"Then we'll find out what her plan was. And we'll destroy it." His hand comes up to cup my face. His palm is cool against my cheek, his thumb brushing along my cheekbone. The touch is tender. Possessive. "Whatever you were meant to be, you chose something different. That choice is yours. No one can take it from you."
My eyes burn. I don't understand the sensation. Vampires don't cry. But something aches behind them anyway.
"I didn't ask for any of this," I whisper.
"Neither did I." His voice is rough. "But here we are."
Here we are.
In a crumbling hotel that pretends to be beautiful, surrounded by vampires who play games with lives and loyalties, wearing a ring that belonged to a family I'll never know.
Here we are.
His hand is still on my face. His eyes are still on mine. And for a moment, everything else falls away. Vivienne's insinuations, Konstantin's shadow, the weight of a war I never chose.
There's just him. Just me. Just the impossible thing building between us.
"Maximus," I breathe.
Something shifts in his expression. The control he's been wearing all night cracks, just slightly, revealing the hunger beneath.
"I've been watching you all night," he says quietly. "Watching you hold your own against vampires over ten times your age. Watching you think on your feet, speak with authority, command respect from creatures who've existed for centuries."
His thumb traces my lower lip. The touch sends sparks cascading through me.
"Do you have any idea what it did to me?" His voice has dropped to something rough and intimate. "Watching you wear my ring, my dress, stand beside me as my equal? Watching every vampire in that room realize exactly what you are?"
"What am I?"
"Mine." The word comes out like a growl. "And theirs to fear."
He leans closer. I can feel the cool brush of his breath against my lips. Feel the tension thrumming through his body, the restraint.
"I wanted to touch you all night," he murmurs. "Every time you crossed your legs, and that slit revealed your thigh. Every time you spoke, and I remembered those same lips around my name in the war room. Every time you looked at me, and I knew you were remembering too."
"I was," I admit. My voice is barely a whisper. "I couldn't stop."
His fingers tighten against my jaw. A muscle feathers in his cheek.
"We should go," he says, but he doesn't move.
"We should."
Neither of us moves.
His thumb traces my lip again. His eyes drop to my mouth. The hunger in his expression makes my stomach clench.
"When we get back to the compound," he says, "I'm going totake this dress off you. Slowly. And then I'm going to make good on every promise I made in that war room."
The words send a bolt of heat straight through me. I press my thighs together against the ache building there.
"Every promise?" My voice comes out breathless.
"Every single one." He stands abruptly, pulling his hand away like it burned him. But I see the effort it costs him. See the tension in every line of his body. "But not here. Not in this place."
He's right. We need to leave. We're still in hostile territory, still surrounded by potential enemies, still vulnerable.
I rise from my chair, smooth down the dress he gave me, touch the ring he placed around my neck. The weight of it feels different now. Heavier. More complicated.
