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ChapterSixteen
Perry stopped fighting, stopped thinking, stopped breathing.By the powers, Vori could kiss.
With his eyes closed and his senses full of her softness and scent, he could almost forget the guard, the pretender queen, the murder scene.The world around them was literally collapsing, and he never wanted her to stop.She tasted of lemon and sugar and the promise of more.
His power leapt toward her, the kiss unlocking the stolen magic at the center of him.Making him burn with it as much as he burned for her.He struggled to control the voltage humming through his veins.He didn’t want to hurt her.
A hard yank on his hair told him she wasn’t having any of his self-discipline.
She licked at him, bit at him, drove him beyond any shred of restraint he’d had over the magic he wasn’t supposed to have.Yet she drank it down so fast that it couldn’t spin out of control, couldn’t harm those who would harm her.The agonizing searing in his chest faded to an ache that was entirely grief.
He’d lost her before he’d ever had her.
She kissed him as if this would be their only chance, as though she were saying good-bye.He wanted to scream, to fight anyone who threatened to come between them.He couldn’t let them throw her in a prison when she hadn’t done anything.She didn’t deserve the fate that he had.If she hadn’t rescued him, if he hadn’t come here, would it have made a difference?
She moved to pull away, and all thoughts vanished except making her stay.
No.
He needed this.
Needed something to remember her by if this was the end.
He followed, his kiss claiming her as much as she had claimed him.But it couldn’t last forever.Nothing ever did.No one stayed.His only constant was that everyone left him.Except for her.The one woman he wanted more than anything, and she’d been in his reach.
The guards yanked them apart.All he could hear was Artanya’s yelling and the guards issuing orders he would never follow and the pounding in his ears as he struggled to get back to Vori.He would take on every single goblin for one more kiss.
“Enough.I’ll go willingly.”His princess’s voice cut through the commotion.
“No.”He fought to get free, but they were so strong.“You can’t.You’re innocent.”
Vori ignored him.“You need me to cooperate.”She gestured toward the magical lights ahead that had returned to full golden glow.“Or else Kradnovtl itself may turn on you.”
“What do you want in exchange?”Artanya asked.
“You will swear not to hurt him and to return him to the human realm as soon as the glass recharges.”The weight of his princess’s words slammed into him as much as any of the guards’ rough treatment.She couldn’t bargain her freedom with his own.
“Don’t.”Other than the twist of her kiss-swollen lips, it was as if no one had heard him.
His princess looked to Mykata.“You’ll also promise not to hurt my mother’s maid.Swear it.”
“By the blood,” the captain said.
After a long pause, Artanya gave in.“It will be done.”
Vori handed her tiara and the cuff to the queen consort and glanced at a guard.“Lead the way.”She sounded as if she were being directed to a celebrity party in the human realm, not to a goblin dungeon.
“I’ll come for you,” he said.“As you did for me.”He could be the hero she needed, no matter that he’d been such a villain in the past.Whatever it took, he would free her.Her people needed her.Heneeded her.“Wherever they lock you away, I’ll find you.”
She leaned close, her gaze hot and promising.“Not if I find you first,” she whispered.Straightening, she said louder, “Go home, Perry.Your life isn’t here.It never was.”The words cut through him.
Which was the truth?
Which was the lie?
The problem with their relationship being a fake one was that he couldn’t be sure.Abandonment was his norm, the only unfailing repeat in his life.He’d built a brick-by-painstaking-brick wall of sarcasm and contempt and detachment to protect himself from connections.Yet she’d found a way past it.
And now, with that scorching kiss.
