Page 84 of The Rebel and the Rose
‘Yes,’ he said, tugging her mouth to his.
The kiss was gasping, crushing. Five long months of forbidden dreams and reckless longing made them fall into each other with fevered abandon. He sat up, reaching for her as she climbed into his lap, hooking her legs around his waist. He slid his hands through her hair, tilting her head back to deepen the kiss. She rocked against him, his answering moans stifled in the heat of her mouth.
Thiswas what he had been yearning for. A greater addiction than Shade. A pure, punishing perfection. Heart-thundering salvation. His spitfire in his arms, her soft gasps in his ear, her hands on his shadow-stained body, both of them holding onto each other so tightly, not even Saint Oriel herself could wrench them apart.
Maybe she could save him.
Maybe they could save each other.
Yes, he could so easily believe it now.
Yes, even just for a moment.
Yes, yes, yes.
Ransom was so lost in her that he didn’t hear the distant screams at first.
Seraphine snapped her head up, those golden eyes flaring. ‘Did you hear that?’
He stilled, panting hard. Closing his eyes, he laid his forehead against hers, and listened.
Somewhere below them, Val was screaming.
Theo was shouting.
And Caruso was… laughing.
Fuck.
Downstairs, there was a dead body on the ground. Bram. Although the soldier didn’t appear to have met his end via Shade, Ransom could tell by his bulging eyes that he was fairly dead. Still, Nadia was kneeling beside him, checking his pulse.
‘You’ve got to be kidding me,’ fumed Seraphine. ‘Notagain.’
Versini was pacing. ‘Let’s keep our voices down.’
The scene was bad enough already. They had been on the road for less than a week and had already managed to lose their entire royal accompaniment. Maybe Seraphine was right. Perhaps fate was moving them away from the king and his orders.
Val was by the bar, utterly stone-faced, with her arms wrapped tightly around herself. Seraphine crossed the room to go to her.
Caruso was standing over the dead body, like a proud wolf. Claiming it.
The ground floor of the inn was otherwise deserted. The Bellflower was full of heavy sleepers. Or drunk ones. Even the innkeeper had made himself scarce.
Ransom gave a long-suffering sigh, looking between his Daggers. ‘Explain.’
Everyone looked to Caruso.
Caruso simply said, ‘I snapped his neck.’
‘Yes, I can see that.’ Ransom pinched the bridge of his nose. Three minutes ago, he had had Seraphine in his arms. Now they were standing with yet another corpse between them, Bram’s bulging bloodshot eyes serving as an ever salient reminder that Ransom was a depraved Dagger with hundreds of kills notched on his own blackened soul.
And that was to say nothing of the bureaucratic headache this was going to cause.
‘Whydid you murder the king’s prized soldier?’ he clarified. ‘Do you not see how this is going to be a problem for us? We’re supposed to beallies of the Crown. We’ve already sent one soldier back without a damn ear and concussed another – and nowthis.’
‘This one is definitely the worst,’ said Versini completely unnecessarily. Either he was taking this unusually well, or he was steaming drunk. A quick glance at the empty bottle of whiskey on the table confirmed the latter.
Caruso remained unmoved. ‘He was being a prick. Now he’s a dead prick.’
