“I know.”
“We will find your shadow. I will find it.”
I looked up at the canopies. “This is exactly what I don’t want. I knew it would become your sole focus.”
“And what’s wrong with that?” she burst out, then got onto her knees, eye level with me. “What’s wrong with someone focusing on you? Sacrificing for you?” She grabbed the lapels of my jacket and gave them a shake. “You’re worth it, too, Loch.”
I stilled at her words.
“I love you,” she said for the second time. “I love you, Lochlan Aster, and I’m going to save you as many times as you’ve saved me.”
“I don’t think I’ve ever saved you,” I said.
“You’ve saved me in ways you’ll never understand.”
Those had been the words I’d wanted to hear from her lips for so long, and I hadn’t even realized how much I needed to hear them untilshe’d said it. I placed my hands on her waist and pulled her to me, pressing a kiss to her mouth.
She moaned, and the kiss deepened, stirring something wild and feral inside of me. She wound her hands around my neck, fingers grazing my skin. Fuck. My cock stiffened, and as if she knew what I wanted, as if she wanted the same thing, she flattened her body against mine, letting me feel those perfect swells and curves.
She gasped and pushed back, a growl escaping my mouth at the sudden loss of her lips on my mine.
“Loch,” she said, “I might be a fugitive by now.”
I laughed. “If that’s where your mind has gone while you’re kissing me, I’m clearly not doing a good enough job.”
She ignored me. “The king is probably after me.”
I pulled her back to me and kissed her neck. “Then I’ll go on the run with you.”
She arched into me. “I might have to take a stand against the king of the sky court.”
I trailed a finger down the curve of her wing. “Then I’ll fight with you.”
She pressed her lips together and threw her head back. “I... still have to find my gran... at some point.”
I dipped my hand up under her tunic, my fingers grazing her stomach, her waist. “Then I’ll search with you. Every spirits-damned corner of this continent until we find her.” I trailed my finger around to her back where skin met the bone of her wing.
“Oh,” she moaned out.
“Anything else?” I said in a low voice as I inched her tunic up. “Because we can keep going. But the answer will always be the same: where you go, I will follow.”
I lifted her into my lap, and she wrapped her legs around my back. Above, the clouds once again swept over the sun, the forest growing dark around us.
“I think that pretty much covers it right now,” she said breathlessly, her tongue running along my bottom lip.
Something yanked hard inside of me, making me jolt. Cold swept through my blood, and I knew what it was. The same tug I’d felt in the shadow court many times before.
“Did you feel that?” she asked. “That chill?”
“Can I lie and say no, and you’ll keep kissing me?”
She gave me a look.
“Yes,” I admitted. “My shadow. It’s near.”
She scrambled off of me. “Gran always told me everyone had a connection with their shadows. That if mine was ever taken, I’d be able to sense if it was near. That it would feel like a string pulling me toward it. Is that what you’re feeling?”
She was bouncing on her heels, eyes alight with excitement.
