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His gaze lifted to my neck. “I was once.”

“And I forgave you.”

“Did you? You still haven’t accepted me after that, so I’m not really sure you can say you’re over it.”

I pressed my lips together, unable to deny it. I hadn’t slept with him again, hadn’t agreed to it before he’d bitten me. That meant I still had something holding me back, some part of me that refused to give into him fully.

Maybe he was right. Maybe I was still angry.

My crow seemed to flutter her wings at that.

Right. Hehadbound me to him against my will, or at least attempted it. He’d done it to save my life, of course.

I thought back to that night, to how lost I’d been, how devastated by my inability to fix any of this, how I’d realized that even if he hadn’t meant for it to go that way, he’d been behind it. Once I put that aside, however, once I looked past it and tohim,I had to admit… he’d seemed just as lost.

I recalled his pinched features, his pained voice. He’d been facing losing me, and he’d done the only thing he knew to try to keep me alive.

Was he really not just as out of his mind as Galen was now? Maybe for a different reason, maybe in a different way, but it wasn’t that different.

It had me moving forward, the action pushing Kelvin backward so he sat on the ground. He was careful with my wrist, ensuring I didn’t accidentally put pressure on it, always mindful no matter what else was going on.

It was like a portion of his brain was always locked on me, always on my well-being regardless of the chaos around us.

He lifted an eyebrow, but didn’t stop me when I straddled his waist. I used my free hand to tip his face up toward me, to take his lips in a deep kiss. I didn’t hold back, didn’t stop myself.

Kelvin had fucked up—more than a little—but hadn’t I, also? We’d both screwed things up, over and over again, and there was no good reason to keep beating us up over it.

Why destroy my future because of a blip in my past?

“I don’t need to feed yet,” Kelvin breathed out softly.

“So? I don’t want to do this again for the first time just because you have to feed. We need it to mean something more.”

Thatseemed to flip some switch in him, like they were the words he’d wanted to hear, had needed to hear.

He kept one hand on my wrist—never too tight, just enough to cool the injury and keep me from hurting it worse—and used the other behind my neck to pull me closer, to deepen the kiss. He teased the seam of my lips with his tongue, the touch somehow gentle despite how not gentle everything else about him seemed.

His aggressive hand at the back of my neck, his hard cock that ground into me—or, wait, I might have been grinding against him, actually—and the deep sound that rumbled from his chest.

Wasn’t that just like him, though? The dichotomy between him, the fact he was dead, yet in many ways was more alive than anyone else I knew. He was constantly moving in the shadows to gain control, yet walked around as though he had no secrets at all. He was the last person I would believe a word from, yet I trusted him more than almost anyone else.

And just like that, I knew the truth. I couldn’t ignore it anymore, couldn’t pretend that it wasn’t true just because it wasn’t all that convenient.

I loved this idiot. I had for a while, and I was tired of trying to act as though I didn’t. Sure, I might very well regret it at some point, but fuck it—I regretted lots of things in my life.

“The others aren’t very far away,” Kelvin whispered, though he didn’t pull away from the kiss, the words muffled by my lips.

“So?”

He groaned and pressed his forehead against mine, as though grappling for some shred of self-control. His chest rose and fell in quick succession, another sign that he wasn’t holding himself back easily.

Which was perfect for me.

I didn’t care if anyone heard. It wasn’t like anyone didn’t know we were fucking at this point. We could keep our voices low—maybe—but we were adults and if anyone didn’t like it, well, they should have brought earplugs.

So I reached with my good hand and yanked at the laces of my boot until I could slide it off, then undid the button of my pants with a flick.

It seemed all that self-control didn’t last long, because when I pulled back enough to stare into Kelvin’s eyes, I knew he’d lost that battle.