Page 98 of Heart of Thieves

He gasps, blood speckling his lips. “Oh . . . hi, there.”

I pull my jacket off the floor where he discarded it earlier and press it to his wound, but it doesn’t soak up much blood. The flesh is already stitching itself back together, pink and raw but no longer bleeding.

“Oh, thank the gods,” I rasp, pressing my lips to his brow. “You’re not dying.”

“Are you sure?” He coughs, and I choke out a laugh.

But when his eyes meet mine, and his pale, bloodless face breaks into a weak smile, everything that happened moments ago comes rushing back. The hoop, the kiss, the way he went rigid in my hands, the way he shoved off of me, jerking away as though I disgusted him. And then when Ostena came in, brandishing a blade . . . he just stood there.

“What was that?” I ask, the smile slipping from my face.

“You’ll have to be more specific.”

“Just now. She was trying to kill me, and you . . . What were you waiting for?”

He opens his mouth as though to respond, but as has happened so many times before, the words get lodged in his throat. “It—” he attempts. Then, “I—” He grimaces and mops the blood off his mouth. “Blast it.”

“Try again,” I say, pity, hope, and fear battling inside me.

He closes his eyes, then gingerly pushes himself into a seated position, taking me into his lap, his arms tightening around my waist.

Finally, he tips his forehead against mine and says, “Laurel has magic, too.”

“I’m aware.”

“I—” Again, his tongue halts.

Frowning, I reach out and unhook my voratium glasses from his collar, sliding them back into place on my face. His eyes come into focus at once. Violet and sparkling and full of pain . . . but no pale, icy light.

“She was controlling you, wasn’t she?” I whisper. “That’s why you were behaving so off . . .”

His throat bobs as he swallows.

I push the lock of bluish-silver hair out of his face. “It’s just you now, right?”

That devilish grin I’ve missed so much curls the corner of one side of his mouth. “If I say yes, do I get another kiss?”

And I know it’s him—only him—because the careful, guarded tone is gone. It’s raw and teasing and so familiar I could cry.

I lean in and press my lips to his.

He kisses me back softly. A question. An ache. His hands trail up my back, bracing me against him, and they’re shaking—whether from blood loss or adrenaline or something else entirely, I cannot tell.

And the game is still going on, and the moonshard is still gathering his magic from the roof, and Estelle is somewhere out there waiting, and Ostena and Forsyth are likely going to tell my father I’m here, and all depths are about to break loose, but for just this moment, here in his arms with the taste of him on my mouth, I finally feel like everything might be all right, if only for a heartbeat.

He pulls back to smile at me, and it’s like the unfurling of stars at twilight. Slow and quiet and mesmerizing.

Nic’s here.

The relief is so intense, I can barely breathe. I grasp onto his forearms, squeezing my eyes shut so the tears gathering in them won’t fall. He traces my face, fingers skating along my jaw, drawing the shape of my lips, following the slope of my neck.

“Stay with me,” I whisper, clinging to him like I can keep him here. “Please?”

He squeezes me as though to reassure me. “Life cannot give guarantees, no matter how we may wish it could.”

He doesn’t know if he can stay. Perhaps he’s still battling Laurel’s hold, perhaps she’s fighting back, deep inside where I cannot see.

The thought wrenches a quiet sob from my throat.