“Oh!”
“Oh, sorry,” he utters. “I didn’t mean to—”
“No, you’re fine. It’s all right. You just startled me, is all.”
“My apologies. I just—were you headed somewhere?”
My cheeks prick with heat. “No, I…well, I guess I was.”
He flushes too. He brings his awkward gaze to the ground and steps aside. “Right. Well, sorry. I’ll let you go then—”
“No!” I reach out and grasp his shoulder.
He stills beneath my touch.
I clear my throat and lower my voice to a more normal, less embarrassing tone. “I was coming to see you.”
His grin is boyish, familiar, the kind of smile that makes my stomach warm with memories of summers spent chasing each other through the woods.
I shove him backward with a wry smile of my own and close the door behind me.
Stumbling back, his smile only growing, becoming more arrogant and handsome, he licks his lips. “So, what was it that you were coming to see me about?”
I cross my arms. “I might ask you the same thing.”
He opens his mouth as if to answer me, but instead simply shrugs. I roll my eyes and pretend to head back to my room.
“Wait,” he says, the word drawn out and mournful.
By the time I turn back around to face him, all signs of flippant arrogance are gone. He watches me with the sad eyes of a forlorn pup. His arm is reaching for me, and without even realizing it, without taking my eyes away from the forest bed of his gaze, I grab his hand.
He pulls me closer, my feet pattering in small, shy steps. This is still too new for me to know what he’s thinking, what he wants from this moment, from me.
“You…scared me today,” he says quietly.
“I scared you?” I balk playfully. “You were the one who charged a demon with nothing but a splintered bone.”
He bends his head and chuckles, our foreheads drawn to each other. His thumb draws idle circles on my hands and he breathes the scent of me in.
“You scared me when you drew your dagger,” he confesses. “Before that moment, I thought maybe the Crusaders outside would protect us, that we wouldn’t need to see battle. But then you drew your weapon, and I realized I had no way of protecting you if I needed to.” He swallows, his neck bobbing with the weight of a plum. “I know the path we’ve chosen. I know it means danger and facing death every single day. And I know we don’t have much time left together. But…I’m not ready to lose you. Demons will rue the day they take you from me because I’ll…”
He’s shaking, trembling in my grasp like the last leaf on a tree before winter.
I squeeze him tighter. “That’s not going to happen. At least not for a long while.”
His grin is crooked, unsettled. “I want to believe that, but we both know what this life is like.”
He finally brings his gaze back to mine. He reaches up, tucks a strand of white hair behind my ear. Even the slightest caress of his fingers ignites a new spark, each one adding to the wildfire growing inside me.
I lean into his palm and close my eyes. He presses forward, the warmth of his chest like fire against mine. He hasn’t bathed since the battle. Neither have I. We reek of blood and sweat and the vilest of decay, but he has never smelled more alluring to me.
My eyes pop open. The hunger has set deeper in his gaze, a craving that I want to answer.
Bringing myself to the tips of my toes, I draw near his mouth. “You’re wrong,” I say, licking my lips. “We know what our deaths will be, not our lives. The only way to know that is to live them.”
His nod is imperceptible, his breath quickening.
I am desperate to hold something, to grasp something, to cling onto some part of the world that will make me feel as if I will be here forever. Not just another Crusader who dies in the catacombs, or is lost forever to the Blight, but here. Alive. Everlasting.
And there Dimitri is. Where he’s always been. Here. With me.
We pull toward one another at the same time. Our lips collide. There is no more awkwardness as we crash into one another. No more fears of what this might mean for him, for me, none about the damage that pursuing this…this connection might or might not do to our friendship. There is only passion. Need. Desire.
I want him, now. It doesn’t matter what our lives were like before, whether this attraction existed back then or not, and the bleakness that lies ahead of us doesn’t matter. This moment, here, now, that’s what matters. And the attraction between us is tangible, all-encompassing. It is a rope wrapping around our bodies and squeezing so tightly until I can hardly breathe, hardly press against him closer.
But, oh, do I try.
I arch my back as his rough hand cradles the back of my neck. I moan into his mouth, a plea for more. More of his lips. More of his caresses. More contact with his skin. More of everything. I want it all.
We slam into the wall beside the doorway. I’m faintly aware that my friends are on the other side, but only until Dimitri catches my bottom lip in his teeth. I sink into his bite, eyes fluttering with pleasure.
I know him well enough to sense the flicker of hesitation when he releases my lip. He is the kind of man who binds himself to duty and responsibility, to rules. We both should be in our rooms like we were instructed. I know he’s wondering now if this has been a mistake, if he should go back now that he’s made sure I’m all right.
But now that we’ve started, I don’t want him to stop.
My nails dig into the backside of his leather armor and I press him against me, my muscles straining to prevent him from doing anything but continuing what he’s started. His groan is regretful at first, but the low rumble turns ravenous when I nuzzle my face to his neck. Playfully, I draw a line of kisses with my mouth, following his pulsing vein up to his jawline, and making my way back to his lips.
I taste him again, raw desire plunging me into oblivion. I ignore the stinging chaffing of the scruff he keeps on his chin and upper lip as our mouths work against each other. It’s all just part of it, isn’t it? Part of him. And I realize with sudden desperation that I want it all.
We break away from the deep kiss, his body still pressed against mine where I’m back against the wall. Our gazes focus on one another. Trepidation lingers behind the green of his eyes, but it’s overpowered by the desire that’s consuming us both. Neither of us have to ask the question hanging in the air.
Instead, I grab his hand, pull him into one of the empty dorm rooms, and slam the door behind us.
The Final Test
Female Dormitory, Castle of Nigh, Arcathain
The snow has almost melted entirely, and winter will soon be a thing of the past. It very well could be my last one, and it’s only today that I’ve realized it. So many things could be my last without me even knowing it: my last meal, my last laugh, the last time Dimitri and I spend sharing a bed.
In a few days’ time, the Magistrate will arrive, and we will be pronounced Crusaders. We will also be given our assignments, and though we have trained as a unit, if either of us are selected for more domesticated work, we will be stripped from our team. Either one of us could wind up stuck in the Castle of Nigh, mopping floors and emptying bedpans, while the other risks their lives inside the Shadowthorn.