It felt like heaven.
I twisted my neck to peer back at him. His regard hadn’t relinquished any of the hunger. If anything, I saw more eagerness in his eyes. Grabbing my chin, he kissed me deeply.
Warwick was never sweet or gentle, but this felt different from all the others, no question in it. No wondering what was between us. The link joining us had fully weaved and tangled together. There would be no untying it, no breaking it.
Not that we had a clue what it meant or what I was, but for the moment... I was home.
Breaking the kiss, he moved off me. I grumbled at the loss, the emptiness I felt when he slid out of me, climbing to his feet.
Grabbing the dresser, he pulled himself out of the wreckage. His fingers gripped the wood, his legs dipping underneath him, not quite ready to stand.
Warwick huffed out a dark chuckle. “Like a fucking newborn.” His hand shook, swiping up the intact liquor bottle from the floor and dropping into the wingback chair. He was naked, beat up, dirty, dangerous, enigmatic, and sexy as hell—he took my breath away.
Downing a huge swallow, he let out a raspy sound before holding it out for me.
I twisted onto my side, tucking a sheet around me as I grabbed the bottle from his hand. Every muscle ached, every bone throbbed; my brain and body were melted butter. At the same time, I never felt more alive or powerful. Like liquid steel filled my veins.
Gulping back a swig, the burn lit a match to my already scorched insides. I jiggled my head, choking down the harsh liquid. Handing it back to him, I watched him take another drink.
The connection joining us had deepened. I could feel the strands moving and coiling between us, like live wire. As if it was another sense I procured, along with sight, smell, taste, touch, and sound. It had always been there, but it was no longer in the background. It was present and alive.
I felt with clarity the wall he was trying to put up to distance himself from the consuming sensation. This was even more concentrated than our first time in Prague. I understood why he wanted to. I desired to do the same. Not just because it was intense, but because it was overwhelmingly normal.
To people like us, especially him, something so intimate was not ordinary or even wanted.
“We really made a mess.” I licked my lips, tasting the remnants of whiskey and him, my eyes moving around. The bedframe was in pieces. A mirror, water bowl, and picture were shattered. A lamp lay broken, clothes scattered. This room was a debris field. We obliterated it.
“Kitty is going to be so pissed at you.”
He didn’t respond, swallowing down more liquor, his gaze on the wall.
More seconds passed.
“She might actually kick you out this time.”
“Stop the small talk, princess,” he grumbled, taking another shot, holding it out to me. “What the fuck was that?”
I hesitated with my response, only coming up with one. “Us.” I shrugged, snatching the bottle from him and taking a drink. I could think of no other answer to what kept binding us tighter together. The visions, the spirits congregating near us, the fact we could slip into each other and visit the past.
“Us,” he huffed out his nose, not really a question. His head tipped back into the chair, lost in thought.
We had this connection binding us, but I realized how little I really knew about him. I knew how he died, about his sister and nephew, that his mother had been a prostitute, and he had grown up in a whorehouse. Oh shit. Shame colored my cheeks. My harsh attitude to Rosie was also an insult to his mother.
My fingers plucked at a hole in the threadbare sheet.
“What I said earlier... I didn’t mean it.” I cleared my throat. “I was angry. Hurt. I was wrong.”
“Brexley Kovacs admitting to being wrong?” He swigged the brown liquor.
My lips lifted. “To you? No, you deserve my wrath, asshole.” He snorted at my reply. “But to her... yes.”
“Someone like you, calling them out on what they deep down believe about themselves already?” His head turned to the window. “It cements their worth in this world; how they are looked at and treated. No one cares to find the murderer of a whore. She deserved it, right? She put herself in that position... When those in power are the ones who forced them into this life. They take away everything; the only choice they have is to sell their bodies to feed their children. And getting a so-called respectable job in a factory? You work nine times more, killing yourself every day for less than half the pay. This world is so upside down and fucked.”
He kept his voice even, but I heard the emotion under his words, the anger and frustration.
“You told me you were born in a brothel, and she died when you were ten, right?”
He grunted in agreement.
“What happened after that? Ten is so young to be alone. You were a kid.”
He stayed quiet so long I thought he was going to avoid my question, but he took another drink, a deep exhale rolling from him.
“I was never a kid. I never got the luxury. I took care of other women’s bastard children in the brothel. By six, I was hustling and stealing food, medicine, and money to keep us all afloat. More pressure was put on my shoulders when my half-sister came along. When Mom died, my sister was a baby. A woman took her in to raise, but I wasn’t wanted. Too wild and old.” He exhaled, sipping down more. I didn’t want to make a peep. The booze was loosening his tongue, which was beyond rare.
“Because I was so quick and scrappy, I thrived on the streets, building a gang of other orphaned and unwanted misfits. That’s where I met Ash and Janos—Kitty. We were inseparable, each of our talents building us stronger. By the time we were in our late teens, we were running the streets, controlling our area of the city. By our twenties, we had control over the whole city. But with power comes enemies and people who will do anything to take it from you. The assassination attempts were constant, and with times changing and this country becoming seized by human dictators, we left. Moved around the world, fought in wars, stood by each other through thick and thin. And when we returned, old and new enemies wanted to make sure we didn’t find a place in it or wanted to use us to get their own foot in the door.”
Drinking another third, he handed the bottle back to me.
“Killian was one of those moving up. He secretly hired me to take out a few men he knew were traitors and spies in his own faction. It was really good money, so I did.”
“That’s when the others came after you.”
He nodded.
And during the fae battle, Warwick was murdered by those men. I had seen with my own eyes what they had done to him. And after he came back to life, he tracked each one down and slaughtered them until he was caught and thrown into Halálház... Killian’s prison.
“And Killian puts you in jail for something he hired you to do.” My throat burned from the cheap alcohol while my body heated and warmed.
“Politicians for you.” He smirked disdainfully. “Most wanted my head, so he thought putting me in prison, making me spy for him while giving me perks and more freedoms than others, was a very considerate trade-off.”
Snorting, I scrubbed my temple. It perfectly fit the man I got to know in the palace. Shrewd, calculating, and oddly fair within the parameters of his goal. Killian didn’t kill to kill or do something that didn’t benefit him. He was reasonable, even kind, but if you betrayed him, he went for your Achilles heel, the very thing you would turn the world over for.