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Before we reached the front door, Aster turned and brushed his fingers under my chin, making me look deep into his eyes. My mind went blank. God, those beautiful eyes. Soft lips. Strong jaw…

Was he going to kiss me?

Did I want him to?

The smirk that played on his lips told me my thoughts were written all over my face. He leaned in closer, and his arm wrapped around my back, pulling me into him. Warmth spread through me. Into me. And on instinct, my hands found their home on his chest, and I breathed in soap and fire smoke.

My mind didn’t trust him, but not even the Otherworld gods could have stopped my body from wanting him.

Then his lips came closer, and I stopped breathing. “There was a time when they didn’t trust me.” His voice was barely a whisper. Then the very tip of his nose brushed over the top of my ear, lifting the hairs on my arms. “There are listening runes…” He pulled back, and his gaze flicked to the door and then into the forest beyond the cabin. A warning to be careful what I said, even when inside. The understanding that his closeness was just out of necessity made me push away and give him a nod.

I peered over his shoulder. “So this is home.” I made my tone as light and playful as possible when I felt the opposite.

Aster’s brow furrowed for just the smallest second before he caught the action and smothered whatever he was thinking. With a grunt, he spun around and opened the door.

A scorching heat swept over me as I crossed the threshold. It pressed into my cheeks until they stung, my fingers throbbed as feeling came back into them, and the cuts around my wrists pulsed in time with the ache in my chest. I had been cold for so long that the warmth made me dizzy. I leaned back against the door as Aster took off his cloak and leather belt laden with weapons. He stoked the fire higher and placed chestnuts in a pan beside it. He had a home—the thing that tall, broad orphan boy had always wanted. He’d wanted it quietly, in case it was ever taken away from him.

As my body adjusted, my shoulders relaxed. A small, sad smile tilted my lips. I wanted to be happy for him without being bitter about what all these logs could give him that I couldn’t.

Even though someone was listening, being in the small room with Aster made the outside world ebb away.

He crossed the room without looking at me and grabbed a kettle from the kitchen to heat on the fire, as if this were an ordinary night. Orange firelight danced over the walls, over the Ogham-carved beams, and the woven rugs, and the shelves lined with jars of herbs and old books. It looked lived-in. Worse, it looked loved. Like a home; the kind I could barely remember. The sort of place Ember would have sighed over, and Thorn would have circled, cataloguing every possible exit and weapon. It was the kind of place I might once have imagined for myself and Aster.

But Craven City had taught me that safety was a lie someone with power got to tell.

“Sit,” Aster said.

I stayed where I was, while tugging on the sleeve of my green—now brown with mud and trauma—dress. The stiff fabric against my skin was almost unbearable.

“You’ve become fond of giving orders.”

His jaw flexed, but he only pointed at the chair pulled near the hearth. “You’re bleeding onto my floor.”

I glanced down. He was right. Melted snow and dried blood had soaked the cuff of my sleeve. It dripped onto the floorboards. My wrists heated and pulsed with sharp, bone-deep pain as warm air swept over them. The skin was rubbed raw and red, half-ringed with raised welts. But I couldn’t focus on them.

The part of me that had trained as a Shadow scanned the room on instinct. One front door, one corridor probably leading to a bedroom, bathroom, and a door at the back. Aster would always have several exits. There was a narrow window over the sink that I could probably just squeeze through, knives hanging by the stove, an iron poker, an ash shovel, and one heavy candlestick. But Aster was between almost all of them and me. He watched what I was doing with a crinkle in the corners of his eyes—knowing exactly where my mind had gone. To seek freedom, even if I had never really known it.

“You plan to bolt?” he asked, his back to me as he went over to the cupboard.

Yes, the moment I’m alone. “Do you plan to stop me?”

That made him still. Firelight sharpened the planes of his beautiful face, throwing his cheekbones into shadow and catching on the tattoos vanishing beneath the collar of his shirt. He seemed older than the man I had loved and more dangerous than the one who had trained me. At the mention of my leaving, his enticing green eyes had darkened.

“Yes,” he said. “Or I’d follow you. To wherever you’d flee. For however long it took to…”

I clicked my tongue in disbelief, and it stopped the declaration of his intentions.

Instead of the chair he had pointed to, I crossed to the small wooden dining table and hoisted myself up to sit on it. It was the best vantage point to monitor the door and the back of the cabin. The room had begun to tilt slightly, and I wouldn’t have him notice I wasn’t quite ready to run.

His eyes locked with mine because he knew that I was treating him as a threat, and he sighed.

“Stay.” It wasn’t an order. More a defeated plea. He turned away and disappeared down the corridor stretching off into the darkness. Before he walked into another room, he gripped the back of his tunic and pulled it over his head.

He returned a few moments later, bare-chested with loose-fitting trousers slung low, and the lift of his lips meant that my pupils had dilated. In his hands was a tray containing a ceramic bowl of pungent green herbs, strips of clean linen, and a loaf of dark bread with a bowl of soft white cheese. He set it all down on the table beside me with the same maddening efficiency he used to apply to sharpening blades. Then he leaned over me, reaching for my wrist, but waited for me to agree.

“It’s fine.” I straightened, pulling my wrist into myself. “I’ll do it.” He was too close, and it made the air stiflingly hot.

My gaze trailed over his chest, which was now covered in black, swirling Celtic symbols. I didn’t know what any of them meant, but it was the three green runes on his wrist that held my attention. There was one more than had been there before. The oath that he had made to the Ruckus. The oath that meant we would never stand a chance, even though we had found each other again.