“One kiss,” I blurt out, my skin on fire with my blush. After all these years of servitude, don’t I deserve something totally and completely for myself? “One kiss.”
“You’re thinking too loudly again,” he murmurs, touching the side of my face.
His index finger gently traces my scar, and a flash of sensation sizzles through me. I let my head fall back and close my eyes, focused so intently on the feel of his skin touching mine that everything else—danger and worry and anxiety—falls away, until only delight and anticipation and pure, primalfeelingremain.
“Kiss me,” I murmur, and then I laugh and take matters into my own hands, tunneling my fingers into the thick, silken waves of his hair and pulling his head down to mine. “Kiss me for luck and for freedom. Kiss me for hope.”
“And for grace, my Solitude,” he says, his voice a harsh rasp against my lips.
Then he’s kissing me, and I melt against the hardness of his body. I hold on to his shirt, pulling him closer and closer. He smells of sandalwood and leather and sunlight and tastes like tea and mint and wonder, and my thoughts don’t even make sense, so I quit trying to think and only feel. Just feel and feel and feel—his tongue licking at my lips, coaxing them to open, the way he tastes me. His kisses are sweet and melting, like sugar-sap candy at Harvest Fest, and they’re sinking into me, surrounding me with sensations, deep and hot and delicious. His tongue strokes inside my mouth, and nothing has ever felt like this. I don’t, I can’t …
Imust. I can’t help myself.
I kiss him with all of my enthusiasm and passion and wanting, since I know I have little skill, but before I can retreat, before I can feelless-thanagain for my lack of practice, he groans—almost a growl, a feral noise—into my mouth and puts his hands on my hips and pulls meagainst him. He lifts me, and I wrap my legs around his waist.
Kaelen raises his head, breathing hard, his eyes closed. “Soli. I want you so damn much. Ineedyou. You have to tell me to stop.”
“More kissing, less talking,” I demand, and I’m so out of control I bite his lip gently, more like a nibble, and whatever barrier or resistance he tried to put between us shatters. I can almost feel the shards of his self-control cascading over my heated skin.
He strides with me still in his arms over to a stand of trees, moving behind one so we’re hidden from the fire and anyone who might return to it. My back hits the tree, and his hips rock into mine, and I cry out. I’ve never felt anything like this. My body is no longer flesh and blood but fire and starlight, and I want him, I want all of him, and I don’t care that we have no future.
I only care that we have now.
And I’m free. My body belongs only and completely to me, so I can choose—I canchoose—and I choose him.
“I choose you,” I whisper when his mouth leaves mine to trace the line of my neck. “I choose this.”
He freezes and then raises his head to stare into my eyes, but the passion is draining from his expression. “And your choice is a gift,” he says gently, but with so much regret I can almost taste it. “But it reminds me I’m not free to choose. Anything or anyone.”
Suddenly, I’m so cold, so very cold, where I was burning up only a moment ago, and I shake my head, not wanting to know whatever else he’s about to say.
Elianna’s voice in my mind:He’s not for you. He’s not for you. He’s not for you.
Because I can’t bear to hear those words from his mouth, not now, not after this, I fight to get down and away from him and race to put space between us, stumbling as I run back toward the fire. I hear him call my name, but I can’t, I can’t, Ican’t.
I reach the fire and whirl around, wanting to run away but knowing I have no place to go. Kaelen’s right behind me, reaching out to me, but I back away from him. “Please. I don’t want to hear it.”
“Soli, this war inside me is only about impossible choices, not abouthow much I value you. If nothing else, believe that. The side of me that wants you …”
But I’m shaking my head. I don’t want to hear him. I try to come up with the perfect words to stop him from speaking. Then I hear horses galloping toward us.
A familiar voice calls out: Chitai. “Hello, the camp. We need to move. Now!”
She and the sergeant are riding flat-out when they race into the circle of firelight, and Chitai leaps down before her horse even stops. “They’re no more than an hour behind us, if they start down the road now,” she says, breathing hard.
Kaelen snaps into readiness. Any sign of passion is gone from his face like it never existed. I hope my face is as calm. “Who?”
Elianna climbs down from the wagon and starts toward us. Neville waits till she’s in hearing distance to answer the prince. “A half-dozen Zhagarn and a full cadre of Fell. We snuck up on their campsite.”
“How could we miss the fact that an entire cadre was following us?” Kaelen clenches his jaw. “It’s just not possible.”
“Oh, it’s possible,” Elianna says, her voice shaking, which scares me almost more than the news of the Fell. If an Air Touched sorcerer is afraid, I should be terrified.
We should all be terrified.
“How?” I need to hear it, despite my fears.
“If they have a magic wielder with them. Someone who can conjure up shields and diversions that deflect the eye.” She starts packing up everything near the fire, and I rush to help, using the pot of water to douse the flames.
