My hand trembles as I lift the glass to my mouth.
“Are you scared to be alone with me?”
I start so violently, gin sloshes over the rim. “Afraid of you? Of course not. Why would you think that?”
“You’re shaking.”
“Perhaps I’m cold.”
“It’s twice as warm here as Caeldera, and you never trembled in my presence there.”
My gaze moves to his. “How is Caeldera?”
“Progress is slow. We have cleared the majority of the rubble from the inner keep. Now we begin the painstaking process of rebuilding.” He takes a long sip, eyes holding mine over the rim of his glass. Even in the darkness, they glow with banked flames. “It will take years. But one day, it will be as it was. Better, even.”
“I have no doubt.”
“You will see the progress for yourself when you return.”
Tongue-tied, I take another gulp of my drink.
“It was difficult to leave, even knowing it is well protected by those who remain behind.” He pauses. “Not that there are many citizens left to protect. More have fled. They, like you, seem to have started new lives in new places.”
My shoulders tense. “I did not flee, Penn. That’s not fair.”
It is like he does not even hear me. His expression turns as dark as his tone. “Nothing is the same since you left.”
The breath evacuates my lungs. “Pende—”
“No. Let me get this out.” He pushes aside his glass and leans over the table so I cannot escape his eyes. “Rhya, I watch my kingdom slowly knitting back together, watch the light beginning to return to the eyes of my people, and I realize…none of it matters without you there by my side to see it.”
My pulse kicks up to a patter.
“In every crowd, it is your face I search for. At every table, it is you I seek to sit beside. Every triumph, every failure…you are the one I wish to share them with. But you are no longer there. You are a ghost in the corner of my eyes, gone the second I turn to look. And your absence…Gods, Rhya, it haunts me.Youhaunt me. Around every corner, down every corridor. Dreaming or waking, you are there, burned into my eyes like a brand.”
“I never meant to haunt you,” I whisper. “I thought, in staying away, I might grant you peace.”
He pushes to his feet so fast, the chair tumbles backward to the ground with a clatter. “Peace? There is no peace without you.”
He takes two strides in my direction and falls to his knees before me. My stunned mind struggles to process what is happening as he grips my chair by its legs and drags it around to face him. On the shadowy terrace, his ember eyes seem the only source of light.
“Rhya…” His hands lock on my hips, holding tight enough to bruise. “I have not known peace since the moment you went through that portal. I fear I will never know it again. Not until you are back with me in Caeldera.”
I gape at him, incapable of speech.
“Do you understand what I am telling you?” He shudders with the effort to keep his powers in check, his broad shoulders shaking with each breath. His hands are warm as brands even through the leather. “Rhya, I…I never should’ve let you go. I cannot be without you, not for another day, not for another moment. Come back. Please,please…come back to me.”
With that halting confession, he lays his head in my lap.
I go utterly still.
I have no idea what to do, what to say. For this is everything I’ve wished to hear from Penn for so very long. Everything I dreamed he might one day confess to me as I tossed and turned at night, as I agonized overmaybesandsomedays.As I chastised myself for daring to hope for an ending in which we might end up together.
“Rhya,”he whispers—nearly a whimper. “Please.”
His pain brims over, rushes through me. Tears spring to my eyes as it mingles with my own wildly vacillating emotions. Before I can stop myself, my fingers are threading through his thick, burnished chestnut hair. He groans as he feels my touch.
I mean it to be soothing—but Penn is not in the mood to be soothed. In a blink, his grip on my hips tightens and I feel my body dragged down to the floor, the edge of the chair scraping my spine, my skull cracking against the hard terrace tiles. I barely feel the pain as Penn’s body rolls on top of mine, his weight compressing the breath from my lungs as he settles between my legs. My gasp of shock is swept away by his mouth, which claims mine in a bruising, feverish kiss.