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“I do,” she blurts faster than she can think of a more sassy answer. “I trust you, Arch.”
This conversation is in the wrong place and time, but something tugs at my chest—a tiny prickly thought that all this may end badly, and I just want another minute with her, even if it’s in the stinky slums, behind some dumpy hut.
“Would you like a gold tiara as a present, my queen?” I ask her, tilting my head back, feeling raindrops tickle my face, and smile, though my chest clenches impossibly tight. I wish I’d told her so much more—how amazing she is, how much she means to me.
“Nah. Boring.” She chuckles.
“A gown from white peafowls’ feathers?”
“Is that one of your innuendoes again? No, thank you. Though I do like feathers in a different context.”
“A diamond-encrusted gun?”
“That’s a thought.”
I snort. “I was joking, Kat.”
“Tsk. Tease.”
“Seriously? You’d like that?”
“Sure. A Brownells. Or a Smith&Wesson. Can I have my name spelled out in gold on it?”
“Which one? Katura, wild thing, or kitten?”
She bursts into a muffled chuckle.
“Kat,” I whisper and have to take a deep breath because the sudden eerie feeling is uneasy—what if things go terribly wrong tonight? “If there’s a chance…” I don’t finish. I can’t. The thought that I can lose her starts clawing at my heart in the most painful way. “I just need a kiss, one more kiss.”
She leans over right away like she’s thinking the same, feeling the same, her lips pressing to mine and her hand cupping my cheek in the sweetest kiss.
“I love you,” she exhales.
I swear, when we get out of here, I’ll take her as far away from all this mess as possible, even if it means giving up everything I’ve worked on in the last years.
The distant sound of the Ayana emergency alarm snaps both our heads in that direction.
“Finally,” I breathe out in sudden relief, and we pull away from each other. It’s only a matter of minutes before the guards reach the Ashlands, if they figure out where we are. Only now do I realize we don’t have our bracelets on.
“Shit, they might go to Port Mrei,” I say.
“If they’re smart, they’ll come here too,” Kat argues.
But then there’s the sound of heavy footsteps.
“Over here!” someone barks right behind the shack we are hiding at.
“Run!” I snap at Kat, and we both dart in the opposite direction from the voices.
“They’re here!” a shout follows, then the sound of heavy footsteps chasing us.
We jump over some garbage piles.
Someone whistles.
“There! There! Get ‘em!”
A dark shadow tries to intercept us, but I slam into it and keep running, Kat at my side.
