Page 108 of Stormvein

My hand lifts, fingers tracing the curve of her jaw. The touch sends a current through me, a sensation entirely different from Voidcraft or my shadows. She doesn’t pull away or flinch. Instead, she leans into my touch, tiny arcs of silver jumping between us like lightning seeking ground.

“I tried to reach you,” I confess quietly. “As the darkness took me. My last act was sending my familiar to find you. To bring you my ring.”

“Why?”

“Because I knew you wouldn’t give up. I knew you’d continue in my place.” My hand slides from her jaw to the back of her head.

When our lips meet, the kiss carries none of the desperate circumstances of our moment before the ambush at River Crossing. There is no immediate threat, no countdown to separation. This is driven by something more primal, more honest. A connection I haven’t allowed myself to acknowledge before this moment. For someone who spends every second planning every move, this feels dangerouslyunplanned, yet absolutely necessary.

She responds immediately, her hands curving over my shoulders, pulling me closer. My hands drop to her waist, so I can draw her against me. Her body arches into mine, closing the space between us. The press of her breasts against my chest, her fingers caressing the back of my neck. Everything feels right in a way I could never have anticipated.

The taste of her floods my senses, and heat spreads through my body. Her mouth opens beneath mine, and my tongue traces the curve of her lower lip before dipping inside to slide against hers in a slow exploration that sends sparks down my spine. The contact is electric, intimate. She makes a sound in her throat, something between a sigh and a moan that reverberates right through me.

Her teeth catch my lip, tugging gently before releasing it. My fingers tangle in her hair, so I can tug her head back and hold her exactly where I want her. Her moan vibrates against my lips, and sends heat surging through my blood.

When she pulls back slightly to catch her breath, I follow, unwilling to break contact.

This is different. It’s a claim. An acknowledgment. Each movement of our lips, each slide of tongue against tongue,each shared breath builds something between us that I neither planned for nor expected.

When we finally break apart, her breathing is uneven, a flush spreading across her cheeks, down her throat.

“I didn’t plan for this.” My thumb brushes over her bottom lip, feeling the softness there. The admission costs me more than she knows. To acknowledge there are things beyond my control, beyond my strategies and calculations. Things that simply exist, whether I will them or not.

A small laugh escapes her. “That’s what makes it matter.” Her palm presses against my chest, directly over my heart. “Some things can’t be strategized, Sacha, no matter how much you try. Some things just …are.”

The truth of her words strike somewhere deep inside me. Control has been my armor for so long. My weapon, my salvation through years of captivity. Yet here, with her, surrender feels like strength.

She takes a step back, hand sliding down my chest, and coming to rest over where the Authority’s brand had been burned into my skin.

“I need to see it again. I know you’re healed … Iknow… but I keep seeing you the way you were in that cage.”

I understand her need for confirmation, so I don’t stop her when she reaches for the fastenings of my shirt and pulls it open. When the fabric parts, revealing unmarked skin, her breath catches. Her fingers trace now-absent wounds, searching for evidence of what she knows happened.

“It’s all really gone,” she whispers. “Everything they did to you.”

Her palm flattens against my chest, over my heart again, and her other hand finds the place where the sword wound had festered.

“I thought I was going to lose you. When the fever kept climbing, and the infection wouldn’t respond to anything we tried.”

“You didn’t lose me, though.”

I place my hand over hers, pressing her palm against my skin so she can feel my heartbeat, steady and strong.

“Youdid this. Your power met mine. What was dying was reborn.”

Her eyes meet mine again, as her fingers continue their exploration over smooth skin that once held wounds and bruises.

“I can still see them. Every time I close my eyes. Every mark they put on you.”

I capture her hand and raise it to my lips, kissing each fingertip. “They’re all gone now.”

“Not in my mind, they’re not. I watched you dying fordays.”

My shadows rise in response to her upset, coiling around her fingers like smoke. She doesn’t pull away. Instead, she watches, fascinated, as darkness curls against her skin.

Our eyes lock, and something breaks loose inside me. I pull her back against me, and claim her mouth again with a hunger that surprises us both. My hands find the hem of her tunic, and I drag it upward. She raises her arms, allowing me to pull it over her head. Tossing it to the floor, I wind one arm around her waist, while my other hand slides over her skin, down her arm, over her waist, up her spine.

Her hands fumble with the fastening of my pants, while I reach for hers, dragging away clothing, eliminating the barriers between us. My shadows spread across my skin like dark fingers, reaching for her silver light.