Vaedros watches me for a while before speaking again. “What do you need me to say?”
“The truth.”
“You already have it.”
“Then prove it.”
His gaze sharpens slightly at the challenge. I hold it anyway.
“No titles,” I say. “No alliances. No war. If all of this vanished tomorrow, what would you do?”
He doesn’t answer immediately this time, and I almost hate how much that matters while I wait.
Then he steps closer.
Not enough to corner. Just enough that I can feel his warmth beneath the cold wind.
“I would still choose you,” he says quietly. “And that would remain true whether it benefited me or ruined me.”
The air leaves my lungs a little unevenly. No hesitation. No calculation. Just truth spoken plainly in the dark.
I search for the angle anyway because part of me still expects one to exist. But there’s nothing hidden beneath his expression tonight. No manipulation tucked beneath charm. No careful positioning.
Only him. And gods help me, I trust it now.
I close the remaining distance first.
His hand catches gently at my waist the moment I kiss him, warmth spreading instantly through the cold space between us as his other hand lifts to the side of my neck. The kiss deepensalmost immediately, months of tension unraveling beneath restraint neither of us bothers pretending to maintain anymore.
Vaedros pulls me closer until I’m half in his lap against the stone, his mouth moving against mine with enough hunger to steal breath without ever becoming rough. My fingers slide into his hair, loosening the careful control he carries through everything else, and the sound he makes against my mouth nearly undoes me completely.
“You’re dangerous when you trust someone,” he murmurs between kisses.
“You should be terrified.”
“I am.”
Liar.
But his hands tighten slightly against my waist anyway.
The tension between us has always felt like a blade pulled taut enough to cut. This feels different. Warmer. No less intense, but stripped of the constant expectation that one of us will eventually pull away.
I kiss him again before he can say anything else.
His hand slides along my spine beneath the cloak, pulling me fully against him while the world below us continues moving toward battles neither of us can stop tonight. For once, neither of us reaches for strategy or caution or distance.
Just this. Just each other.
Vaedros leans back slightly, looking up at me with an expression I’ve never seen from him before. Not softened exactly. He will never be soft.
But open.
“You realize,” he says quietly, thumb brushing beneath my jaw, “that I’m not very good at halfway with you.”
My pulse stumbles once. “I noticed.”
“That should probably concern you too.”