Page 181 of Ashborne: Defiance

We both disappeared in darkness.

Something about those words rang in my chest, a resonant gong. But there wasn’t time.

The footsteps and cheerful voices that exited the tavern were fading off in the other direction on the street. There was no one coming. No one to see us. No need to protect her, or myself.

I should let her go.

But then her breath fluttered between my fingers and she stared up at me, eyes big and round and shining, and her lips were so soft and…

I couldn’t.

I shouldn’t.

I wanted to. So badly.

“Grace,” I croaked.

Her eyes widened. “Voski,” she whispered. “Why do I need you?” And her lips brushed against the pads of my fingers.

I shivered.

The light of the lanterns on the street barely reached us in this dark shadow. But the reflection of the light gleamed on her huge, liquid eyes as she stared. And I stared back. And, dammit… I felt her shock give way to relief. Then hope.

No. No.

I braced to push away from her, to release her. To make her safe. To say nothing else, but sink into the shadows and disappear—I could make sure she made it back to the Keep without her even knowing I’d followed.

But in the hairsbreadth of a moment before I moved away, a tiny noise cracked in her throat, and the sheer desperation of it froze me in place.

I knew how that sound felt.

Her nostrils flared, breath tearing in and out, rushing over my fingers, and raising the hair all the way up my arm.

Neither of us moved, our noses barely half an inch apart. I felt her breath like water on my skin—did she feel mine?

But it was the wrong question to ask because an examination of myself left me drowning in the deluge of her.

That hollow space behind my ribs, cavernous, and echoing hunger, ached with relief because she was right there.

Finally, my soul sang.

That frightened me, so I braced again, intending to release her. To disappear. But the sheer fucking heat of her under the leathers, radiated like the blacksmith’s forge, threatening to burn me.

The soft pillow of her chest gave deliciously against my elbow when I shifted, because I’d pinned her against the wall.

Her wide, liquid eyes shone, so close. Lashes long enough to cast a shadow, fluttering now as she blinked and sucked in another breath.

Then her head sank back against the wall, and a challenge entered her gaze. And in response, the wall I’d built around my heart chilled, as if coated in ice.

I waited for her gaze to narrow, and the venomous fang of her words to sink in and remind me that she was everything I had worked to avoid.

But she didn’t move.

Her breath didn’t slow, it grew heavier. Her eyes didn’t narrow, they sparked. And the heat under her skin rose to stain her cheeks so dark I could see it in the shadows.

She raised one, trembling hand, like a hesitant child reaching up to soothe a nervous horse.

“Stop,” I snarled senselessly.