Page 131 of The Thief and the Traitor Bride

“Let’s arrange for tomorrow night,” Caspian said. “If it’s an easy job, we can go, get the artifact, and be back on the mainland before the end of the evening’s feast—and I have it on good authority that Locke will be tied up with that, so there will be fewer guards on the north side of the Isle.

“We can get in, be out quickly, and join an evening ship to the mainland. And then we’ll get you home.”

“That sounds sensible,” Nore said. She lay back then, uncertain how to label all of the shifts between them that had occurred in this one night. Something knotted in her gut: there was no doubt anymore that Caspian trusted her, and that his trust was potentially coming from a place of devotion, probably a leftover or reignition from their marriage.

She also could not deny that every feeling she’d tried to push down, beat away, had come roaring back up with a ferocity that shocked her. Nore was level, not often taken with flights of fancy—her relationship with Cas had once been the only passionate thing about her.

And now all those feelings were surging back: not just the lust, which she had given in to and still remained unsated. In their marriage, she remembered how often she’d felt like she would never get enough of him, like the rest of the world was just a distraction and Cas was the center of her entire universe. She found herself tipping again, following every movement, every thought, like an orbiting moon.

“It’s good work, Cas,” she said softly.

Caspian’s lips turned up, but Nore would not call the move a smile. “It’s heinous work, Finch,” he said, pulling her against him. “Now, come to bed.”

“I’m already in bed,” she said, letting her eyes slip shut. Letting him pull her close, and knowing it was probably the last time she could allow it.

I have passed on the message. Finch has assured me she remains dedicated as ever and otherwise undistracted.

Tern to Dove via Sparrow, 1636 UCE

twenty-six

SHE WOKE WITH HER arm looped over his waist, her hand entwined in his, locked over his stomach. It was a wonder, Nore thought, that he was still in bed, let alone still asleep.

She took in the way the cloudy light traced the planes of his body, leaning forward to kiss a freckle on his shoulder she’d always loved. How many mornings she’d woken up, skimmed her nose over his shoulder blade, pressed her lips to that freckle. He sighed, the long line of his spine stretching as he stirred. She allowed herself one more minute of this, tightening her arm around him and feeling the hard lines of his abdominal muscles under her right palm, burying her face in the crook of his neck.

She felt the moment Caspian woke—he froze for a moment, then softened. He rolled onto his back, pulling her over him. Nore let him, probably giving in too easily. Her hair fell loose over her shoulders as she sat up, copper tinging the edges of her vision.

Nore hesitated, anticipating—but he did not draw her down, nor did he make any other move. He only rested his hand on her hips as he studied her, his gaze tracing over her face, then down her neck, over her collarbones. She shivered as his eyes traced lower, his hands moving up to frame her waist. His thumb skimmed over the scar on her ribs, below her breast.

“What are you doing?” Nore asked, fighting the urge to arch her back, to play into whatever design he had.

His eyes flicked back up to hers, the warm brown of them sweet as her favorite well-aged Lindle mead. “Just looking at you,” Caspian said.

“Ah.” She swallowed hard, uncertain why she found it suddenly difficult to speak. She ran her fingertips over his chest, over the light dusting of hair that curled over his skin. She couldn’t keep allowing this tenderness, no matter how much she craved it.

She diverted, thinking of anything that would save her. “Already have your next job lined up?”

He regarded her. “I thought you wouldn’t want to know.”

“I don’t,” she lied. “Only… only if you want to tell me.”

He sat up carefully so he only shifted her in his lap, keeping an arm around her back, his hand resting flat against her scars. He wound a tendril of her hair through the fingers of his left hand, watching the way the red shimmered in the light. “I don’t have another job lined up,” he said softly. “I’m going back to Nadira. To my father’s family. I may stay for a short while—I may stay forever. I may hang up my knives entirely after this.”

“Oh,” Nore said.

He looked up at her, his expression serious, as he said, “And you?”

Nore looked away. She would go back to Nettlepool, back to her desk and her work, back to her apartment and her cat. Back to a new elevated role at the duchess’s right hand. Back to the loneliness, and the anonymous lovers, and the safety of the life she had so carefully constructed for herself after he had shattered her world apart.

“Finch,” he said softly, dropping her hair to cup her chin, his thumb skimming over her cheekbone. “Don’t cry.”

“I’m not,” Nore lied.

He kissed the crest of her cheekbone, stopping the tear as it fell. “I know you better than that,” Cas murmured.

She turned her head, pressing her lips to his, catching his bottom lip between her teeth. “It’s what’s best for us both,” she said, but she still tilted her chin when he kissed down the arc of her throat. “You back to your life, and me back to mine.”

“Is it?” he asked, imperious, against her collarbone.