Page 109 of Crown of Ashes and Desire

“Yes,” I agreed, understanding without needing the words. “It was.”

He pulled me closer to him, though his hands lingered on my waist as if he was reluctant to break contact completely. I adjusted my clothing with hands that weren’t entirely steady,suddenly unable to meet his gaze. My mind raced. I shouldn’t have lost control like that, but at least I’d managed to distract him. Yet part of me ached at the deception—the same part that had never stopped loving him, despite everything he’d done.

“Ada,” he said, his voice softer than I’d heard it in years. “What was that about?”

“Does it need to be about anything?” I asked, finally glanced up at him, hiding the truth behind half-truths. How could I tell him that I’d just used our connection to keep him from discovering the daughter he’d once told me he never wanted? The daughter he had unknowingly rejected when he’d refused to see me five years ago? “Can’t it just be what it was—release, connection, need?”

His eyes searched mine, seeking deception, for calculation. I let him see only what I wanted him to see—desire, confusion, vulnerability. Not fear, not desperation.

“We should return to the village,” I said when the silence had stretched too long. “Kiraz is probably looking for us.”

“Kiraz,” he repeated, as if just remembering our previous conversation.

For a moment, I thought he might return to his questions about her, about her father and her impossible magic. Then his expression cleared, desire evidently having driven the suspicions temporarily from his mind.

“Yes, we should go back.”

When we walked toward the village, maintaining a respectable distance that belied what had just transpired between us, I caught sight of Kiraz playing with the other children. The storm our passion had created had left puddles throughout the village square, and the children squealed with delight while they splashed through them. Kiraz glanced up at our approach, her small face lighting with joy as she waved to us both—to her mother and the father she didn’t know shehad. The sight of them together—Hakan with his blond hair and commanding presence, Kiraz with that same stubborn set to her chin, that same intensity in her gaze—sent an ache through my chest, both love and fear. She was completely unaware of the precarious balance of secrets surrounding her, of how close her father had come to uncovering the truth.

I had bought time with my body, with the connection that still burned between Hakan and me despite everything. But time for what? To continue the deception? To find a way to tell him the truth that he had rejected before even hearing it? To spirit Kiraz away before he could discover who she truly was and perhaps reject her again? He had made his feelings about fatherhood clear long ago—could I risk our daughter’s heart on the hope he’d changed?

I had no answers, only the knowledge that despite my best intentions, I was still drawn to him like light to darkness—opposing forces that somehow, impossibly, strengthened rather than destroyed each other.

Just like the magic that flowed through our daughter’s veins.

Hakan

Two days had passed since our intimate encounter in the forest clearing. Two days of Ada carefully avoiding being alone with me, of villagers rebuilding structures damaged by our magically induced storm, of my shadows growing stronger while my body healed. And two days ofwatching Kiraz, studying her movements, her magic, her features that stirred strange recognition.

"So…" Sarp's voice cut through my thoughts with the subtlety of a dull blade. "Is no one going to mention the magical storm that nearly leveled the western forest the day before yesterday? The one that just happened to coincide with you and Ada disappearing for hours?"

I kept my eyes on the dagger I was sharpening, refusing to give him the satisfaction of a reaction. My shadows coiled tighter around me, betraying my inner turmoil.

"The villagers have some colorful theories," he continued, shifting painfully in his sickbed but clearly enjoying himself. "Old Aylin claims her chickens laid eggs with shadow swirls inside. She's calling them 'passion eggs.'"

"Don't you have injuries to attend to?" I growled, the blade gliding on the whetstone with more force than necessary.

"Apparently near-death experiences make me chatty," Sarp replied with a grin. Though he remained confined to his bed, I'd noticed his movements becoming more fluid over the past day while his impressive healing abilities kicked in—another reason he'd been invaluable on shadow missions for years. "Besides, I've spent five years watching you brood over Ada. Forgive me for finding your current situation somewhat…entertaining."

My mind flashed involuntarily to two days earlier—Ada's unexpected kiss in the forest clearing, the way she had pressed herself against me with a hunger that matched my own. How quickly we had lost ourselves in each other, magic flaring around us like a tempest. But the timing nagged at me. She'd initiated our encounter just as my questions about Kiraz were growing. Coincidence? Or calculated distraction?

"My relationship with Ada is none of your fucking business," I growled. I stood abruptly, my chair scraping over the floor. The whetstone clattered onto the table. I didn't care if he was myfriend or not. I was in a bad mood, because I thought Ada played me two days ago. She was distracting me from something.

"Relationship?" Sarp raised an eyebrow. "So there is something to discuss."

My shadows lashed out without conscious thought, knocking over a cup of water beside his bed. Sarp merely chuckled, undeterred by my display of irritation.

"She has you by the balls…smart Ada, smart," he observed, his tone softening slightly. "Again."

"Shut the fuck up," I muttered, though without real heat.

"I know you better than anyone," he countered. "Well enough to see that whatever's between you two is far from resolved."

I couldn't argue with that assessment. Five years of carefully constructed walls had begun to crumble the moment Ada and I had been thrown together again, even in the Shadow Court.

"The child," I said, abruptly changing the subject. "Kiraz. There's something unusual about her."

Sarp's amusement faded, his expression growing more guarded. "What do you mean?"

---