The Beauty of Darkness - Mary E. Pearson Page 0,178

talking about battles, he was talking about us.

He finished with his updates and rubbed his eyes, and we were back to our world as it really was. I saw the numbing grief that gripped him and felt the hollowness it left behind. Regroup. Move forward. And we did, because there was nothing else to do. He said he was going to bed. “You should do the same.”

I nodded, and we walked down the hall to our rooms, the walls of the citadelle closing in, my chest squeezing with the pluck of the zitaraes and what I knew tomorrow could bring.

We reached my door, and the emptiness twisted tighter. I wanted only to bury my face in my bed and block the world out. I turned to him to say good night, but instead my eyes became locked on his and words I hadn’t even allowed myself to think were suddenly there, despairing and raw.

“So much has been stolen. Have you ever wished we could steal some of it back? Just one night? Just for a few hours?”

He looked at me, a crease deepening between his brows.

“I know you don’t plan to marry,” I blurted out. “Tavish told me.” My eyes stung. It was too late to hold the rest back. “I don’t want to be alone tonight Rafe.”

His lips parted, his eyes glassy. A storm raged behind them.

I knew I had made a terrible mistake. “I shouldn’t have—”

He stepped closer, his hands slamming against the door behind me, caging me between his arms; his face, his lips inches from mine, and all I could see, all I could feel, was Rafe, his eyes broken, glistening, and the strain behind them.

He leaned closer, his breaths labored and hot against my cheek. “There isn’t a day that goes by when I don’t wish I could steal back a few hours,” he whispered. “When I don’t wish I could steal back the taste of your mouth on mine, the feel of your hair twisted between my fingers, the feel of your body pressed to mine. When I don’t wish I could see you laughing and smiling like when we were back in Terravin.”

His hand slid behind me and pulled my hips to his, his voice husky, his lips brushing my earlobe. “A day never passes when I don’t wish I could steal back an hour in the watchtower again, when I was kissing you and holding you and”—his breath shuddered against my ear—“and I was wishing tomorrow would never come. When I still believed that kingdoms couldn’t come between us.” He swallowed. “When I wished you had never heard of Venda.”

He leaned back, the misery in his eyes cutting through me. “But they’re only wishes Lia, because you’ve made promises and so have I. Tomorrow will come, and tomorrow will matter, to your kingdom and to mine. So please, don’t ask me again if I wish for something, because I don’t want to be reminded that every day I wish for something I cannot have.”

We stared at each other.

The air prickled hot between us.

I didn’t breathe.

He didn’t move.

We made promises to each other too, I wanted to say, but instead I only whispered, “I’m sorry, Rafe. We should say good night and forget—”

And then his lips were on mine, his mouth hungry, my back pressed to the door, his hand reaching behind me to open it, and we stumbled back into the room, the world disappearing behind us. He lifted me up in his arms, his gaze filling every empty space inside me, and then I slid through his hands, my mouth meeting his again. Our kisses were desperate, consuming, all that mattered and all there was.

My feet touched the ground, and then so did our belts, weapons, and vests falling in a trail across the floor. We stopped, faced each other, fear beating between us, fear that none of this was real, that even these precious few hours would be ripped away. The world flickered, pulling us into protective darkness, and I was in his arms again, our palms damp, searching, no lies, no kingdoms, nothing between us but our skin, his voice warm, fluid, like a golden sun unfolding every tight thing within me, I love you, I will love you forever, no matter what happens. Rafe needing me as much as I needed him, his lips silky, sliding down my neck, my chest, my skin shivering and burning at once. There were no questions, no pauses, no room left for