.”
