Page 176 of The Reckoning of Starlight

“You told me you were fighting for a world where loving me didn’t feel like building something you knew would collapse.” Jassyn shook his head. “If we run, it collapses anyway. Maybe slowly enough that we could pretend the walls were holding.” His fingers tightened over Lykor’s. “But every day I’d know we abandoned everyone who trusted us to fight.”

The glow in Lykor’s eyes dimmed. His fist loosened under Jassyn’s hand, releasing the fabric until his palm settled over Jassyn’s heartbeat.

“Then we go back.” Weariness roughened Lykor’s voice. “And decide what comes next.”

The desert lay silent, the twin moons low over the horizon, their pale crescents thinning into shadows.

Jassyn brushed his thumb across Lykor’s knuckles. “We don’t have to go back tonight. The king took what he wanted. He isn’t coming to finish us off yet.”

It was the safest they’d been in weeks, because Galaeryn had decided their deaths weren’t worth the effort.

Lykor’s brow furrowed. “Then you should rest.” He pulled away, already turning toward the door. “I’ll be outside if you need—”

“Lykor.”

Jassyn caught his forearm.

“I’m not asking you to stand guard.” His fingers slid down to Lykor’s wrist. “When was the last time you slept?”

Lykor’s gaze snagged on the bed and jerked away. “I’ll rest when—”

“Stay.”

Lykor’s pulse kicked hard under Jassyn’s fingers.

“The bed is large enough.” Jassyn kept his voice steady. “We’ve slept side by side before. Snow domes. Cavern floors.”

Lykor went wraith-still.

Jassyn’s fingers curved around his arm. “This is no different.”

It was entirely different. The tension locked through Lykor’s arm made a poor case for the lie.

Jassyn drew Lykor in from the balcony with little more than the weight of his hand at Lykor’s wrist. Lykor followed, shoulders set for a blow, every tendon pulled taut.

At the edge of the bed, Jassyn stopped.

“And you’re not sleeping in armor tonight.”

He unclipped the clasp at Lykor’s throat. Lykor swallowed as the leather loosened under Jassyn’s fingers, his mouth parting before closing again.

Jassyn freed the buckles one by one. He eased the leather from Lykor’s shoulders, and Lykor exhaled as its weight lifted.

Jassyn reached for the hem of his tunic.

Then stopped, the fabric barely gathered between his fingers. He let the pause rest where Lykor could answer it with a step back.

Lykor stayed where he was, eyes flaring in the dark.

Jassyn drew the fabric upward, his knuckles grazing Lykor’s ribs. Lykor lifted his arms to help. Apparently, his mouth had stopped working somewhere before the first buckle.

The tunic cleared his head, and Jassyn let it fall to the floor.

Starlight spilled over Lykor’s skin, tracing scars Jassyn knew and others he didn’t, remnants of Galaeryn’s cruelty and all that had failed to kill him.

In the rainforest, he’d kissed Lykor with bark against his spine and a patrol ten paces away, terror tangled with the need to make one choice before someone else made it for him. Here, wraith guarded the hall outside the door, and the desert lay quiet beyond the balcony.

Desire unfurled through Jassyn without the rainforest’s frantic edge.