“The tally marks on your ribs,” I say, because apparently, I’ve lost all ability to stop words from leaving my mouth. “You said they were kill counts.”
“I did.”
“I’ve been thinking about them.”
Obviously. When am Inotthinking about something, minus those few moments after consuming that fruit?
Water laps against us. It’s warm enough to loosen every tight muscle in my body, and the breeze that drifts across the surface carries the honeyed scent of that golden fruit, sweet and intoxicating.
Kieran relaxes into my touch, his face softening in a way that almost looks foreign on his features.
“The first six were vampires with magic-dampening artifacts,” he says, his eyes going far off before refocusing on me. “I killed them all, and I was the only one who made it out.” His hands still on my body, but he doesn’t pull away. “I tracked the ten others in their clan. It took me three months, and when I found them, I didn’t use magic. I used steel. I made them feel every ounce of the pain they caused me.”
Sixteen marks, sixteen vampires, and a grief so vast it sharpened into a bloodthirsty blade of revenge. Most people would be scared. But I could never be scared—not of him.
“The rest came later,” he continues. “Council assignments, rogue shifters, and more vampires. Each mark is a reminder that I’m capable of ending lives. That I’ve chosen to, again and again, and that I’m very, very good at it.”
My fingers trace the edge of a tally mark, and his stomach contracts at my touch. “That’s not the same as enjoying it,” I say, the words coming easily.
“Isn’t it? Because I don’t feel guilt when I look at them. I don’t feel regret.” He leans into my touch, his eyes so focused onmine that it’s like he’s trying to carve what he’s telling me into my soul. “I feel satisfaction. Ilikeknowing that every person on my body deserved what I delivered. And ever since that first kill, whenever I go too long without a fight, I get restless. If I don’t choose where to release the violence, it starts choosing for me. And I’d rather be a weapon than a monster.”
I should be horrified. A part of me probably is—the part that grew up in a family of scholars and publishers, where violence was theoretical and justice meant legal proceedings.
I’m also standing in a moonlit spring on a paradise island with a man who craves violence like air and has killed seventy-three people, and all I can think about is how warm his hands are on my skin and how the air here tastes like honey and stardust.
“That doesn’t make you a monster.” The words come out before I can analyze them. “It makes you a survivor.”
He stares at me for a long time, as if he’s expecting me to change my mind. When I don’t, his hands shift on my waist, and the quality of his touch changes from holding on to holding close, as if my words unlocked a door he forgot existed. His eyes remain locked on mine—that perfect, vivid green that’s brighter in this place that it’s ever been before—his guard so far down that for once in his life, Kieran Cross looks young and open.
Then, slowly, he moves toward me. His forehead touches mine first, and he stays there for a few seconds, as if he’s giving me time to pull away.
Tension hums in the air between us, the water lapping against our bodies, warm and caressing. And when his lips finally reach mine, it’s just a brush, hesitant in a way Kieran Cross has never been hesitant about anything in his life.
I lean in, and his hand slides up my back, slow and careful, tracing the curve of my spine like he’s committing it to memory. His touch is featherlight, as if the man who fights like violence is a language he was born speaking is afraid he’ll break me.
He pulls back and searches my face. Then he returns, softer still, his lips barely parting against mine. His thumb traces my jaw, light and trembling, and I’m suddenly aware that Kieran Cross, whose hands are steady enough to throw a blade through a target fifty feet away, is trembling against my skin.
I catalogue the details without meaning to: the warmth radiating from his chest, his other hand hovering at my hip like he’s afraid to hold on too tight, and the soft breath he releases against my mouth. It’s low and almost pained, like this is costing him everything he has left.
Stop thinking. Stop thinking.
His tongue slides into my mouth and just like that... I stop thinking.
I’ve been kissed before. It was Reid Crawford, on homecoming night in tenth grade, the night I lost my virginity. With him, I analyzed every touch, measured every response, and filed the data away.
Satisfactory but unremarkable,I concluded afterward.Pleasant enough to repeat a few times, but nothing to lose my mind over.
Now, Kieran’s tongue strokes mine, and I lose my mind entirely.
My hands find his shoulders, his neck, and the wet strands of his hair. He tastes like the fruit we ate—sweet and golden, intoxicating in a way that makes my head spin. His body’s hard and warm against mine, and when his hands slide down to lift me up, I wrap my legs around his waist without realizing I’m doing it.
The position changes everything.
Because now he’s pressed against me, and through the thin wet fabric separating us, the evidence of how much he wants this is impossible to miss. And the fact that Kieran Cross—who hasn’t let himself want anything in six years—is this affected by memakes my heart race in a way that has nothing to do with desire and everything to do with the terrifying realization that I’m not just attracted to this man.
I’m falling for him, without a single data point to justify it, and I don’t want to go a single day without him by my side.
He groans against my throat, the sound vibrating through my collarbone and down my spine, and pulls me closer, his hands gripping my thighs as he pushes his hips against me. The friction hits right where I’m aching for him, and I gasp, my nails digging into his shoulders.