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The final part of my sentence drifted from my grasp. Only now did it finally sink in, the danger we’d only barely escaped. The choices I might have made. The depths I’d allowed myself to sink to, the desperate measures I’d somehow believed to be worth the peace among my friends.

I could have lost him today.

I could have hurt him so, so much today.

‘I’m sorry,’ I whispered again, throat tightening. ‘I’m so very sorry, and I love you so very much. I don’t know why it took a shattered binding to make me realise what I was doing. It should have been clear from the very first moment I realised I was hurting you.’

His grimy face was inscrutable in the darkness, his eyes pools of coal-black ink. But his mouth moved again as he held out his hand – those beautiful, sensual lips, the same lips I’d learned to read fluently without a sound to guide me.

‘Come here,’ he rasped.

I threw myself into his arms.

He pressed me to his chest with so much force I couldn’t breathe for a second, his fingers trembling against my skin. As if he could erase these weeks of distance by simply holding me close enough. As if his rough breath in my hair and his lips against my forehead could undo every harsh word, every flare of frustration. I clung to him as if my life depended on it, wrapped my arms around him and all but pressed myself through his ribcage –mine, the blood in my veins sang,mine, mine, mine.

‘I’m sorry,’ I mumbled. ‘I …’

‘It’s alright.’ A croaky, harrowing whisper, like the rough slide of calloused fingers down my spine – enough to set every inch of me on fire. ‘It’s alright, Em, I promise. We’re alright.’

I still couldn’t get my pulse to slow down. I still couldn’t hold him close enough. Those sharp, bitter signs had etched themselves into my mind’s eye, that desperate fight on the beach –tell them what you want, but I’ll be taking it for the truth …

I’d never been so desperate to shout the truth at every soul willing to listen.

‘Are you really, very sure?’ I murmured, my face buried into his shirt. ‘Because if you need any other reassurances from me, I’m ready. Happy to go back and stick my tongue down your throat before Tared’s eyes, if you think it’ll cheer you up?’

His lips remained pressed against my forehead, his hands didn’t loosen on my back – but a new sound escaped him amidst a small fit of coughs. It came out muffled, that unexpected hiccup, as if his own tongue was not yet quite sure what to do with it …

But it was undeniably, indisputably, a laugh.

Alaugh.

For the very first time, I couldhearthe mirth that vibrated through his chest, shaking his body against mine. It was just a single short chuckle. Barely more than an involuntary outburst of air. My guts drew tight as a clenched fist all the same, stealingthe breath from my lungs – a fierce, explosive triumph so utterly blissful that it hurt.

How did a sound so brittle, so rough, manage to be as beautiful as all the rest of him?

I pulled back just enough to meet his gaze. His face was stained with blood and mud, his hair a tousled mess, dark strands sticking to his temples and cheeks … But something trembled around the corners of his lips, something that made me want to kiss him and keep kissing him until the sun rose.

Something I might need as much as the oxygen I breathed.

‘Is that a yes?’ I whispered.

Another wobbly laugh escaped him. It fell from his lips with a sincerity that bordered on the heartbreaking, even these quiet chuckles bursting with awe and marvelling … As if the feeling was as new to him as the sound itself. As if he was rediscovering every turn of his voice alongside me, a thrilling little secret to be shared by us alone.

‘I’m serious!’ I managed, laughter worming out of my throat no matter how hard I willed it to stay down. ‘Whatever you want, I’m ready to do it. Should I make a dramatic declaration to the entire Alliance? Write the phoenix elders that I’ve been shagging you for ages? Tell Agenor he’ll either have to add you to the family tree immediately or cut me out of it?’

He only laughed louder – then coughed, then laughed again, amusement shuddering down to the very tips of his wings. There it was, finally, that explosive joy I’d waited for, rising on his face like the unstoppable tide. ‘Em …’

‘What do you want?’ My hands were shaking. My heart was beating so fast the thuds were blurring together in my ears. I’d always thought him the single most stunning creature I’d ever laid eyes upon, yet somehow in this moment, covered in blood and grime and sweat, his composure folding in upon itself, his face a mask of every possible emotion and a couple more at once,he was twice as breathtaking as ever. ‘Please. Anything I can do—’

He kissed me.

He tasted of salt and blood, of battle and victory, and I stopped thinking at the first brush of his mouth over mine, stopped feeling anything but his demanding lips, his hands tangling in my hair to tug me closer. I grabbed his shoulders. His wings swept around the both of us like a dark cocoon of warmth and safety. I reached out instinctively, trailing my fingertips over that straining surface in an unthinking reflex …

Creon moaned.

Hemoaned.

The sound slid beneath my skin like liquid fire, igniting every nerve ending in a roar of sensations. I did it again, and he let out another groan against my lips – a raspy, gravelly sound of need not unlike the taste of gooey warm caramel.