Her pulse roared with equal parts anxiety and anticipation, and she extinguished the lamp and went to open the window. Faint mist rolled over her, and in the distance, lightning crackled across the sky.
Zarrah pressed her forehead against the bars and looked down into the darkness, her heart rivaling the thunder that rolled across the city.
And then he was there.
Keris swung himself up so that he was seated sideways on the ledge, one arm through the bars to hold him on the narrow perch. Then he said softly, “I’ve got news.” Zarrah’s heart skipped with the sudden certainty that her aunt had agreed with Keris’s terms. That she was to be freed, and her opportunity for vengeance was lost. But then Keris said, “Aren Kertell provided Coralyn with a way to contact his people in exchange for her giving them his orders to stand down in their rescue attempts.”
It wasn’t at all what she’d expected him to say, and for a moment, she was lost for words.
“She won’t act on it. She made a side deal with my father and revealed much of what Aren told her in exchange for him agreeing to make Serin cease his hunt of my half sisters.”
“Backstabbing old bitch.”
Keris shrugged. “She held back critical details from my father, the most significant of which was that Aren gave her a way to contact his people in Vencia. She has refused to share that knowledge, but that’s of no matter. I’ll get it from Aren himself, meet with his people, and give them the information they need to make a successful rescue attempt.”
Zarrah blinked, then realized his intent. “Your plan is for them to rescue me as well.”
“Yes.”
“Keris…” She exhaled. “This is a mad plan. What the Ithicanians are most likely to do is either kill you on first sight or kidnap you in an attempt to ransom you for Aren.”
He laughed. “They’d have better luck kidnapping and ransoming my father’s horse.”
“Which is why you shouldn’t risk it. It won’t work!”
“It might. The Ithicanians are desperate. They’ll agree.”
“It won’t.” Her heart was thundering in her chest. “Don’t pursue it.”
Keris was silent for a long moment, then he said, “If I didn’t know better, Valcotta, I might think that you didn’t want to escape.”
Zarrah’s hands turned to ice, because if Keris suspected her intentions, he’d try to stop her. Would pursue this mad plan to save her no matter the price. A price that didn’t have to be paid.
Yet she didn’t want to lie to him.
“My freedom isn’t worth your life, which is very likely the cost of all this.”
“On that, we’ll have to agree to disagree, Valcotta. If falling on my own sword would miraculously get you free of this mess, I’d do it. But given it would prove ineffectual, I’ll take what risks I must to secure the help of those who can accomplish this task.”
His voice was angry, bitter, but given this might be their final moment alone together, she refused to deceive him with false hopes. Thunder rolled in the distance, the storm moving closer, and she knew that if she didn’t get underway soon, rain and wind would render the climb impossible. But instead of sending him away, she whispered, “Why do you still call me that?”
Silence.
“Because knowing your name didn’t change who you were to me. Didn’t change how I felt about you. And…” Zarrah heard him swallow. “And perhaps because I refuse to let go of the moment when all things felt possible, including being with you.” He hesitated. “I can stop calling you that, if it’s what you want.”
It was the last thing she wanted.
His hand slipped through the bars to cup her face. “I’d fallen for you before I knew your name. You are everything I can never be. You are powerful and strong and brave. You make me believe I can be better. You give me hope. You are my hope.”
“Keris…”
He moved his thumb, pressing it to her lips. “No matter what the future brings, know that you hold my heart.”
Zarrah’s own heart went wild in her chest, because God help her, it felt an eternity since he’d touched her like this.
She’d once believed there was no going back to the way she’d felt about him when he’d been the anonymous Maridrinian reading her stories about stars. Believed that moment impossible to reclaim. And in that, she’d been correct. Knowing the truth about him, seeing the true him, had created a storm of emotion in her heart that was a hundred times more intense. Of all the stars mapped in her mind, his burned the brightest.
“I should go,” he said. “I put you at risk by being here.”
Zarrah reached through the bars, catching hold of his shirt, her hands tightening into fists because she didn’t want to let him go. Didn’t want to lose him, either through her actions or his. Because though she was too terrified to name the emotion setting her heart on fire, she felt it nonetheless. “Don’t go.”
Every breath she inhaled carried the scent of spice, and it triggered a flood of desire, flashes of memory rolling through her mind. Of his lips trailing over her body, fingers tracing lines of fire over her skin, of his tongue teasing her aching sex. Of his cock thrusting into her until she screamed, echoes of that pleasure sending a shudder through her.
There’d never be another chance to have him touch her, because regardless of whether she succeeded in killing Silas tonight or not, she was unlikely to survive long to revel in it.
This was it.
This was the end.
“I want you.” She caught hold of his hand, interlocking his fingers with hers, sliding his palm over her breast and hearing his intake of breath. “I need you.”
“Valcotta…” His voice was ragged, and because she sensed protest on his lips, she reached through the bars. Slid her hand down the front of his trousers, taking hold of his already stiffening length, his skin hot against her palm. “I want this.”
She stroked her hand up and down, remembering how he liked it, which was not gentle. Her eyes drifted shut and she listened to his breathing accelerate as he hardened beneath her touch.
He groaned, letting go of the bars with one hand to catch hold of her wrist, his fingertips tracing over the veins and making her body ache with need. But then his grip tightened, and he drew her hand out of his trousers, pushing her arm back through the bars. “I won’t take pleasure from you while you are a prisoner. You might have morals beyond measure, Valcotta, but I suffer such a dearth of them that I fear in sacrificing this one, I’ll have no morals left at all.”
“That is such a lie.” Her core throbbed, her thighs slick with desire. “And you seem to forget that in denying yourself, you deny me as well.”
He didn’t answer. Frustration filled Zarrah, because he was going to deny them this moment, not realizing it was the last chance they’d ever have.
“You make a valid point.” He reached through the bars to catch hold of her waist, his hand hot through the thin silk. “You are an excellent negotiator.”