Almost incapable of waiting.
His Mark went even darker as I touched it, the severe lines pulling toward my fingers like they had been waiting longer than either of us had admitted.
Mine answered so sharply I bent over it.
For one second, it was all him: cool stone, dark sugar, the hard pull of his Mark toward mine.
Then green apple cut across it.
Then leather.
I gasped.
Caspian stopped.
“Pain?”
“No.”
“Astra.”
I looked at our hands, at his Mark reaching for mine and the two other directions opening under my skin.
“Not only yours,” I said.
His fingers flexed against mine before he could stop them.
For a second, jealousy moved through him so clearly I could have named it from the doorway. Kieran. Hale. The other directions my Mark could go. The futures his father had spent years teaching him to erase.
Then Caspian put his hand over mine.
Steadying me.
“Then not only mine,” he said. “You don’t have to give them up to have this.”
It hurt him.
I heard the hurt in every word.
I touched his face.
“I know this isn’t easy for you.”
“No. It’s not. But I can do things that aren’t easy.”
“Thank you,” I whispered.
His breath broke.
Mine did too.
After that, the room became smaller.
His mouth at my throat. My hands in his hair, ruining whatever order had survived the corridor. His weight careful over mine until I pulled him closer and felt his control tear another thread. The covered basin stayed dark in the corner. The school stayedoutside the door. For once, no one asked me to answer for what my body wanted before my mind could make a report of it.
Caspian asked with his hands, his mouth, the pause before every place he could have taken too much.
I answered until language became a thing we didn’t need anymore.
