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“You’re my responsibility,” he replies, and his words are soft. “I care about you, and I want you safe, and you were in danger because of me, and the key, and--“
“If you cared about me, you’d want to give me what I want,” I argue, and I’m pushing him. But I’m tired of being told no, of being told what to do, and that I can’t make my own decisions. “That I have a right to choose how I’m going to spend my life.”
“I want you to choose, just not... not...” He doesn’t even have the guts to finish the sentence.
“I didn’t choose this. You did. You brought me into this,” I point out, and his mouth opens and then closes.
“If it wasn’t you, it would have been someone else,” he says finally, and that’s the truth, but he doesn’t have to say it. I know it.
“I’m not just some tool to get your throne back, Hadrion. You have no right to make decisions about what I want, and what I do, or don’t do.”
“No, Katy,” he reaches for me, and there’s pain and anguish in his voice, “I won’t let you do it. I can’t let you die for me.”
“Let me? You can’t stop me!” I throw my hands up, exasperated, and then push past him, and stalk toward the VIP section. I need to get drunk. Or something. He grabs me by the wrist again, and when I turn, the pain in his expression is too much for me. It feels like a punch to the gut.
“Katy,” he says, and it’s a plea.
“What, Hadrion? What can you possibly say right now?” I try not to shout at him, but I can’t help myself.
Something crosses his face, a fleeting expression I barely catch, and as the music surges around us, loud and thumping, he pulls me into him.
And kisses me.
There are so many people. There’s a crowd of people right there, but he doesn’t seem to care. And I don’t, either, not as his mouth closes over mine.
I’ve been waiting for this, I realize. I’ve been waiting since that first time, when he rescued me, changing my whole world, and I’d wanted him to kiss me. At the masquerade, when I floated through the crowd and he stared at me like I was the only one on the planet, I wanted him to kiss me.
And he’s finally doing it.
And it’s not soft. His kiss is demanding, his lips are hungry and they’re claiming mine, and my hands go up around his neck. His arms slide around my waist and the music seems to swell, and the heat and smell of the club is nothing compared to the heat and strength and scent of Hadrion.
His mouth is fire and mine is ice and his body is strong and... I’m lost to him. His lips part over mine, his tongue sweeping against mine, and he kisses me until I’m weak-kneed and panting for breath.
And when we finally part, he stares down at me, and there’s something in his eyes that I’ve never seen before, not from him or anyone.
“Come,” he orders, hand clamping around my wrist, and he practically drags me toward the back office. We’re inside, and up the stairs, the door to his private apartment barely closing before he presses me into it with a thump.
And he kisses me again.
This is no gentle kiss. This is a man kissing a woman, taking her, owning her, and I whimper as his mouth moves over mine, his tongue tasting and teasing. My fingers dig into his shoulders, his shirt soft and silky under my fingertips.
“I want you,” he growls the words against my lips, and I can only whimper. I can’t say anything. Words have abandoned me. There’s nothing in the world but him and the feel of his body pressed up against mine.
His mouth leaves mine, and I’m breathing hard as he nuzzles my neck.
“Tell me no,” he whispers. “Say it, and I’ll let you go, and never touch you again.”
But I can’t.
I nearly died tonight, and I’d do it again, if it means helping him.
I know it now, and maybe that’s why he’s been holding himself so far apart from me, because he knows it too.
His quest, what he needs, is bigger than me, bigger than him. He’s a king who’s been dethroned. A whole realm is bereft of their leader, a careful man who keeps putting everyone ahead of his own needs and wants. I should be furious that he ripped me out of my world, but every step was only ever about helping people. He could have tried to take the key from me then, or manipulated it from me, and left me to my sister and hermachinations.
But he didn’t.
He rescued me, kept me safe, and even when I came to him with a crazy idea to go to hell and open it from the inside, he refused to let me.
