“What’s your problem with her?” Viri demanded. “Everyone loves Sarielle.”
Reeve snorted. “No one is loved by everyone. It’s a statistical impossibility.” He closed a box harder than he needed to, crumpling the edges. “And my grievances with the Magistratus are none of your concern, but let’s just say she hasn’t always been there forallof her beloved citizens, no matter what she might like you to think.”
“You’re areaper, Reeve,” Viri returned hotly. “She was a hunter before she became the Magistratus—it’s in her nature to despise you and your kind.” That was long ago, before Wynter was born. But still…“Can you blame her for drawing the line at helping murderers?”
“Maybe not, but I can blame her for—” Reeve stopped suddenly, his body tensing as he spun in the narrow aisle toward the entrance to the storeroom. It wasn’t visible from where they stood, but it might as well have been for how intensely he was focusing in that direction.
“What—”
With lightning-fast reflexes, Reeve pressed his hand over Viri’s mouth, muffling her question. Not a second later, aclicksounded and the door to the storeroom opened, followed by heavy footsteps echoing unevenly throughout the space—clack-clunk…clack-clunk.
The blood drained from Viri’s face as she realized they were about to be discovered. Not only had they failed to find the map and talisman, but they would be thrown into the Underlock for the effort, leaving Braedan free to find the Guardianandcarry out the Aurora sacrifice. It couldn’t end like this. It couldn’t—
Clack-clunk…clack-clunk.
The footsteps were coming closer, but something about the uneven gait niggled at Viri’s memory. When recollection hit her, she shoved Reeve’s hand away and carefully peeked past him around the corner of the row where they were standing. All she could see was a shadow of the person slowly hobbling their way, but their outline was enough to confirm their identity, allowing Viri to form a quick, desperate plan.
Facing Reeve again, she blurted, “Kiss me.”
For the first time since she’d known him—now or in the past—he gaped at her and stammered out, “Excuse me?”
There wasn’t time for her to explain, and she didn’t waste the few seconds they had by asking again. Instead, she fisted her hands in the material of his shirt and yanked him close, rising up on her tiptoes as she drew him down to her.
“Viri—what—”
She silenced him by slamming her lips into his, her heart pounding as she prayed her plan would work.
But then it began pounding for a different reason.
She’d intended the kiss to be brief, just long enough for them to be caught in their embrace. She’d also intended it to be dispassionate, little more than a closed-mouth peck. What she hadn’t factored in was how slowly the newcomer was hobbling—or just how good Reeve’s lips would feel against hers.
He was like a solid wall, frozen with shock—
Until, suddenly, he wasn’t.
From one second to the next, any control she’d had over the kiss fled as Reeve’s arm banded around her waist to haul her closer, his other hand cupping her cheek and tilting her face to the side, his tongue sliding along the seam of her lips. Her mouth opened in a gasp, and he instantly deepened the kiss, taking it beyond anything she’d intended, anything she’dimagined. A moan left her against her will, echoed by his own, the sound rumbling in his chest beneath her now-trembling fingers.
There was nothing gentle about his touch—it was fierce and possessive, her legs turning to jelly as his tongue devoured her, giving, taking, demanding, yielding, each stroke fanning the flames simmering within her, making heat pool in her core and spread across her nerve endings like wildfire. When she moaned again, his arm tightened until there was no space left between them, her hands shifting upward to tangle in his midnight hair, drawing him even closer.
More, she neededmore—
“Good gracious!”
Viri jumped backward, hitting the shelf behind her with enough force that an entire box of unbound files tumbled to the ground in a shower of paper. A quick, stolen glance at Reeve revealed his mussed hair and dazed features—no doubt identicalto her own—before she spun on weak legs toward the hunched-over woman standing in the aisle before them.
“Viridia Solace, is that you?” the elderly lady asked, squinting through thick glasses that Viri knew did nothing to improve her vision. “I see that red cloak—don’t try to fool me.”
“Judge Muriel,” Viri panted, her words both hoarse and breathy, neither of which were feigned. She could barely string a thought together, her body still on fire, but she reclaimed her wits enough to say, “We, uh, thought we were alone.”
“You thought wrong, young lady,” Muriel said sternly, though there was a mischievous twinkle in her nearly blind eyes. “This is the second time I’ve caught you here in a compromising position. One might think you make a habit of it.”
“We were just…um…doing some filing,” Viri said, crouching down and deliberately fumbling for the fallen papers. Or not so deliberately, given her still-trembling fingers.
“Filing?” Muriel raised a bushy white eyebrow, the deep wrinkles in her dark-skinned forehead creasing further with the gesture. “Is that what you kids are calling it these days?”
Acting or not, Viri couldn’t keep her cheeks from heating as she rose again, papers in hand. She forced herself to sound anxious—which wasn’t difficult—as she begged, “Please don’t tell Sarielle that you found us here. She’d never let me live it down.”
Muriel sniffed loudly, offended. “I may be a judge, but I’m no snitch. And as I told you last time, I was young once, too. I enjoyed plenty of ‘filing’ myself, back in my day. We called it something else then, mind you.”
