Xaden stares down at me that Saturday, his eyes boring a hole through my soul, and a muscle in his jaw ticks once. Twice.
At least there aren’t any shadows creeping out from under my bed, so he can’t be that angry, right?
“Say something.” I hold his gaze and shift my weight when the edge of my desk digs into the backs of my thighs.
His shoulders rise with a deep breath. At least one of us is getting enough oxygen. My chest feels like it’s about to squeeze my lungs right out of it.
“Rhiannon saved my life. If she hadn’t retrieved that dagger before Varrish took your jacket, I wouldn’t be sitting here.” It comes out like the plea it is. “They had to know eventually. She saw the dagger. She knew something was up.”
Those beautiful eyes close, and I swear I can feel him counting to ten.
Fine, maybe twenty.
“Say something. Please,” I whisper.
“I’m choosing my words carefully,” he replies, then takes another measured breath.
“I appreciate that.” I open my mouth to make another excuse, but there really is none to give, so I sit and listen to the clock tick and rain pelt the window while he composes his thoughts.
“Who exactly knows?” he finally asks, slowly opening his eyes.
“Rhiannon, Sawyer, Ridoc, and Quinn.”
“Quinn, too?” His eyes flare.
I hold up a finger. “That was all Imogen.”
“For fuck’s sake.” He drags a hand down his face.
“They don’t know everything.” He lifts his scarred brow, looking anything but reassured.
“They don’t know about Aretia or Brennan or the luminary issue.” I cock my head to the side. “Which really isn’t an issue if I can get a week away from this place to fly to Cordyn. It’s what? A two-day flight?” The city on the southern coast of the Krovlan province can’t be too far.
“Stop.” He leans in, bringing his face right up to mine, bracketing my hips on the desktop with his hands. “Do not go there with me. Not right now. This asinine idea of breaking into the Archives tonight is more than enough for me to sweat about without worrying you’re going to fly off and get yourself captured and killed in enemy territory.”
“It’s not an idea—it’s a plan.” I cup his cheeks. “And it doesn’t feel like you’re sweating to me.”
A sound like a growl works up his throat as he pushes away, retreating a step. “You have no idea what I’m thinking.”
“You’re right. I don’t. So tell me.” I grip the edge of the desk and wait to see if he’ll shut me out as usual.
He runs his thumb beneath the bottom lip I haven’t had the chance to kiss and glances toward the books piled on my shelves. “I appreciate you waiting for me to do this, but there are holes in your plan.”
“What holes?”
“You haven’t secured the agreement of the key participant, for starters—” He lifts a finger.
“That’s because—”
“No, no, it’s my turn to talk right now. You asked what I was thinking, right?” He gives me the wingleader look—the shrewd, calculated one that used to scare the shit out of me—and I snap my mouth shut. He lifts a second finger. “Jesinia won’t be the only scribe there, which means there’s a high probability of being caught.” A third finger joins the other two. “Not only do the books have to be stolen, they have to be returned before anyone notices. Or were you planning on staying overnight to read?”
“I wasn’t borrowing tomorrow’s trouble on that one,” I admit.
“And you really think we can get in and out in under an hour? Because the alternative leaves us dead.”
“We don’t have much of a choice if we want those journals.”
He sighs deeply, then closes the distance between us and takes my chin between his thumb and forefinger to gently tilt my face toward his. “How certain are you that the answers to the wardstone are in those books?”
“We’ve read through half the classified tomes on ward-weaving and repair in the last month, and whatever we haven’t, Jesinia has. They only cover weaving into existing wards or repairing them. Those journals are our best shot at learning how the First Six built the first wards. Our only shot.”
“You know they’ll kill us if we’re caught, right?”
Us. I slide my hands up his chest. “We’re dead anyway if we don’t get Aretia’s wards up. We have months if Brennan’s right, and he usually is. The truth is coming out. It’s just a matter of time.”
His attention drops to my mouth, and my pulse leaps. “If you’re certain this is the only way, then I’m in. There’s no chance I’m letting you do this on your own.”
My smile is instantaneous. “You’re not going to argue? Or tell me there’s another way?”
“Me? Argue with you about books?” He shakes his head, sliding his hand to my cheek. “I only pick fights I can win.” He lowers his mouth inch by slow inch, then stops a breath away. “It’s your turn to talk now.”
He hovers right there and waits, our mouths so close it would only take a whisper of movement to connect us. All it takes is his nearness, his touch, and my blood simmers. Anticipation flushes my skin, and he strokes his thumb along my heated cheek but doesn’t take what I so desperately want him to.
My breath catches at the realization that he’s giving me the choice not just to kiss him, but to call our night in Samara an exception.
But it wasn’t.
Leaning up, I brush my lips across his, then kiss him gently as if it’s the first time. This isn’t heat and passion, though I know it will be in a matter of heartbeats. This is something else entirely. Something that scares the shit out of me, and yet I can’t bring myself to pull away, even in the name of self-preservation.
I’m choosing him, choosing us. There will be no calling this a lapse in judgment, or the result of too much adrenaline, or even lust.
I love him. No matter what he’s done or why he did it, I still love him, and I know he cares about me.
Maybe it isn’t love.
Maybe after all he’s been through, he isn’t capable of that emotion.
But I mean something to him.
He kisses me long and slow, like we have all the time we want, like there’s nothing more important in this world than the slide of his tongue against mine, the drag of his teeth across my lower lip.
It’s a bone-melting, intense assault on every one of my senses, and by the time he lifts his head, we’re both breathing harder.
“We have to stop, or we’re not leaving this room tonight.” He drags the backs of his fingers down my cheek and steps back when I force myself to nod in agreement.
I shake my head to clear it, and he moves toward the door.
Where the hell is he going?
“I didn’t ask him to help us yet for a reason.”
“Yeah. I gathered that.” Xaden pauses, gripping the door handle, and looks over his shoulder at me. “I’m with you. I’ll do this. But you have to know the consequences if he says no.”
My stomach pitches. Telling him will expose us…
“He won’t.” I’m sure of it.
Xaden dips his chin once, then yanks open the door.
Ridoc and Sawyer stagger forward, then slam into the wards and fall to the hallway floor.
My hand flies to my face as I smother a laugh.
“It’s soundproof when the door is closed, assholes,” Xaden growls. “And what the fuck is he already doing here?”
“He doesn’t know why he’s here,” Bodhi is saying. “I just ordered him out of flight lessons.”
I hop off the desk and hurry to the door as Ridoc and Sawyer pick themselves up and split, revealing Bodhi, Rhiannon, Imogen, and Quinn across the hall.
Aaric stands between them all, leaning against the wall, his arms folded across his chest. “Figured you’d come for me sooner or later,” he says, his eyes narrowing on Xaden, shining with nothing short of malice.