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The bond cracked wide.

She flooded in. The relief of finally being allowed to touch. The joy. The fierce, desperate love that had kept her fighting when anyone else would have let me go.

Something inside me that had been held together by will alone finally shattered—and what grew in its place was stronger than what I had been protecting.

My hands found her waist. Her hips. The fastenings of her dress.

“We have perhaps fifteen minutes,” she gasped against my mouth, “before someone comes looking.”

“Then we shall be quick.”

“Quick now.” Her fingers worked at my buttons. “Proper later.”

A laugh escaped me—startled, breathless, more joy than I had felt since before the corruption took hold.

Her impatience spilled into my chest. Her affection. Her absolute certainty that this—us, here, now—was exactly where she belonged.

I was free. She was in my arms. There was only love—hers, mine, ours—woven so tight I couldn't find the seams.

Fifteen minutes, she had said.

We would make them count.

CHAPTER 26

LILY

His mouth was on mine and I was drowning. Not the desperate, frantic drowning of panic—the slow, sweet surrender of letting the current take you. His hands in my hair. His chest pressed against mine. The bond between us blazing so bright every beat of his heart became my own.

He was finally here. Solid and warm and real, and when I pulled at his shirt he helped me, shrugging out of it with an urgency that matched my own.

The fabric fell away.

I pressed my palms flat against the warm skin of his chest. The shudder that ran through him at my touch, and then my own touch echoed back, his awareness of my hands like fire tracing paths across his body.

“This is unfair,” I breathed. “I can feel how much you want me.”

“Good.” His voice was rough. “I want you to feel it. I want you to know exactly what you do to me.”

Through the bond, his desire hit me like a wave. The way a man dying of thirst needs water.

I looked up at him. Afternoon light caught the planes of his face, the sharp jaw, the gold flecks in his hazel eyes, the mouth I had dreamed about. He was looking at me like I was something precious. Something sacred.

“I thought I lost you,” I whispered. “At the opera house. When the corruption took over completely. I thought⁠—“

He kissed me again—slower this time, his hands cradling my face like I was something he'd been given back and couldn't quite believe he was allowed to keep. The kind of kiss that said everything his voice couldn't hold.

“You found me,” he said against my lips. “You always find me.”

His fingers found the fastenings at my back. Worked them loose one by one while his mouth traced a path down my throat. I tilted my head back, giving him access. Satisfaction surged through him at my surrender.

The dress loosened then slipped from my shoulders.

His hands left my skin. Cool air rushed into the space between us as he drew back, and through the bond I felt the deliberate restraint it cost him, holding himself at arm's length so his eyes could take in what his hands had uncovered.

I stood before him in my corset and chemise, the afternoon light painting gold across my skin. His gaze moved over me, tracing the line of my collarbone, the swell of my breasts, the bare skin of my shoulders.

“You are so beautiful,” he breathed. “The corruption muted everything. Made it grey. I had forgotten what it was like to look upon you. To feel you.”