35

Everything I Could Do

A stiff breeze could knock me off that rock the moment that thought sinks in. Just like being willing to take risks to escape into the desert, part of me doesn’t want to protect myself from the feelings—most of them inexplicable—that Reven stirs in me.

I wrestle with the truth of that while at the same time worrying I’m only feeling them because of everything that’s happened. He kidnapped me, I try to remind myself. For good reason, but that reason is as flimsy as down from a sparrow. Still, a connection formed in the heat of high-stress situations probably isn’t going to last. Right?

By some miracle, Reven misses all of this mess going on inside me. He glances away, skepticism about my words evident in the tense set of his shoulders and the hardness in his eyes.

Goddess, this man.

I press gently, forcing his gaze back to me. “You. Are. A. Good. Man.” I pronounce each word clearly and carefully, willing him to hear me. Hear and believe.

Then I take his hand and, inhaling the fresh scent of him, press a kiss on the inside of his wrist, right on the scars, which sets my own lips tingling. A silent gasp escapes me as I lift my head.

With eyes that remind me of the ocean on rainy days, turbulent and crashing, Reven doesn’t look away.

Neither do I.

I’d only meant to make him hear the truth of my words. But now I’m snared, like an animal in a trap I don’t want to escape. “You smell like home,” I whisper.

Surprise lights his eyes. “So do you. Like the arctic weeping trees that grow among rocks and boulders on Tyndra’s shores.”

I wonder if that plant is anything like the creosus willows that grow at the edge of water sources in the desert. Even wells sometimes. So tempting to wrap my arms around him and bury my face in his neck and inhale deeply to see if I can tell the difference.

Without thinking, almost like I can’t help myself, I move my hand to brush a lock of his hair away from his forehead, the texture silky against my fingertips.

“Princess.” A warning.

I don’t listen, leaning closer. Because it suddenly hits me that I’m leaving him. I’m leaving him to save my sister, to possibly face Eidolon. If anything goes wrong, this might be the only chance I’ll get.

One kiss. Just one. Real, not something to calm me down.

I keep my eyes open, watching for any sign that he doesn’t want this, as I softly feather my lips over his. A teasing caress. Tentative, because damned if I know what I’m doing.

“Goddess forgive me,” he mutters against my lips.

Suddenly he’s moving. Hooking an arm around my waist, he swings me off the rock. I find myself in his lap, straddling him, a heartbeat before he takes over that kiss from where I started.

Gentle yet somehow more urgent.

His lips part mine, warm and firm and commanding, and I am happy to go where he leads, opening for him like a lotus flower rising and spreading out in the sun. Our breaths mingle, growing heavier as we angle our heads, turning the kiss impatient.

The fluttering in my stomach turns mushy and clenches at the same time.

At the brush of his tongue against mine, I make a small sound in my throat. Of what, I don’t know. Need? Confusion? Delight?

I hardly hear myself, but Reven must have, because he pulls away slowly. Putting his forehead to mine, he closes his eyes, breathing hard. So am I.

“Why’d you stop?” I wonder aloud. The shadows didn’t come out this time.

“We shouldn’t,” he says.

I hide a wince. Either my Shadowraith is wrestling with his overdeveloped sense of protectiveness, or he doesn’t feel the same way I do. It would be nice, once in my life, to be wanted. Not for what I can do or who I am or who I look like. Just wanted. My defensive emotional walls start bricking themselves back up, and I fall back on habit.

“Well, I suppose it’s for the best.” I lean back and sigh heavily for dramatic effect, trying for an easy, unaffected grin I’m far from feeling. “I am way too young for you.”

His brows snap down over his eyes at that. “I was separated from the king twenty-three years ago. That’s how old I am.”

Not counting the centuries of vague, patchy memories and history inside him, I guess. But I can’t tease him about that.

Okay, maybe I can.

“And I’ll be nineteen in two months. That makes you four years older. Practically ancient.” I curl that errant lock of his hair around my finger again. “I mean…” I widen my eyes in mock curiosity. “What was it like when the Mother Goddess Nova created the world? That must’ve been quite a thing to witness.”

He picks me right up and deposits me back on the rock beside him, but he doesn’t entirely hide his grin. “I was right before. A holy terror and a pain in my ass.”

Tabra would have been different. Picturing her here, dealing with even half the stuff I’ve gone through—she’d probably be holed up in a room somewhere, too traumatized to move.

Reven takes several steps back, expression turning determined. “I brought you here because I want you to try to make a glass portal.”

My spine goes ramrod straight at that. As changes of subject go, it’s a big one. “I can’t.”

“You can.”

“I make flowers. Bad ones. That’s it.”

He stares at me a long beat, and I stare right back, not backing down an inch. Then, without warning, his gaze drops to my lips and flares with heat. “Big trouble,” he mutters.

“You should have figured that out the first time I threw a knife at your head.”

He grins at that, a wide one that turns his eyes crystal blue, the lopsided hitch to his mouth adorably arrogant, and steals my breath in a whoosh. “That is the girl I need right now.”

As opposed to one he’d like to kiss. Ouch.

“I mean it,” he says, beckoning me to my feet. I guess touching is out again. “You have the rest of daylight and a decent portion of the night while I’m occupied. You might as well put it to use.”

I’m momentarily sidetracked. “Occupied doing what?”

He gives me a look. “You know what.”

So I was right. He does have to absorb shadows to bolster his power.

I drop the topic and return to his ridiculous idea. “Don’t we want to not create more portals? So that Eidolon doesn’t get that ability if he finds me?”

“It’s for your safety. If you can create a portal, you can get places more easily. Or maybe even create safer and faster ways in and out of the Shadowood.”

Ways to bring more people in, does he mean? Or is this about protecting his people after they have both me and Tabra here?

Putting the Vanished at risk.

I hate that so much. That by being here, we’re risking innocent lives. Worse, we’re risking people who’ve already had a difficult life and finally found some peace.

“It’s a lot to ask,” he says. But gently, which is almost worse. He’s coddling me now. “I know. A heavy burden—”

“I’ll do it.”

He pauses, searching my face. “My people will thank you.”

He thinks that’s the only reason I would do this? The Vanished of the Shadowood are part of it, of course. But mostly, I find that I want to take some of the burden that’s been on his shoulders so long and share it, if I can. Tightness cinches around my chest at the realization. I still have serious doubts that I can make any kind of difference, but I’ll wear myself to dust trying.

“They’re important. And so is Aryd.” I back away from him, pulling my power forward, effervescent in my blood, my hands illuminating with it, casting a warm yellow glow around me. “But I’m doing this for you.”