“Maybe I should think more. Maybe it’s my idiocy that got me here in the first place.” She could complain all she wanted. Her hands were still wandering up his chest, feeling the solidness of him beneath the thin fabric of his shirt. “One of us should maintain some semblance of reason.”
“Reason is overrated.” His smile was lazy, predatory, but there was something almost vulnerable in the way he watched her face. “Besides, when has reason ever gotten either of us what we wanted?”
He had a point. Reason had kept her focused on revenge for eighty years, but it hadn’t brought her peace. It certainly hadn’t prepared her for this—for the way he could make her forget everything else with just a touch, just a look.
With a single movement, he pulled her to straddle his lap. She shifted her hips forward, and shut her eyes, feeling him there. Eager. Waiting. Impatient. So was she.
“Tell me something.” She traced the sharp line of his jaw. “Did you ever imagine it would come to this?”
“This?” His hands slid down to her waist before pulling her shirt up and over her head. She let him remove it without a fuss. “You mean sitting in a storage closet, eating questionable meat stew and planning the overthrow of two ancient vampire houses?”
“Well.” Despite everything, she laughed. “When you put it likethat.”
Thumb tracing her lower lip, his gaze followed the movement with an intensity that made her breath catch. “But to answer your question—no. Once I learned I had a little fae assassin in my midst, I imagined breaking you, using you, discarding you when you’d served your purpose. I never imagined…”
“What?”
“That you’d break me instead.” The admission was quiet, raw in a way that made her chest tighten. “That I’d find myself willing to burn down everything I’d built if it meant keeping you safe.”
The honesty in his voice was devastating. This was Raziel without his masks, without the careful manipulation and calculated cruelty.
“You haven’t been broken,” she said softly. “Just…changed. We both have.”
“Changed.” He seemed to consider the word, rolling it around like he was tasting something new. “Maybe. I suppose that’s one way to put it.” He reached behind her, unclasping her undergarment, and tossing it aside with her shirt. His hands stroked over her skin, and she let her eyes drift half shut.
His next words surprised her. “And what do you want, little murderer? Really? What would you build from this broken world?”
The question hung between them. She could give him the safe answer, the one that focused on survival and practicality. Or she could tell him the truth that was forming in the depths of her heart, the one that terrified her more than any physical threat.
“Something that’s ours,” she said finally. “Not fae, not vampire, not bound by the old hatreds and hierarchies. Something new.”
“Even if that means ruling over the ashes of both our peoples?”
The question should have given her pause. Should have reminded her of her duty, her heritage, the promises she’d made to her dead family. Instead, she found herself nodding. The world wasbroken.Just like them. “Even then.”
The smile that spread across his face was unlike any she’d seen before—neither predatory nor calculating, but genuinely pleased. Proud, even. “There’s my Serpent Queen.”
Before she could respond to the title, his lips were on hers again, but this kiss was different. Deeper, more claiming. His hands moved with purpose now, one sliding to the nape of her neck while the other pressed against the small of her back, drawing her fully against him.
She could feel the tension in his body, the careful control he was maintaining even as his touch grew more urgent. There was something almost reverent in the way he held her.
“Nadi.” Her real name was a whisper against her throat as he trailed kisses along her jawline. “My beautiful, dangerous Nadi.”
The sound of her true name on his lips sent a shiver through her. For weeks, she had been Monica to the world, even to him. But now, and forever, she could be herself to him. The fae who had loved him despite everything, who had chosen him despite the cost.
“I need you to know something,” he said, his voice rough with emotion she didn’t recognize. “Whatever happens on this raid, whatever we become—this isreal. You and me, here, now. This isn’t strategy or manipulation. This is?—”
“Love,” she finished for him, the word carrying all the weight of their impossible situation. “I know.”
His forehead pressed against hers, and in the dim light of their makeshift room, she could see something she’d never expected to find in those crimson depths. Peace. As if all thecenturies of pain and anger and carefully constructed plans had led to this single moment.
“Then let me show you,” he murmured, “what forever feels like.”
* * *
Raziel knew Nadi was conflicted, even as she surrendered beneath him. He pressed her down to the tattered mattress, and watched as she shut her eyes—those beautiful, black opal eyes that haunted his dreams.
His Nadi. His murderer.His.If anyone was going to kill him in this world, it would beher.No one else. No one else had earned the right. No one else wouldeverdeserve it. No one else was allowed to deem him unsuitable. Excepther.His conscience. His morals. The proof of his sin. A killer of his making.
