I stepped closer. The only thing I wanted was to hold her.
“I don’t know what to do with everything you said.” She shifted her face up to me. “I don’t even know if I deserve it.”
“Deserve it?”
Her chin trembled before she stiffened it. “My mother, she knew I wasn’t her baby.”
My hand came up, almost touched her jaw. “Eury, she was your mother.”
“Did she even love me?” A choked pause. “Could she?”
Now I did step forward. I closed her in my arms and set my head on top of hers. “Of course she could. Shedid.”
“How could you know that?”
I kissed her sweet hair. “Because it’s impossible not to love you.”
She grasped at my shirt and let out a small, guttural noise that I knew had as much to do with her own pain as with me. I knew she needed her hair stroked, my hand on her back, and so I gave that to her. Easily, gladly, whatever she needed.
We stood like that for minutes, until she raised her face and wiped her cheeks with the backs of her hands. Her eyes were clear, intent. All the ghosts had drifted elsewhere, and the Eurydice I knew was back.
“We’re going somewhere dangerous.” Not a question.
I nodded.
“And we need to leave now.” Also not a question.
I nodded again.
“I’ll finish getting ready. Before I do”—her eyes narrowed—“if you don’t kiss me, I’ll name a newveyre.”
She was a menace. An absolute menace.
“That’s not how any of this works,” I said on my breath, already in motion. I slid one hand into her silky hair, lowered my face, and crushed my mouth against hers.
Her lips parted for me like she’d been waiting, and my tongue pressed against hers. Sweet, warm, mine.
Her fingers clawed at my shirt. I groaned, pulling her closer. I lifted her off her feet and backed us up until her spine met the wall and her legs wrapped around me. My hand found the bare skin at her hip, sliding into the waist of her pants, and she gasped into my mouth.
I wanted to devour her. I wanted to lay her down on that narrow bed and forget every promise I’d ever made.
Her teeth caught my lower lip. My hips pressed into hers, and the sound she made—gods, the sound she made.
"Dorian." My name on her breath. Half plea, half warning.
I kissed down her jaw, her neck, the hollow of her throat. Herpulse fluttered against my lips. She arched into me, fingers digging into my shoulders hard enough to bruise.
We had time. No one knew us here. No handmaidens, no court, no gods watching. Just a locked door and a bed and her body warm against mine.
My hand slid higher. She shivered.
The Killing Fields. The dagger. The trial.
We didn’t have much time. Every minute we spent here was a minute less to retrieve the dagger, to get back to Feyreign.
Curse the trial. Curse necessity. And yet?—
"We can’t." I said it against her collarbone, not believing it.