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"You let me believe I meant nothing to you."

"I know." His voice was quieter now. "That is the part I don't know how to forgive myself for."

We stood several feet apart beneath the broken roof, neither of us moving.

That was when I noticed the bruise along his jaw.

It had faded since Monday, but there was still a yellow-green shadow along the bone.

"Who did that?"

He looked away.

"Kaelen. Who hit you?" I repeated.

"Varga." He kept his eyes on the roses. "The night after the car. My father sent him with a message. He wanted me to know that he knew exactly who had been driving his car and exactly who had been in the back of it." His mouth tightened. "Varga delivered the message personally. He enjoyed doing it."

I had suspected as much since Monday night, when I had seen Kaelen standing at the Fenhall table with that mark on his face. Hearing him say it made the anger cleaner and much harder to ignore.

For a moment, all I could think about was finding Varga.

Instead, I looked at Kaelen.

"I still have your handkerchief," I said. The admission came out before I had decided to make it. "The one you wrapped my glasses in. I've been sleeping with it under my pillow for nine weeks. I used it on someone who was hurt. I was going to give it back to you tonight. After everything was over."

He looked at me.

"Keep it."

After that, neither of us had much interest in talking.

I don't know which of us moved first. We crossed the distance at nearly the same time.

His hands went into my hair as mine caught the front of his black jacket, and when his mouth came down on mine there was nothing careful about it. Three months of anger and wanting had nowhere else to go.

He kissed me hard, and I answered with just as much force. My teeth caught his lower lip where he had once bitten through it, and the sound he made against my mouth went straight through me.

He pushed me back against the glass.

Cold pressed through the ruined silk at my back. One of his hands braced against the iron frame beside my head while the other closed around my hip.

The velvet lacing at my side gave under his fingers. One fastening snapped, then another, until the torn green silk opened from my ribs to my thigh and his palm settled against bare skin.

"Hale," he said against my mouth.

There was warning in it, but there was want too.

"Don't," I said. "Don't you dare stop."

He didn't.

His hand moved over my hip and across the soft curve of my stomach before sliding between my thighs through the opening in the dress.

He found me already wet.

His breath left him against my throat.

Then he lifted his head.