Page 121 of A Court of Wings and Shadows

It was possession wrapped in desperation.

The Blood Fae wanted to use me.

But someone in the castle?

They wanted me dead.

And Zander couldn’t stop it—not yet. So he kissed me like he was trying to leave a mark they couldn’t steal.

I let him.

I surrendered to his marauding mouth, fingers curling into the fabric of his tunic, the wall at my back grounding me as I drowned in him, his heat, his pain, his fear that he would lose me in the end.

I didn’t want to think.

I just wanted this.

Until—

“Ashlyn!”

Remy’s voice snapped through the corridor like a blade through silk.

Zander tore his lips from mine, breath ragged, eyes blazing lavender and filled with murder as I turned toward the voice still echoing down the stone hall.

He stepped back a fraction, his chest still heaving from the kiss, the ghost of his mouth lingering on mine like heat from a wildfire. His eyes snapped toward the sound of the voice just as Remy appeared at the end of the corridor, his fists already clenched, rage simmering beneath the surface.

“You have no right to touch her,” Remy growled, storming toward us.

I stepped out from the wall, spine straightening as I met his furious stare. “I’m not yours anymore, Remy.”

He froze like I’d slapped him.

But his eyes, gods, they didn’t leave mine. They were raw, burning with all the things he never said out loud. Not since the day he left.

“I never stopped?—”

Zander stepped between us before Remy could finish.

“Then maybe you should’ve acted like it,” Zander said coldly.

“Stay out of this,” Remy snapped. “You think you’re some kind of savior? You don’t know what she’s been through.”

“And you left her when it mattered,” Zander cut in, voice quiet and razor-sharp. “You don’t get to come back and stake your claim now.”

“I protected her,” Remy snarled. “You have no idea what it cost me.”

“And yet you’re still here,” Zander shot back, stepping forward, his jaw tight. “Circling like a vulture hoping to reclaim what you abandoned.”

The tension between them wasn’t just anger.

It was personal.

Deeper than the moment. Older than the war. There was something else here, a thread that hadn’t yet unraveled, and I could feel it, straining between them like a rope drawn taut.

There was more to this.

Remy’s chest rose and fell with barely-contained rage, his eyes still locked on Zander like he was daring him to strike first. But then his gaze flicked to me, softer, almost pleading.