Page 135 of A Court of Wings and Shadows

He finally looked at me. “I guess part of me isn’t surprised he’s lost sight of reality.”

“That’s not natural,” I said softly. “Grief doesn’t do that to someone… not like this.”

He raised a brow, and a hint of mischief flickered across his face. “Says the girl who was lying on my floor in an oversized tunic.”

I blinked, then looked down, and instantly regretted it.

The tunic barely reached my thighs. It was one of my oldest, worn soft from too many washes, and was less battle-ready and more brothel chic.

“Sorry,” I muttered, crossing my arms. “Kaelith said you needed me… immediately.”

“I did,” Zander said, voice low. “And I’m grateful.”

He glanced at the bed once he had finished making it, then extended his hand toward me, palm up, eyes warm.

“Now,” he said, voice softer, “come here.”

Chapter

Thirty-One

Imoved to lock his door, then turned the lock with a trembling hand.

The softclickechoed through the room like a death knell that hadn’t come, and gods, I’d almost heard it.Almost lost him.

Zander moved to the center of the room, his bare feet ghosting over stone, blood still streaking his ribs. His lavender eyes found mine like a tether snapping taut. Behind him, the bed loomed, freshly made. Clean. Precise. As if remaking it might undo what had nearly happened there.

“You should rest,” he said.

But the look in his eyes said the opposite. There was no peace in him. Only fire. And the kind of need that came from standing too close to the edge of death and realizing what you were about to lose.

He lifted his hand, palm up, silent, shaking slightly.

Come to me.His mind whispered in mine.

I crossed the space on legs that barely worked. My magic pulsed unevenly beneath my skin, raw from the blood I’d given him, from the tether I’d nearly snapped to force his body to stay in this realm. I could still taste that moment, when the bond between us had frayed so thin, I thought I’d feel it tear in half.

The ache of that terror still pulsed in my chest. I hadn’t just been scared. I’d been undone.

When I reached him, he didn’t speak. He just pulled me into his arms and kissed me like he needed to feel alive.

Gods.

It wasn’t gentle. Or sweet.

It was a claim. A confession. A desperate scream turned into a kiss.

His lips crashed into mine, and fire, his fire, spilled into my mouth like a plea. My storm magic lashed in response, unpredictable, violent, crackling up my spine and into my fingers as I clutched at him.

I didn’t care that my hands shook. That my body still ached from the power I had unleashed. That I was held together by stubbornness and lightning.

He was here. He was breathing.

That was enough.

His hands gripped my thighs and lifted me, effortless, reverently. I gasped as he laid me back onto the bed. My back hit the mattress, and for a heartbeat, the world spun, not from lust, but from sheer, brutal relief.

I blinked up at him, and the force of the night came crashing down.