Page 135 of Hollow Court

My heartbeat stuttered in my chest at the sight of her, cheeks flushed, hair undone, and firelight playing along her skin.

I pulled her in for another kiss, one arm wrapped around her waist, the other tangled in her silky strands. She made a small noise, and I tugged at her hair until she angled her head, giving me the vantage point I needed to kiss my way down the side of her neck.

“Perfect,” I murmured the word against her skin. “And mine.”

“What?” she choked out.

“The first two words I would use to describe you.”

She went still, and I prepared myself for her to pull away again. Then she melted into me, her fingers digging into my biceps, her lips pressing against mine with a renewed fervor.

“Yes,” she said in between kisses. “Yours. Only yours. Always yours.”

She said it like a promise, like the vow she had all but agreed to make with me one day.

And it was a promise I had every intention of holding her to.

FORTY-FIVE

Galina

When I wokeup tangled with Davin for the third morning in a row, I quickly decided that it was my favorite place in the world to be.

Perfect, he had said.Mine.

I had expected to balk at the word, but it sounded entirely different on the lips of someone I trusted.

His.

It felt right. It felt like everything.

I tilted my head up to examine the man in question. His eyes were still closed, dark lashes kissing his cheeks as his breaths came slow and even. He was sleeping on his stomach, one arm slung around me and the other tucked under his pillow.

I reached up to trace the lines of the tattoo that spanned from one muscled shoulder to the other. I had only seen glimpses of it our first night together, and my memory hadn’t remotely done it justice.

On the surface, it was a black dragon with its wings spread wide. It made sense now, that he would have chosen something to represent the family name that meant more to him than it would to a person who hadn’t had to fight for their right to bear it.

On closer inspection, though, there were thousands of intricate arcs and whorls that made up the shape, forming smaller images within the large one. He had explained some of them. Roses for his mother, a wicked-looking sword for Gwyn, a flame for Mac, all deftly woven into the serpentine scales.

It made sense. Davin protected what was his.

His. I savored the word once again.

My fingers traced the lines of his ink, my lips chasing the motion.

Something pulled low in my stomach, unfurling like tendrils of smoke and warming every part of me. Suddenly, I wasn’t close enough to him. I needed to feel his skin against mine, against every part of me.

But when he started to stir, I realized there were pressing needs to attend to.

I needed a lavatory, and I needed desperately to freshen up.

Carefully, I slid out from under his arm and out of the warm bed, already regretting the necessity. For a moment, I watched his sleeping form, hoping I had time to slip right back where I had been before he woke up.

After retrieving my robe from where it was still pooled on the floor by the chair and securing it around my waist, I crept quietly out onto the balcony. The crisp autumn air washed over me, several degrees cooler than it had been at the festival.

I practically sprinted up the stairs and across the roof to my balcony, shivering and grinning like a fool the entire way, already thinking about exactly how I would spend my morning with Davin.

Perhaps that was why it took me longer than it should have to notice that something was wrong.

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