My hand tightens on her hip.
“I’m not going to ask you for it.”
“Celeste.”
“I’m going to take you anyway. This is what trust looks like when one of us is holding something. The one who isn’t holding it still reaches for the one who is.”
Her teeth find my jaw. Her breath hot against the bone.
“Eyes,” she says.
I open them. She’s looking at me. She rides me. Her pace quickens.
I keep my hands on her body.
Her body tightens around me. Her breathing changes. Her hand, still holding mine, squeezes. I squeeze back.
She comes around me. The bond carries it, full and unguarded.
I follow her a second later. My hand in hers, my eyes on her eyes, and the promise from the study redrawn in every place our bodies meet.
She settles against me. Her head on my chest. My hand in her hair. The shirt still on her. Neither of us moves to remove it.
Her breathing slows. Within minutes she’s asleep on me.
I lie in the dark with her against my chest.
Her palm rests on my shoulder. Warm. Still warmer than it should be. I count the changes. Her skin temperature. The nausea on the morning after the Veil crossing. The way her body has shifted in ways neither of us has named.
I don’t have a word for that either.
The compound is quiet. The war council is tomorrow night. Adrienne’s daughter is in a facility we haven’t found. The pen on my desk moved without my hand. Simone is in the medical wing. And the woman sleeping against my chest is becoming something I can’t yet see.
I close my eyes. I hold her. I wait.
Chapter
Twenty-Four
We're filing into the conference room when the compound's alert system triggers. The display wall flashes red. Four sensors at the Midtown hub, all at once.
"Coordinated breach," Julian says from the console.
Maximus is beside me before Julian finishes the sentence. His focus sharpens.
"The wards?"
"Down," Julian says. "All four layers. They punched straight through Seraphina's work."
Maximus doubled security at the hub. Moved the monitoring to a twenty-four-hour rotation. Had Seraphina ward every entrance. And they still got in.
Ethan pulls up the data. "Eight hostiles on the fourth floor. Hub security is down. Multiple casualties. The refrigeration core is still online but they've hit the east-side storage."
"How in the hell did only eight vampires breach the increased security?" Maximus asks. The room goes still.
"Get Erik's wolves on ground perimeter. Marcellus, south entrance. Ethan coordinates from compound. Elena on medical standby." His voice is level. He looks at me. "Julian, Celeste. You're with me."
We clear the compound gate.
