“Dying from a wound you caused when you unleashed that tornado,” Penn says with a gentleness that makes me want to weep.
“Are you calling me a murderer?” Tears spring to my eyes unbidden. “He kidnapped me. He would have killed me.”
“I’m sure that’s true. Make no mistake, he deserved to die. But no amount of justification will change how you feel about what you did.” Penn shakes his head slowly back and forth. “If it were me, I wouldn’t think twice about driving my sword through his gut. I would relish the chance. You, though…I know you.I know how closely you guard your heart. I know, despite everything you have endured, you still believe in good and evil. Inmorality. So, whether or not he deserved to die, his death is a scar you will carry for the rest of your days.”
I cannot stand to look at him anymore. Or perhaps I cannot stand for him to look at me. Not with the pressure gathering like storm clouds behind my eyes, threatening a torrent of impending tears.
Penn steps closer, directly into my space. His hands slip around my neck, a soft scrape of calluses against the thinnest skin. I close my eyes as his warmth sinks into me, pressing my lips tight together to keep my whimper of despair contained.
“Rhya.” His voice is very nearly a caress. “Some grief is too heavy to carry alone. Let go of it. Give it to me. I will carry it for you.”
The whimper slips out.
His hands tighten at the sound. Yet his words remain whisper soft. “Stop running from a past you can’t change. Walk forward with me instead.”
I thought, after all this time together, I had seen every side to Prince Pendefyre of Dyved. But here is one I have never before witnessed.
Gentle.
Considerate.
Caring.
It is such a far cry from his typical gruffness, from his finely honed scorn and blunt brutality, it undermines the last shred of my composure. The tears I have worked so hard to hold at bay rush out in a hot flood, pouring down my cheeks unchecked. They do not have a chance to fall, for Penn pulls me closer, flush against him, and before I know what is happening, my face is buried in the crook of his neck.
I allow myself to weep against his skin, to release all my griefinto his strong, solid frame. As if he really can take the pain from me, absorb it like a sponge until I am wrung out and empty.
I cry for the life I have taken. I cry for the blood on my hands—on my heart. I cry for the girl I used to be, who saw the world with perfect clarity. Right and wrong. Good and evil. Sinner and saint. Mostly, though, I cry because I know down to my very core that I do not regret the choice I made. If I could go back to that moment in the wagon, when I chose to unleash the wind…I would do it again. I would save myself a thousand times over.
Even if I had to kill to do it.
I am not sure how long we stand there—my arms wrapped tight around Penn’s back, his fingers laced through the thick fall of my hair. When my sobs finally subside into ragged gasps of air, when my shudders lessen into minor shakes, when my eyes are swollen and aching…I tilt my head back to meet his stare.
His eyes soften when he sees the tears still glimmering on the surface of mine. Our faces are so close—a hairsbreadth apart. Our breaths mingle in the scant space between our mouths. Mine are coming faster and faster as I try to remind myself of all the reasons closing that tiny shred of distance would be a bad idea, an irreversible one with repercussions that will echo far into the future, one that will change everything between us in fundamental ways…
But then,hemoves.
All my reasons drift away, scattering to the wind like dandelion fuzz. My hesitations vanish in a blink; my excuses evaporate like they never existed. Because Penn’s mouth is on mine, sinking down to claim my lips in a breath-stealing crush that makes my chest cave and my mind blank.
He kisses me with the same ragged desperation that buzzes through my own veins. With the same pulsing desire I feel mirrored in the bond that flows between us. Not just between us,now, but windingaroundus, twining us together like invisible rope. Tighter, tighter, tighter. Until I forget where I end and he begins.
I kiss him back, kiss him with everything I have—all my pain and rage and yearning, all my pent-up need from weeks of lying to myself that this, right here, is not exactly what I’ve wanted from him for longer than I care to remember. That this—his mouth on mine, his hands in my hair, his heartbeat thrumming in time with my pulse—is not what I have longed for each time we’ve bickered and butted heads and goaded each other with verbal barbs.
His head slants, deepening the kiss as my hands slide up his chest. A deep rattle moves in the back of his throat when my fingers brush the nape of his neck, where the thick hair curls below the rim of his helmet. The nose bridge is cold against my feverish face as I push up onto my toes, needing to be closer to him. Needing more of this. More of everything. More skin, more warmth, more fire in my blood.
More Penn.
His arms wind around me, steely bands that lock me firmly against him. I’m grateful he’s holding me up, for there is no way my legs will support my weight, no way my weakened knees will keep from buckling under the immensity of my emotions.
The wind is a wail, stirring the leaves at our feet into a vortex, sending up sparks from the campfire into the sky. I try to get my power under control, to keep from setting off a squall, but Penn is all-consuming. I am swimming in his taste, his touch, his scent. Unable to concentrate on anything except the way his hands slide down my spine, a heated exploration. The delicious press of my breasts against his firm chest as I bow against him, lost to sensation.
Skies.
I gasp, and the second my lips part, Penn’s tongue sweeps between them. I go fully pliant in his arms, allowing him to plunder my mouth without an ounce of protest. He is conquering me, bit by bit, but there is something beautiful about the surrender. He takes command of my mouth with the same unrelenting ferocity I have seen him exhibit in sparring pits and on fields of battle—no hesitations, no second-guessing.
I can only cling to him as his lips lay siege, driving my desire to a new height never previously experienced. At least, not until his hand slides up my side beneath the cloak and finds the soft swell of my breast. A moan moves in my throat—a ragged, hungry sound—as his thumb ghosts over my hardened nipple through the fabric of my gown.
The leaves and campfire sparks continue to swirl around us, faster and faster, until the world is naught but a blur of wind and flame. We’ll set the whole wood ablaze if we keep this up much longer.