“Don’t I deserve to know them?”
“I think so.”
She scrunched her eyes closed, thinking of all Ellie Turkens had said, of her warnings and advice. “Are you really a devil then? Have I chosen wrong?”
She refused to cry anymore, though her breaths remained unsteady. She sniffed against him, and he tucked her in further. “Not with you, Alora.”
He didn’t answer either question, she noticed.Damn.Perhaps she was a bad person after all, because in that moment, it sounded like enough to her.
She angled her chin, though she couldn’t see even his outline. “Can you fly?”
She felt his huffed breath against her nose. “No?”
“Then how are you on my terrace?”
“I walked the ledge.”
“That’s hardly wide enough for a cat!”
His hands left her back to skim down her hips, only to return to her arms, neck, and lastly cupping her face. “I was motivated.”
She wondered how her eyes looked to him now. Wide? Her pupils dilated until their color was more black than gray? And then she remembered. “I thought the Urchin captain’s eyes were dark, with a rasping voice and a certain unfavorable opinion about a Potions and Peculiarities shopkeeper.”
“You’re not incorrect about my eyes. As far as the voice, the mask is enchanted, another facet of disguise. And I stand by my opinion of the shopkeeper. He can be an idiot. Like not telling you how he felt the moment you’d come to his doorstep, politely demanding a distraction.”
Alora’s cheeks warmed over how forward she’d been. But it was nothing compared to the heat she felt everywhere else inside her now. “Thatwasrather idiotic of him,” she teased.
His nose met the tip of hers. “Please say you’ll come to me and only me if you ever need another.”
“I suppose so. I can’t imagine anyone doing it better,” she said, and her breath caught when his lips met her temple. He hummed his approval there. He moved to her cheek. When she breathed again at last, it was jagged. She couldn’t believe how easily affected she was. It was not ever like this. Not with anyone else. She stammered, “Is your name really Bash?”
“Bash Merridon. I don’t suppose I properly introduced myself the first time.” His lips settled upon her opposite cheek. “I’m sorry,” he said, against her skin.
Her mouth turned toward his, a pull she couldn’t ignore. “I thought it might be Ezra.”
“Ezra? Why?”
“The Urchins said he had died. And I’d seen the body behind Opulence, and William said it was you.”
Because her hands had found themselves gripping his waist, Alora felt the moment Bash stiffened beneath her fingers. He had to have been built of nothing but muscle, to become so rigid. She frowned. “Did I—”
“Williamspoke to you?”
Alora almost reached to his mouth again, sure the mask must have somehow been replaced. His voice rasped with barely contained fury, the cold of it raking across her skin. She shivered.
“He found me outside the Room of Desire.”
“For what purpose?”
She knew he could feel her hesitation, sure as she could sense everything rising inside him. And she wasn’t frightened of him, precisely, but more the chain of events she might ignite next. “He told me you were dead. Then he tried to—” The Urchin captain’s grip tightened upon her arms until they almost hurt, then they dropped away. She felt him move back. “Bash…”
Suddenly, her wrist was in his hand again, though this time she could feel his gloved fingers roving across the skin. Too late, she realized it must have bruised. She’d guessed it would.
“He did this?”
Alora winced at the whisper of death in his words. “I hit him over the head right after.”
She’d thought that would appease him. She was wrong.
