Page 23 of Realms of Swords and Storms (Empire of Vengeance #3)

Before I could process the words, before I could build my walls back up, he reached out, his hand circling my wrist again, his grip surprisingly firm. “Don’t go.”

I stared down at his hand, at the contrast of his skin against mine. “Tarshi…”

He pulled me down, his strength born of fever and desperation. My knees hit the floor beside the pallet. His other hand came up to my jaw, his thumb stroking the rough stubble there. His eyes, dark and glittering with pain, searched mine.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered, and I didn’t know if he was sorry for the wound, for the danger, or for this.

Then his mouth was on mine. It was nothing like the first time.

This was not a desperate, feverish claiming, but a slow burn of discovery.

It tasted of blood and wine and regret. A groan of protest died in my throat as my hands, of their own volition, came up to frame his face, my fingers tangling in his sweat-damp hair.

I was kissing him back, surrendering to the brutal truth he had just laid bare.

I didn’t want to hate him. I just wanted him.

The fight went out of me, draining away like sand through my fingers, leaving only a hollow ache of need.

His lips were chapped and hot, demanding and yet strangely gentle.

It was a kiss that held all the unspoken arguments between us, all the jealousy and the shared history, and burned them down to this single, undeniable point of contact.

He broke the kiss, a ragged gasp escaping him, his forehead falling to rest against mine. His breath was hot, smelling of fever. “Septimus,” he whispered, the name a broken thing. It wasn't a plea, nor an accusation. It was just a statement of fact, an acknowledgment of the precipice we stood on.

My hands slid from his hair to his shoulders, tracing the hard lines of his collarbones. I should push him away. I should get up and leave him here on my pallet and go sleep in the cold main room and pretend this never happened. He shivered suddenly, his body shuddering against mine.

“Cold,” he muttered.

The word broke through the haze of want. I pulled back, the cool air of the room a shock against my skin. His shivering was more pronounced now, a violent tremor that shook his entire frame. The fever was taking hold.

Without a word, I rose and pulled the thin wool blanket from the foot of the pallet, draping it over him. It wasn't enough. I knew it wouldn't be.

“Lie down,” I ordered, my voice rougher than I intended.

He looked at me, confusion warring with the pain in his eyes.

His breathing was shallow, his face slack with a pain that went deeper than the gash in his leg.

He looked younger like this, stripped of his usual arrogance, vulnerable in a way that twisted something sharp in my gut.

He was right. I couldn’t stand to look at Livia because I felt like a traitor.

And I couldn’t stand to look at him because I knew I wasn’t.

This raw, undeniable thing between us was the only truth I’d felt in months.

“Just do it,” I grunted, and pushed gently on his shoulder until he was lying flat. I blew out the lamp, plunging the room back into near darkness, lit only by the blades of moonlight from the window.

Then, cursing myself, cursing him, cursing whatever cruel god had twisted my life into this shape, I lay down on the narrow pallet beside him.

I pulled the blanket over us both, my back pressed against the cold stone wall, his body tucked against my front.

He was fire and ice, burning with fever but shaking with cold.

His head found the hollow of my shoulder, and his breathing, though still ragged, began to even out.

I did not move. I just lay there, my arm draped over his waist, feeling the unsteady beat of his heart against my ribs, and hated myself for the part of me that felt, for the first time in weeks, like I was exactly where I was supposed to be.

“What are you doing?” he muttered.

“Keeping you warm, idiot. Now go to sleep.”

His eyes drifted closed. I lay there, watching him, trying to make sense of what had just happened. Of what was happening to me.

I'd spent years with certainties—the empire was right, the Talfen were troublemakers, my duty was clear. Now nothing seemed certain. Not the empire, not my place in it, not even my own heart.

I touched my lips, still warm from his kiss. It wasn't the heat of desire that troubled me—I'd come to terms with that, shameful as it was. No, it was something worse. Something deeper. Something that made me wonder what I would feel if one night Tarshi went out and never came back.

The thought opened a void inside me that I couldn't bear to look into. So I didn't. Instead, I watched the rise and fall of his chest, counting each breath like a prayer to gods I wasn't sure I believed in anymore.

Outside, the moon continued its path across the sky, indifferent to the turmoil below. Dawn would come eventually. And with it, decisions I wasn't ready to make.

But for now, in the quiet dark of my chamber, with Tarshi's breathing the only sound, I allowed myself to admit one terrible truth: I cared whether he lived or died. And that changed everything.