He turned his head, hiding his expression from me, but his hands trembled against my elbows and betrayed him. He was shaking. A muscle in his jaw twitched as he ground his teeth together.
“They didn’t recognize me,” I said. “They don’t know what I look like.”
“The Alpha wants you in chains, Erie,” he whispered. “She has a prince’s ransom for a price on your head, and she doesn’t trust me, either. Ritter, the Sworn who opened the door, he’s here to keep an eye on me while we search for you.”
“You’re searching for me?”
He shook his head with a low, bitter laugh. “On the Alpha’s orders, I am to find you and return you to her. She wants to make an example of you to any other Chosen girls who might get ideas.”
“Does she suspect you?” Dimly, the words he’d just spoken washed over me. That Sworn was keeping an eye on him. What did that entail?
“No,” Kassian said. “I convinced her that you had deceived me. She believes me scorned. If she thought I was a traitor, I would already be dead.”
I exhaled in relief.
“But the Alpha is no fool,” he continued. “She thinks… she thinks I am weak when it comes to you, hence she’s assigned me Ritter to watch my actions and keep me accountable.” He paused. “Where is Dog?”
“She’s in the woods, waiting.”
He shook his head with dismay. “Erie. You should be as far away from me as you can get, not here—not in danger.”
Danger. I felt wild with my love for him. Invincible, foolhardy as the feeling might be. Danger was not enough to keep me from the one I loved.
I pressed my hands against the warm skin of his face. Touching him was like cupping fire in my palms. My whole body sparked at our contact as I stared into his eyes.
Couldn’t he understand?
I had to make him understand, somehow.
“You’re mine,” I said. “I can’t leave you. I can’t run away. My soul is tied to yours with a tether.”
Kassian closed his eyes as if he were in agony.
“Erie,” he breathed. “I can’t stand it. Lying awake at night, wondering if you are safe, or if you’re dead in a ditch somewhere—”
“I’m strong and clever,” I countered. “I have my father’s cloak and my mother’s wits. They won’t catch me.”
“Even the strong and clever ones make mistakes,” he said. “If something happened to you, I don’t think I could go on with this tormented life. Erie, please… I can barely hold myself apart from you, even now.”
“Then don’t,” I whispered, and he pushed me backward against one of the beams of the barn and covered my mouth with his.
CHAPTER TWO
KASSIAN KISSED ME like a drowning man looking for air, and I clung to his shoulders, my back against the beam and my mouth answering every punishing question Kassian asked with the same longing as he felt. He braced one hand against the beam and splayed the other against my jaw, his thumb stroking the place beneath my ear and sending shivers down my spine as he whispered my name against my lips.
When we drew apart for breath, he pressed his forehead to mine. Both of us were panting. My legs were like jelly.
My silver necklace had shaken loose and pressed between us, skin to skin, but Kassian was impervious to silver. It could do no harm to him.
“We shouldn’t do this,” Kassian whispered, every word a gasp as he panted. “It only makes the coming separation worse.”
The coming separation.
Hearing the words from his lips wrenched something deep inside me.
I stared into his eyes, willing him to listen. “Run away with me, Kass.”
He stepped away, leaving coldness in his wake. He paced to the door and back, moonlight outlining his body in a soft glow. He moved like a panther, sleek and stealthy even in his armor. I traced his path with my gaze, waiting for him to speak even though I had a thousand more things I wanted to say.
Agitation was written in every line of his body as he turned back to me.
“I cannot.”
“I’ve thought it out,” I continued. “You can ride into the forest to look for me. Knock out the guards who accompany you and ride north with me. You’re strong, and you wear silver. They’d be no match for you—”
“I swore an oath, Erie,” he said. “I cannot abandon my post.”
My chest rose and fell with frantic breaths as my heart tumbled to my knees. The words forced their way out almost against my will. I was on a precipice of anger, in danger of falling. “You’ve been serving your post for a decade. When will it be enough?”
His smile was like broken glass. “It was a lifetime appointment.”
My eyes stung. I exhaled shakily. “Ask them to let you go.”
He closed his eyes. A vein in his throat pulsed faintly in the gloom as he remained silent.
“Kass?”
I was teetering on the edge of that emotional precipice.
“I cannot go back on my word. I cannot.” His voice dropped to a growl as he said the words. He turned to pace again, and I caught his arm to stop him.
I felt myself falling.
“Can’t you find the leader of the Crims and ask them to release you? Who is the leader? I’ll ask them myself!”
Kassian gazed down at my hand, pale against the black of his shirt. “The Crimson Heart’s identity is a secret to everyone but a select few.”
“Even you?”
He closed his eyes again. He didn’t answer.
“Please,” I said. The word pulled from my lips like a cry. “We could leave this nightmare behind. We could build a home in the wilderness together.”
A shiver ran through him. He dropped his head. I knew what he was going to say, and I wanted to slap my hands over my ears to keep from hearing the words.
“I cannot.”
I slumped against the beam. My legs were wobbly as a foal’s as pain spread through my chest to my limbs. It was as if he’d shot me in the heart.
“You aren’t even going to try? You aren’t going to fight for us?”
His jaw flexed. “Erie, don’t.”
“Don’t what? Don’t call things like they are? You’ve given this post everything you have. You deserve to be able to leave.”
“I deserve nothing.” His voice was quiet now. “I am a monster.”
“Bullshit.”
“I’ve done monstrous things as the Silver Wolf. When I die in service to the Order, I will count it just.”
His words reeked of self-loathing, and all I could feel was fury. Fury at the Order of the Crimson for doing this to him. Fury at him for refusing to try.
“And what about us?”
He flinched. “There can be no us. There never was supposed to be an us. When I indulged that fantasy, look what happened. Now you are a wanted fugitive, in danger and on the run. You could have been thousands of miles away, safe and happy by now.”
Safe? Happy? How could he delude himself into thinking I could ever be safe and happy knowing he was in the clutches of the Alpha, dying inside bit by bit on the altar of the Crim’s service? Didn’t he know my heart at all? Did he think I was so calloused toward him? So easily dissuaded from my devotion?