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“Nero,” Zara whispered. “You are going toward the village. Toward the Paladins.”

“We have to get you back home.”

“We have to get away from the Paladins,” she corrected him.

“And what if they decide to knock on your door and see if you’re home?” he asked her. “What if they realize you’ve broken their curfew on the same night that a Varai was spotted nearby?”

It would look suspicious. He knew Zara realized it too, because she didn’t argue.

He stole a long look at her in the dark. His body ached from lack of release. He was still slightly hard and was trying, and failing, to stifle thoughts of pushing her up against a tree and ripping off her clothes.

The look in her eyes as she watched the Paladin was calm but murderous. Angry, calculating, pale eyes set in a pale face surrounded by pale hair gave her the appearance of a ghostly spirit of vengeance, but her lips were still full and darkened from kissing him.

He had never met someone who had such a threatening aura but such a gentle touch, and the combination was impossibly alluring.

As the village came into view, he spotted more lights in the distance, several of them converging on his location.

“There!” someone shouted, pointing directly at them. Nero spun and ran to the cover of a line of brush, pulling Zara behind him. He kept running until the Paladins had lost track of them again, then ducked into the shelter beneath a ridge of rock. Even with their lights, they would have trouble seeing him in this dark alcove.

Zara’s hand tightened on his as the lights swept over the ground near them.

“We’ll wait until they move away, then head toward the village,” Nero whispered. Zara nodded her agreement. They waited, shoulder to shoulder.

After a time, he felt Zara’s arm moving. Her hand came to rest on his thigh. As lights continued to flash nearby, she slid her hand slowly upward until it was over his groin. He felt her fingers seeking out the shape of him beneath his pants and then cupping him. He started to harden again very quickly.

“What are you doing?” he whispered.

“Shh. They will not hear us if you stay quiet.”

Her hand stroked up and then down over the length of his cock through the fabric, and he bit his lip to keep from moaning as he flexed against her hand.

“You’re crazy,” he whispered. He saw her smile. She stroked him more firmly, like a response to a challenge, and it felt like a part of him was melting. He was helpless.

He closed his eyes, struggling to maintain focus on holding their fade. Footsteps approached, and Zara’s hand slowed. As soon as the footsteps moved farther away, her hand slipped inside his pants and closed around him. Nero let out a ragged breath. He could hardly see her face, but he knew she was looking at him. He could almost see the mischievous look in her eyes.

She liked having him at her mercy. That much was clear.

“Zara—” he breathed. He’d been about to try to warn her that he was close, and then her fist tightened as she stroked over him, and his words were cut off in a strangled breath as he tried to keep quiet. She leaned over abruptly and crushed her lips over his, swallowing the soft moan that surged from deep in his throat as he came. She milked him with her hand as he panted against her mouth.

When he began to soften, she released him and sat back beside him, as if nothing had happened, but she was still breathing heavily, almost as if it had been as exhilarating for her as it had been for him. Both of them flattened against the stone as another Paladin passed.

The Paladins were slowly moving farther away. When all the lights had moved away from their hiding spot, Nero pulled on Zara’s hand, and she followed him down a steady slope toward the village.

He stopped in the trees behind her house, and because he wanted to see her face one more time, he dropped the fade.

She was beautiful. Not just conventionally pretty, but uncommonly beautiful.

Her lips broke into a soft smile. Something inside him ached with pleasure at the sight of it, and it occurred to him that he would have done a lot to ensure that smile remained on her face.

Putting a hand lightly on the back of her neck, he pulled her in and kissed her. “I will be back,” he said, and he meant it.

Chapter 21

It was far too early in the morning a few days later when Zara was awoken by a hurried knock on her back wall.

She rose groggily, unsure whether the sound had been real or a dream. And then it came again, quick rapping. It was louder than usual, and Zara had never known Nero to come in the morning, when light was already starting to creep under the crack beneath her door. She knocked twice on the wall to let him know that she’d heard him, then quickly dressed.

The world outside was a dark gray-blue, and cold. She clutched her cloak around her. No one should have to be awake at this hour. So she was surprised to hear a commotion outside. Looking toward the trail of buildings beyond the inn, she saw that Paladins had congregated in the center of the village. Her eyes went to their drawn blades, and to their hands as they pointed into the trees behind the inn. There was metallic clanking as more Paladins arrived.