The poetry in my mother’s books wove through my mind. This was nothing like the emotions suggested in that stilted language. I thought I understood the secrets behind the words that Sivo and Perla had read to me—how a single kiss could brand a person—but I didn’t. Now I knew that the reality was so much better. So much more intense. Now I felt it all: the singe of his mouth slanting on mine, the increasing pressure, the growing need, the friction that spread to my very toes.
I lifted trembling hands, spearing my fingers through his hair, reveling in the silky locks filling my palms. He slanted his mouth one way, then another, as though he couldn’t get enough. I cupped his cheek, enjoying the sensation of his hard jaw under my fingertips as we kissed.
“I like that,” he growled. “You. Touching me.”
I shivered. Did he know how badly I had wanted to touch him? More than just those few times? Every day since we came together I had craved this, yearned to feel him but scared to reach out. I had worried that he would turn from me and I would be left feeling more alone than before.
I knew how soft his lips could be, but I had no idea how they could consume me. I was lost in his mouth on mine, in the sensation of his hand holding my face as his fingers dove into my hair.
He crouched for a fraction of a moment, wrapped his arms around my waist, and lifted me off my feet until we were perfectly aligned, my mouth level with his. He started walking.
I tightened my arms around his shoulders, hanging on. I gave the smallest gasp when he backed us into a wall, but that didn’t stop the kiss. No. He didn’t slow down. His mouth was thorough, soft and hard and hungry. I felt him everywhere. And this was just a kiss. Leaving him would ruin me.
A thump sounded outside the door. “Come on, boy! They’re heading to the lift. It’s time to go.”
My mouth lifted from his at the sound of Mirelya’s rusty voice. Our breaths crashed between us. I held his face, my thumbs tracing small circles on his warm cheeks.
After a long moment with Fowler’s arms still wrapped around my waist, he said in a voice that stroked a shiver down my spine, “That’s why you can’t go. Princess.” He brushed back a tendril of hair off my face. “I’m going out on that lake and when I get back we’ll continue to Allu.” He paused as though he wanted that to sink in for me. I didn’t have the heart to fight anymore. I said nothing, but my resolve only deepened.
I would go to the capital with or without him. I had to.
“Fowler!” Mirelya’s voice boomed from outside our room, all patience gone.
He lowered me back down to the ground and dropped his hands from me. He strode from the room without another word.
I stood in that same spot for a long moment, stupidly staring into the dark of my mind, still as a stone until I jolted to action. Pulling my cap from my pocket, I tugged it back over my head, as if that helped hide my gender. Feeling suitably disguised, I followed him out.
“I’ll look after her,” Mirelya was assuring him in her creaking voice, sitting somewhere to the right, presumably at the table.
I snorted, finding a bit of irony in that. This ancient woman, nearly as blind as I was, would look after me? Her bones cracked every time she moved and there was the odor of decay about her.
“Thank you, Mirelya,” Fowler said.
“Watch yourself out there, boy. There’s more than kelp in those waters.”
Cold seeped into my bones. “What do you mean? Is it very risky?”
“It’s no simple task,” Mirelya allowed.
“Well, no then.” I turned in Fowler’s direction. “You can’t go. You’re nothing to them. They care nothing for your life. You’re expendable to them. One of many to be lost for their purposes—” I strode across the room, my fingers finding and latching onto him, curling into the worn leather of his jacket. I had been so caught up in my insistence to return to Relhok City that it hadn’t occurred to me that they might force him into a dangerous situation.
“Luna.” His hand closed over mine. “I’ve survived this long. This isn’t going to be the end of me. It would take more than a lake to kill me.”
He lifted my hands off him, his warm touch no less firm for all its gentleness. My hands dropped to my sides, empty.
“I’ll be back,” he assured me.
“I don’t want you to go.” There was no wavering in my voice. It rang solidly. I needed for him to be safe and well. I needed him not to go off into whatever danger waited in that lake.
Suddenly I understood his insistence that I not go back to Relhok City. I understood because I felt the very same way. I wanted him safe, and he wanted the same thing for me, but I wouldn’t tolerate it of him.
But his life didn’t equal the death of an entire group. Mine did.
I wanted him to forget about going out on that lake. I wanted him to wait until midlight and then continue on his journey to Allu as he’d always planned—as he had always intended from the moment we first met. It was his plan before we met. It was his plan after we met. It would be his plan no matter what happened to me.
I swallowed against the bitter taste in my mouth. Whether I was with him or not, he would eventually see that. As long as he survived. As long as nothing happened to him out on that lake.