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“For how long?”
He finally looks at me then. Really looks. “Longer than you’ve been alive.
The next mission nearly breaks me.
A boy no older than sixteen, feral and shrieking, rash blazing bright across his throat. I hesitate. Just a heartbeat.
Atlys steps in front of me without thinking. Takes the blow meant for my chest. His blood spills black and shimmering onto the stone.
He kills the boy. Lifts him in his arms. Buries him in the soil.
My hands won’t stop shaking.
Atlys sits with me in silence until they do.
By the second month, my anger has burned down to embers.
I see now the way Atlys carries the Underworld on his back. The way every decision costs him something ancient and irreplaceable. I understand, finally, that loving someone like him means accepting that there will always be locked doors. Buried truths. Histories soaked too deeply in blood to offer cleanly.
I am mortal.
He is not.
And yet he waits for my forgiveness.
The final night in Terraguard before returning to the Watch comes quietly.
No alarms. No screams. Just the moon hanging wrong in the sky somewhere far beyond these caves, distant and cold. Atlys stands on a high overlook above Baiabella, watching the perpetually nocturnal city breathe.
I join him, observing the way the water laps on the shore in a lamenting ballad. Enjoying the way the large leafed trees sway in the salty breeze.
“For what it’s worth,” I say, voice barely carrying, “I don’t think you were wrong.”
He stiffens, hope flaring too fast, too bright. “Akemi—”
“I think,” I continue, heart pounding, “that there was never a moment where telling me would have hurt less. And I think I needed to see this. All of it. To understand who you are.”
He turns to me then, restraint cracking, something dark and dangerous glinting in his eyes. “I would have waited forever.”
“I know.”
The space between us is thin as a breath.
Desire blazes hot beneath my fingers as I trail them along his jaw. His hands hover at my waist, trembling, as if he might shatter me if he claims what he wants.
“Tell me everything,” I whisper. “Someday.”
He presses his forehead to mine, control snapping at last. “Everything,” he promises before lifting me into his arms and jumping over the cliff to the city below.
I scream as our bodies fall before his wings snap out, catching the air and slowing our descent. We glide weightlessly in the darkness above the bustling city to a familiar balcony on the side of the palace cliff face. I don’t wait to land before burying kisses under his jaw and along his neck.
12
Princess Treatment
My feet slam on to the terrace, but I keep the precious person in my arms safe. It’s been absolute fucking torture holding back my most basic desires these past two months. But I would gladly deprive myself for years if it meant gaining Akemi’s forgiveness.
What is love without restraint? To control my animalistic hunger to ravage this woman the moment I see her? I would rip apart this earth to protect her from any more pain.
