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Evalyn sat on a barstool with a white mug in hand and steam coming out the top. It smelled of fresh squeezed lemon and tea. “High King,” Evalyn said with a small smile, then took a sip. “Took you long enough. She’s upstairs. Second room on the right.”

With the amount of wine he’d drunk the night before, he probably told her too much. It was strange he’d been so open with Valeen’s aunt about everything, but she didn’t judge him. She listened. He supposed being a bartender she was used to that. He even let a tear or two slip, but she said something that he wouldn’t forget, “I know you loved my Layala, and it broke your heart to let her go, but are you going to let love walk away twice? Sometimes you have to fight for it, Thane, scared or not. I don’t know Katana well, but even I can see she’s in love with you and you might not know it yet, but you’ve fallen for her. Maybe you tried not to, but the eyes always give it away.”

There was something deep inside him, driving him. He couldn’t let Katana walk away even if he wanted to. If she’d gone to another realm, he’d find her. If Atlanta came and she said she was going with him, he’d fight, he’d kill him for her. Even if it wasn’t what she wanted, he felt almost… savage thinking of her with someone else. The side of him that was War came raging to the surface.

With a deep calming breath, he tried to slow his hammering heart.

It didn’t work.

He hurried across the big open room and swiftly made his way up the stairs. Second room on the right.

It was quiet. Not even a creak in the floorboards.

His own pulse thrummed in his ears. Clenching his teeth, he knocked three times and stood back.

Soft footsteps pattered behind the door. His heart felt like it was in his throat.

A moment later Katana was standing before him as radiant as the first blooms of spring. “Hello,” he said, breathless.

She ran her hand through her messy hair and then crossed her arms, almost timidly. She wouldn’t meet his eyes. There was something about her vulnerability that turned him into a primal beast ready to guard and protect her. “What are you doing here?” hugging her waist, she grabbed a handful of her golden silk dress.

“May I come in?” he asked. She stepped aside and opened the door wider. Once it clicked shut behind him, he turned. “I came because I had to see you.”

With a sigh, she walked around him and sat on the rocking chair near the corner. She wasn’t smiling and bright like she usually was, and he hated that it was because of him. “You don’t have to worry about me. I’m not your problem, Thane.”

His stomach dropped. It was time for the truth before it was too late. He strode to her and dropped to his knees, gripping the sides of the chair. There was a glisten in her eye as she stared down at him. “No, you’re not my problem, Katana, you’re my salvation.”

She went utterly still. She even stopped breathing.

“I didn’t want love. I didn’t want to let someone into my already broken heart to crush it further. I’m scared, I’m terrified,but I am down on my knees begging you to forgive me for letting it get to this. I shouldn’t have let you walk away last night. I,” he gulped, “My heartisinvolved. It has been since I first saw you under that tree and that spider crawled under your dress. My heart was captured in the hot pool. It was yours the night I held you while you slept after your nightmare. I don’t want to be yourfriend, Katana.”

“You want me?” she leaned forward.

“Yes.”

“Not just to warm your bed?”

He cringed at those words, that she ever believed that was all she was. It might have started out as lust, but he was fooling himself into thinking it was ever simply that. “You were never just that to me. I said it because I was afraid.” He let out a trembling breath. “I want all of you, your beautiful heart and mind.” They were not fire and ice, always battling for dominance, they were fire and fire, burning hotter, thriving off each other’s flames.

He gulped when she stared. Maybe it was too late. Maybe she had changed her mind. No, it didn’t matter. If she said it was too late, he’d beg. He’d keep trying. He’d prove that it wasn’t too late, it was just beginning.

She finally smiled and it was glorious and wonderful. She threw herself at him; he caught her in his arms and tipped, falling flat on his back. She giggled while lying on top of him. “Tell me again.”

“I want to be with you.” He laughed with her. “I want your good days and the bad. I want your laughter and smiles and to watch you dance and stay up all night talking to you and…other things all night. I want your heart. You already have mine.”

She half laughed, half cried and started quickly kissing his neck and cheeks then she slowed and hovered over his mouth. “Iknew you were going to change my world, Thane, and now… youaremy world.”

He pressed up to kiss her and brushed her hair behind her ear and lightly rubbed the soft roundness of it. “Will you come back with me to the castle then?”

“And for how long do you want me to stay?”

He swallowed hard. “Is it too soon to say I want you to stay with me always?”

She smiled and kissed him. “Do you love me?”

He nodded. “I do.”

“Then it is not too soon. I’ve never felt drawn to someone the way I am to you. I think love is only part of what I feel for you, it was as if you were made for me and I for you. You understand me like no one else.” She slowly lowered down and pressed her soft lips to his. “Maybe I wasn’t brought back only to help my sister, maybe it was… forus,too.”