Page 200 of Daughter of No Worlds

That part of it still felt like a dream, not a memory, or a page stolen from someone else’s tale. I couldn’t believe that I did that. I had spent the last decade avoiding what Reshaye had created in me when it was pried from my soul, refusing to acknowledge that a piece of it had forever changed me. And I had not only acknowledged that power butusedit.

I didn’t know whether that was terrifying, or freeing, or both. Maybe freedom was always a little bit terrifying.

Tisaanah let herself fall sideways, collapsing onto the bed next to me. I turned my head so that we stared directly into each other’s faces, our noses almost touching. With great effort, I lifted my hand and ran knuckles over the side of her face, tracing the line of her jaw and the soft warmth of her cheek.

Real. She was real.

For a while there, I didn’t think that this reality would exist again.

“So?” she said, expectantly.

“So what?”

“So, mysterious snake man— “

“Ascended above, give me a minute, demanding rot goddess.”

“A minute for what?”

“A minute to be glad that we have one.”

The joking smile faded at the corners of her mouth, sinking into something gentler and more pensive. My own mind reassembled the blurry, scattered pieces of what had happened at the estate. The plan, the dinner, the kidnapping, Nura and the Syrizen and—

I bolted upright. “Sammerin—“

“He is fine.” Tisaanah stopped me, gently pushing me back to the pillow.

A breath of relief.

“And the others? The slaves? Serel?”

She nodded.

“So we did it.”

She nodded again.

I let out a long breath. That was mind-boggling. That six people in five days managed to free hundreds of slaves and take down one of the most powerful houses in Threll. Sure, even if it took a brief detour through hell.

But then, if anyone could do it…

I thought of Tisaanah’s contract with the Orders, of the war back in Ara, and a knot choked my throat. I could see a thousand machinations beginning to turn inside of her head. The wrinkle between her eyebrows told me that she was thinking about the same thing.

I smoothed it with my thumb, pushing away my own anxieties with the movement.

“Just one minute,” I murmured.

“Only one.”

And our faces moved towards each other at the same time, my fingers curling around her cheeks, hers sliding over my shoulders. Our mouths met in a kiss that said everything we couldn’t quite put into words, one that started as a gentle whisper and quickly rose to a more passionate song. I reminded myself of the way her lips moved, the way her tongue tasted, the mild scuff of her teeth over my skin.

The last time I kissed her, I thought I never would again. And I was so damn happy to be wrong.

She pulled away, nose tickling mine, eyes smiling. And in that low, erotic voice, she whispered, “Your breath smells very, very bad.”

I scowled and blew a puff of air directly into her face, prompting her to let out a giggle that was possibly the most welcome sound I had ever heard. And apparently my breath couldn’t have been all that bad, because she stifled that laugh with another kiss, and another, and another.

And all I could think, through it all, was one thing:

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