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“You followed me into the battle outside of it.”

He tilted his head toward me. “I did.”

Even at an angle, his stare was intimidating. Even at a distance, I felt like I might catch fire if he kept his eyes on me for much longer.

Curiosity seemed to grip him, turning him further toward me rather than toward the door. He debated a moment before indulging that curiosity, closing the space between us once more. His gaze skimmed over the work he’d done on my shoulder, then flashed up to my face, questioning. Expectant. “Your point?”

“My point is that I…”

I’d had a point when he was on the other side of the room; where had it gone?

He stepped closer. Only half an inch closer, at most—not even touching—yet it felt like he was pinning me in place by the sheer force of his presence.

I still couldn’t remember what I’d been trying to say.

“You what?” he prompted, a hint of a smile curving his mouth—just enough to make his dimples more pronounced.

I don’t understand why you keep saving me.

Was it merely because he needed me and my magic to survive in this world?

Or was it something else?

Fate seemed to have drawn us together. Our magic had tangled us up more completely. But my magic was perfectly calm at the moment, as it had been since I’d woken up in this protected palace. It wasn’t blindly edging me toward him, this time.

I was fully aware of what I was doing.

Tooaware of the heat and need spiraling through me, of the choice I made to stretch onto my tiptoes, to cup his strong jaw in my hand…

His lips parted, a hint of shock registering in his golden eyes. But he didn’t pull away. He leaned forward, branding me withthe faintest of kisses, one filled with equal parts anticipation and electricity. Static skipped over my skin—the warning before the lightning strike.

“Chaos,” he whispered against my lips. “This isn’t going to make us any simpler.”

“No. It isn’t,” I agreed. And yet, I was angling my mouth more fully over his, desperate to plunge deeper into this mess we were making, fully aware it could all end in disaster.

As I cradled his face between both my hands, he grabbed my hips and jerked me closer. I gasped at the violence of the motion, and, at the sound, his hands moved on top of mine, pressing against them, pulling my mouth even closer to his.

Then he was kissing me like I’d never been kissed before, the force of it causing me to stumble back against the wall. His fingers wrapped around my wrists, pulling my hands away from his face and pinning them above me instead.

His strength was breathtaking. His tongue was commanding, relentless as it pushed deeper into my mouth. His lips were warm, pulsing with the faintest hints of his magic. I wanted that magic to explode. To surround me. To drive into my body, my blood, my soul.

I wanted it to swallow me whole.

He pulled away far, far too soon, leaving me panting and shaking.

His gaze fell immediately to my mouth, eyes burning with unmet lust—but he didn’t move.

My lips tingled with a similar lust. Yet, I kept as still as him, forcing a slightly dazed, crooked smile. “Is this revenge for leaving you unsatisfied back in that loft in Erebos?”

I tried to make my voice sound unaffected.

I don’t think I succeeded.

He chuckled humorlessly. “No. I can be a vengeful bastard, it’s true. But leaving me was the right thing to do back then. If you hadn’t, I would have…” He trailed off, shaking his head.

Every nerve ending in my body was suddenly alight again, aware of his every breath—of every twitch of unspoken emotion—and desperate for him to finish his sentence.

I wanted to know what he would have done to me in that loft, had we not been interrupted by my vision.