“Astra.”
My name in his mouth pulled the air tighter between us.
My name in his mouth did not soften anything.
It steadied it. It made me want to run to him.
Which was a horrible feeling to have about a man you hardly knew.
“You need Juno before Quill gets you alone,” he said. “She’ll know what to do now.”
“And you?”
His gaze held mine too hard.
“I need you out of Caswell’s reach long enough for someone with authority to put words around what happened.”
For one second, I thought he might touch me. His handshifted at his side, then stopped so completely I felt the stop more than the movement.
“You’re very disciplined, Instructor Hale,” I said because I wanted to touch him too and it was no easier for me to resist.
His eyes went to my mouth before he could stop them.
Discipline had limits, apparently, and mine were watching his fail by one breath.
Behind me, the corridor stayed empty.
Ahead of me, Juno waited.
“Go,” he said.
“Are you coming?”
He looked toward Juno’s corridor, then down the stair, then back at me.
“If I walk into Juno’s chamber with you now, Caswell gets exactly the kind of ammunition he wants.”
It annoyed me that he was right. Again.
“And if I ask you to come anyway?”
The question dug its nails into him and I could see the strain on his face.
“Then I will make a worse mistake than I already have by coming to you.”
My breath caught.
Hale swallowed once.
“And I will come anyway.”
Oh.
The Mark on my wrist pulled toward him, rain-dark and insistent, the same line the basin had shown the whole room. Hale felt it. I saw that too.
He stayed where he was.
So did I.
