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“I am notrunning. I—I simply—” I cast about for the right words, finding none in the wake of the delicious weight of his arm around me. It feels... heavy.Strong.Almost sick with heat now, I close my eyes and clench my limbs to keep them from trembling.This isn’t the time. This isn’t the place.There are still so many—so manythingswe need to discuss, and my hand can wait. Itneedsto wait, or I fear I’ll stay in this bed forever. “I didn’t mean to intrude. That’s all I meant. I never planned to come here—”

“Why not?” Michal asks dryly. “You can visit Death but not me?”

My eyes flick open as defensiveness sparks, and I cling to it like a life raft, even as my body inches back against his chest. “I didn’tvisitDeath. He stole me from my bed, but—”

Michal’s arm tightens near imperceptibly. “Your bed?”

“Not likethat. He—I—” But the words tangle on my tongue as his blood roars through my ears, and I cannot think around this overwhelming need to press against him,everywhere. A thread of trepidation still holds me back, however. It knots in my belly,inexplicable and impossible to ignore—because this bed is not a tree in the forest.

There is no revenant poised to attack.

Michal and I are alone now, truly alone, and he is naked. If things progress much further, they might progress all the way, and—I shouldn’t want that, should I?Do not give him anything you cannot take back, my mother once warned about Reid. At the ripe age of fifteen, I’d just told her I loved him, and for some reason, the confession had alarmed her. I understand her fear a little better now.

Michal is not Reid, however. Michal is so much... more.

For as long as you want me, Célie.

He seems to sense my rising panic. Without a word, his arm falls away from me, and he shifts back again, ignoring my small noise of protest. “You’re frightened,” he says simply.

When he moves to wrap the sheet around his waist, I seize his arm on instinct and admit the truth: “Not ofyou. I just—I’ve never seen a man naked before.”

Our gazes catch and hold as the words evoke another time, another place, another Michal, and the memory of Les Abysses descends between us.It isn’t a dirty word, you know, he told me that night.

What word?

Virgin.

To my relief, he doesn’t look disappointed now either. Though he remains quiet for a long moment, something sharpens in his gaze as we study each other in the dim light of the grotto. It resembles longing and, strangely enough, feels just as vulnerable as my confession. “So look,” he says at last.

His pupils dilate as fresh heat blooms in my cheeks, but still he does not move as my hand slides from his arm to his palm. Resolve hardens in my chest. Because I—I want to look at him. Even though I shouldn’t, I want to look at him very badly, and now—now I can.

With a deep breath, I inch closer, taking in the hard lines of his shoulders, the sweeping slope of his chest. His abdomen. The taut muscles there contract slightly beneath my stare, and only with great difficulty do I tear my gaze away to study the V between his hips instead. An almost painful ache radiates from my belly at the sight. And I want to touch him. Ineedto touch him, yet lower still—

My mouth dries.

Though I haven’t seen a naked man before, I never imagined one could look like this. “You’re—” My voice comes out higher than usual, however—much too high—so I clear my throat and try again. “You look—you’re beautiful, Michal,” I finally manage. “One of the most beautiful people I’ve ever met.”

The vulnerability in his eyes seems to splinter at the compliment, and he pulls his hand away with a sharp and self-deprecating laugh. It punctures the dreamlike quality of the moment. It brings us abruptly back to reality. “What did I tell you about romanticizing nightmares?” he asks.

Startled, I frown up at him, worried I’ve said the wrong thing, theworstthing. But—no. My frown deepens. I don’t think I have. “Is that really how you think of yourself?”

“You should too.”

“No, I shouldn’t,” I say a touch sharply, “and you shouldn’t either.”

Before I can press the issue further, however, a familiar meow erupts from the floor. An aggrieved one. Leaning over the bedside, I come face-to-face with a fat orange tabby, who cannot reach the edge of Michal’s sheet despite his best attempts. We blink at each other for a beat of silence. Then—

“Toulouse?” Momentarily distracted, I bend to scoop him into my arms, and a saucer of milk near a small writing desk in the corner catches my eye. I recognize neither from my last time in the grotto. “What are you doing here?”

He meows again, and his brothers and sisters scramble from beneath the bed in answer,allof them, crying and attempting to claw their way up the bedcovers to reach us. I peer down at them, bewildered. “What—?”

Shaking his head, Michal exhales a harsh breath in answer before rising to his feet. Though I want to stop him—to finish our conversation—he vanishes behind the black curtain in the next second, and when he returns, he wears loose-fitting pants and a wooden expression. Tension still lingers in his shoulders, in his eyes, as he extends a linen bandage.A peace offering.When I reach out to take it, he catches my wrist instead, winding the fabric around my wounded hand with deft, gentle movements. “You cannot stay in your room anymore,” he says in a low voice, knotting the fabric and brushing a kiss against my fingers. “Promise me. Not while Death thinks he can come and go as he pleases.”

“But my mother—”

“—is safe from Death until the status quo changes, but if you’re worried, Pasha and Ivan will remain with her at all times. She’ll be safe with them.” He bends to scratch Toulouse’s head. The movement strikes me as oddly instinctive and—gentle. It also brings hisface much closer to mine, and I study his fringe of dark lashes, the sweep of his silver hair. Such a striking combination. An unusual one. For the first time, I wonder whether his hair has always been this color, or if it somehow changed after becoming a vampire. I wonder if he ever owned a cat. Silly questions, perhaps, but there are so many things I don’t know about him.

Did you know their father was a drunkard?