This gallant knight-of-a-man had rescuedher.
Just like in one of her stories.
And like in those stories, whenever the brave hero would stare death in the face just to protect his maiden, an ache built deep in the pit of Kestrel’s belly.
Now her breaths were hitching for different reasons.
“I’m…much better now. Thanks.” Kestrel flashed him a smile of her own, and when he brightened even more at the sight of it, she became warm and buttery inside. This Gallant Hero could stick a knife in her, and she would simply spread.
But that was crazy, wasn’t it? Strangers didn’t just meet in a crowded marketplace and then fall over themselves for each other.
Did they?
Kestrel wasn’t sure. She didn’t know much about how people interacted with one another, let alone strangers who felt an attraction. Thom made it seem like people hardly even spoke to each other in the Wilds anymore, but in her books the characters were often friendly toward everyone—at least until they had reason not to be. Although even in those stories, the interactions between the love interests varied. Sometimes it might take them months of courting, while others were betrothed before they even met. Sometimes they would be at each other’s throats one second and then in bed the next. It made it difficult to gauge what would be acceptable in these circumstances.
The only thing Kestrel knew for certain was that his closeness was stoking a fire inside her. One she had never dreamed of being able to actually feed considering she had thought everyone else was dead up until a few moments ago.
All those years spent daydreaming, alone in her tower, just aching for any sort of human connection had built into a crescendo. She was filled to the brim with longing. And here he was, someone she could direct it at. Someone drawing it out of her like a magnet.
Maybe thiswaswhat strangers did. Maybe this was the very reason he had pulled her out of that crowd and took her somewhere where they could be alone. The clay building was cool against her sweat-drenched back and she felt herself liftingaway from it, drifting closer to the heat smoldering between them.
“It seems I came just in time then—” the Gallant Hero started to say, but Kestrel could hold herself back no longer.
“Is this the part where you kiss me?”
For a moment, he pulled back, but that charming smile of his remained, even if it did skew a bit more toward confusion.
“I’m sorry. I think I misheard you,” he said, a dozen other emotions sifting behind those sky-blue eyes. “What was that?”
Kestrel bit her lip. Repeating herself meant asking again, and asking again felt too much like begging, like desperation—even though she wasverydesperate for that first kiss. She wanted to taste him. To know what it felt like to have her jaw grasped as her lips locked onto another’s. And she might’ve been mistaken, but something about the way his eyes kept drifting down to her mouth made her think that, perhaps, he wanted the same.
But she would not beg him. Not ask again for fear that she had already performed a social faux pas that she hadn’t fully understood. She would apologize and say she didn’t mean it. But shehadmeant. Had wanted it. And lying felt more wrong than the alternative.
Only then, in the silence of her agonizing contemplation, did his smile finally begin to slip. The confusion and hesitation went along with it, leaving behind only a curious sort of hunger that Kestrel wanted to satiate.
Whether what she had asked was normal or not, she was pretty sure he liked it.
Gallant Hero licked his lips, and a spiral of heat coiled around Kestrel’s core, tightening. She had never been watched more intently. Never knew that having someone’s full attention bearing into her could make her feel so exposed, so ravenous. Itmade her hands tremble, sent her thoughts scattering to the most gluttonous crevices of her mind.
Need erupted inside her.
Begging didn’t seem so bad after all anymore.
“Please,” she whispered softly.
Kestrel didn’t know this person, this side of herself that was emerging now that she was as free as the bird for which she was named. But after wasting years of her life trapped in isolation, it seemed she owed it to herself to chase every whim, to race toward every dream and opportunity that presented itself.
This might be her only chance. She didn’t want to waste another second.
Gallant Hero hitched an eyebrow the same color as the sand. “Do you know who I am?”
The way he asked it made it seem like there was both a right and wrong answer, and Kestrel didn’t know which was which. But she wanted so desperately to be right.
Honesty had already gotten her this far, so Kestrel sucked in a breath and barreled forward with the truth.
“We’ve never met.”
“That’s not what I asked you.” His smirk returned in full force. “I know we haven’t met. I would’ve remembered you,” he crooned, and Kestrel’s heart raced faster. “Butyouknow who I am. You recognized me. That’s why you asked for a kiss, correct?”
