Shit.
Gideon turned to Rune, cutting her off from their view.
“I can’t recast it with so many people around.” Rune’s grip tightened on his hand as she pulled him back into the chaos of whirling dancers.
He nodded, his thoughts buzzing, trying to come up with a plan. He scanned the room again, searching for a different exit and finding none.
“They’ve split up,” said Rune, staring over his shoulder.
Not good.
Gideon couldn’t keep himself positioned between them both and Rune. His gaze snagged on a dark corner across the room. If he could get her to it, she could recast the spell there.
The song ended.
Breathless and laughing, the dancers stopped dancing and their swirling skirts came to a standstill. They began to scatter and disperse, leaving Rune and Gideon exposed.
They had seconds before she was seen and recognized by the officers. Once that happened, Gideon would be arrested. The ship would turn around. He’d be delivered straight to a Caelisian prison—or, more likely, to Cressida.
More importantly, Rune would be exposed to the spy sent to kill her. A spy she didn’t even know was hunting her.
Somehow, Gideon needed to make everyone in this room believe they weren’t seeing Rune Winters, the kidnapped witch from Caelis, and her captor—a witch hunter who wanted herdead. He needed to make them see nothing but a couple of newlyweds.
Rune’s head turned, her gaze flickering between the officers. “Gideon…”
Fuck it.
Taking Rune’s face in his hands, drawing her gaze to his, Gideon did what he’d wanted to do for days now. Ever since he found her crying in that powder room.
He slid his hands into her hair and kissed her.
Rune tensed, like a deer in a hunter’s crosshairs.
Don’t fight me, baby.
He ran his thumb along her jaw to soothe her. He needed her to help him make this look real. At least until the next song started and they could escape to the shadows.
Either his stroking worked, or Rune figured it out, because she relaxed. Then kissed back, her lips parting beneath his.
It was as if the betrayal of the past few months never happened.
Gideon suddenly couldn’t understand why they’d stopped doing this.
He missed her hair in his hands. Missed her warm, sweet mouth. Missed the way she melted like butter beneath his touch. His entire being ached for her. Every touch of her lips, every press of her body, sent him closer to a deadly fire. One that had burned him before, and, he suspected, would burn him again.
Hooking her arms around his neck, Rune arched against him. Telling him how very mutual this feeling was. That he wasn’t alone in his wanting.
If this was weakness, he wanted to be weak.
If this was sin, let him be damned to hell.
Kissing Rune was like a realignment. There was before, when everything was off its axis. And there was after, when everything was steady andright.
When the next song started, Gideon used the crowd as cover to guide her backward, kissing her as he moved through the dancers, toward that dark corner, and pressing her up against the wall.
She was hidden here, in the darkness. He needed to step away and let her recast the spell.
Instead, he tipped her head back and kissed her harder.
